This morning, iamisom came in with pep in his step and a glimmer in his eye. We all knew something was different. Something big was about to happen. Suddenly, Isom’s mouth opened. Our heart rates went up. Dogs started meowing. Cats started barking. Team Instinct, somehow, now ruled every gym in town. Was this the darkest timeline?

Time and space itself waited with bated breath.

And then, when it seemed like the very fabric of the universe couldn’t take the silence… Isom spoke:

“The plan:

1. Ask 'Who wants us to start the 3x Medal weekend early?'
   
2. Listen.
   
3. Do what they tell us.
   
4. Profit.”

And so, we did. And you responded. And we did what you said to do. And it is done.

3x Medal Weekend starts NOW, folks.

Thank you, Isom. He’s not the hero we deserve, but he is the hero we got. Anyway, here's what we're working on this week.

By day I am working with our awesome team on two upcoming new heroes. The Mystic is up next, and she is looking rather slithery. I’m helping direct John and Mel with their animations to make sure we capture her feel, and I’m working with the programmers as her abilities and towers start to come online. By day, heroess; by night, other things… I’m basically Batman I think:

• Enemy Redesign: I am working on getting the enemy redesign in. Yao is programming their functionality, and I’m going over our new campaign and rebuilding the schedules. So far Gates, Market, and Greystone are done.

• Passives: We’ve talked at length about some of the plans we have for a new and improved passive system. I’m first making an index on all the passives we have in game and categorizing them under: to be cut, to be improved, to be left alone. The ones that are cut will be removed from the game. This is mostly to remove superfluous passives that are not fun. To be improved is a category for passives that are theoretically cool, but in practice are rather boring. As an example, the gold gain passives can use some love. To be left alone is a category for passives that are doing just fine.

• Hero Balance: I’m working with the programmers to try and figure out a way to make balancing our game an easier task. The workflow to go in and balance a tower for example is rather inefficient and a lot of time is wasted and mistakes can happen because our process is not ideal. I’m trying to organize our data in a more intuitive way so that designers can at a glance figure out the specific problems with the balance, identify, and solve easily. Anyone and their mother can tell you something like “Tower X is OVER POWERED!” or “Ability Y is useless no one EVER uses it” -- figuring out why that is and how it should be solved to not introduce more problems is the tricky bit. This is a multi-step process that involves a lot of math, and a lot of talking with the community team to figure out the perception of balance.

This week I've been doing some visual changes to the Crumbled Bulwark level that should be released soon, which includes finalizing the visual pass and doing a collision pass. Check it out:



After missing last week and getting deleted from the Dev Log like I don’t even exist [Ed. Note: Suck it, Tim], we successfully shipped the Lavamancer update this week and have been tracking the issues with it since then. Our next update is pretty beefy, so I’m trying to bundle all of our fixes into that so we can remove the overhead of hotfixing and focus on making the campaign revamp as low impact on client stability and performance as we can. That being said, if something game breaking crops up, expect a fix.

In other news, we’re working on some updates to the controller that should alleviate a long standing concern with the controller layout, adding look sensitivity, and adding dead zone configurations to the options menu. We also will potentially be adding Loot V2 support for all the new heroes (fingers crossed), a DPS number only mode for tavern dummies, and making it where kicked players will no longer be able to rejoin the sessions they were kicked from (hasta la vista griefers).

Now that the Crumbled Bulwark has had its makeover, it’s time to start the engines on adding in the gameplay and Incursion.The map now has more character and connection to the world, and the Incursion will reflect that as well.

Post Lavamancer release, I've spent some time going through and fixing older issues from the past few milestones. Nothing absolutely game changing, but fixing and finalizing things on the backend so it better works with our workflow going forward.

Also working on getting all our content sorted so it lives in the correct place and is easy to find for our other developers. Our cooked game has numerous references to test packages in our content directory, which should be living in better locations.

Then there is the collisions issue that is forever ongoing. Since our characters can now double jump and fly, we've had to revise the way in which we build both collisions and geometry to support things from these views. Forest Crossroads is a good example of why it’s important to properly block your render meshes:



(The red geo should cover the cliff faces. It doesn't do that 100%.) This will be a side project of mine for the next few milestones at least.

Finally working on lighting issues for the new map. Working on separating the player-only space from the lane space using lighting.

This morning, iamisom came in with pep in his step and a glimmer in his eye. We all knew something was different. Something big was about to happen. Suddenly, Isom’s mouth opened. Our heart rates went up. Dogs started meowing. Cats started barking. Team Instinct, somehow, now ruled every gym in town. Was this the darkest timeline?

Time and space itself waited with bated breath.

And then, when it seemed like the very fabric of the universe couldn’t take the silence… Isom spoke:

“The plan:

1. Ask 'Who wants us to start the 3x Medal weekend early?'
   
2. Listen.
   
3. Do what they tell us.
   
4. Profit.”

And so, we did. And you responded. And we did what you said to do. And it is done.

3x Medal Weekend starts NOW, folks.

Thank you, Isom. He’s not the hero we deserve, but he is the hero we got. Anyway, here's what we're working on this week.

By day I am working with our awesome team on two upcoming new heroes. The Mystic is up next, and she is looking rather slithery. I’m helping direct John and Mel with their animations to make sure we capture her feel, and I’m working with the programmers as her abilities and towers start to come online. By day, heroess; by night, other things… I’m basically Batman I think:

• Enemy Redesign: I am working on getting the enemy redesign in. Yao is programming their functionality, and I’m going over our new campaign and rebuilding the schedules. So far Gates, Market, and Greystone are done.

• Passives: We’ve talked at length about some of the plans we have for a new and improved passive system. I’m first making an index on all the passives we have in game and categorizing them under: to be cut, to be improved, to be left alone. The ones that are cut will be removed from the game. This is mostly to remove superfluous passives that are not fun. To be improved is a category for passives that are theoretically cool, but in practice are rather boring. As an example, the gold gain passives can use some love. To be left alone is a category for passives that are doing just fine.

• Hero Balance: I’m working with the programmers to try and figure out a way to make balancing our game an easier task. The workflow to go in and balance a tower for example is rather inefficient and a lot of time is wasted and mistakes can happen because our process is not ideal. I’m trying to organize our data in a more intuitive way so that designers can at a glance figure out the specific problems with the balance, identify, and solve easily. Anyone and their mother can tell you something like “Tower X is OVER POWERED!” or “Ability Y is useless no one EVER uses it” -- figuring out why that is and how it should be solved to not introduce more problems is the tricky bit. This is a multi-step process that involves a lot of math, and a lot of talking with the community team to figure out the perception of balance.

This week I've been doing some visual changes to the Crumbled Bulwark level that should be released soon, which includes finalizing the visual pass and doing a collision pass. Check it out:



After missing last week and getting deleted from the Dev Log like I don’t even exist [Ed. Note: Suck it, Tim], we successfully shipped the Lavamancer update this week and have been tracking the issues with it since then. Our next update is pretty beefy, so I’m trying to bundle all of our fixes into that so we can remove the overhead of hotfixing and focus on making the campaign revamp as low impact on client stability and performance as we can. That being said, if something game breaking crops up, expect a fix.

In other news, we’re working on some updates to the controller that should alleviate a long standing concern with the controller layout, adding look sensitivity, and adding dead zone configurations to the options menu. We also will potentially be adding Loot V2 support for all the new heroes (fingers crossed), a DPS number only mode for tavern dummies, and making it where kicked players will no longer be able to rejoin the sessions they were kicked from (hasta la vista griefers).

Now that the Crumbled Bulwark has had its makeover, it’s time to start the engines on adding in the gameplay and Incursion.The map now has more character and connection to the world, and the Incursion will reflect that as well.

Post Lavamancer release, I've spent some time going through and fixing older issues from the past few milestones. Nothing absolutely game changing, but fixing and finalizing things on the backend so it better works with our workflow going forward.

Also working on getting all our content sorted so it lives in the correct place and is easy to find for our other developers. Our cooked game has numerous references to test packages in our content directory, which should be living in better locations.

Then there is the collisions issue that is forever ongoing. Since our characters can now double jump and fly, we've had to revise the way in which we build both collisions and geometry to support things from these views. Forest Crossroads is a good example of why it’s important to properly block your render meshes:



(The red geo should cover the cliff faces. It doesn't do that 100%.) This will be a side project of mine for the next few milestones at least.

Finally working on lighting issues for the new map. Working on separating the player-only space from the lane space using lighting.

The Herald of Embermount update is out now! With this update comes our newest hero, the Lavamancer! Check him out in the release trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MboV7EzVu30
Here are the patch notes:

• New Hero: The Lavamancer
  
  • Utilizing his Molten Power and the ability to quickly traverse the earth, the Lavamancer wields the power of magma and fire. With new abilities and towers, the Lavamancer is ready to rumble!
    
  • For more information, see his full ability/defense reveal trailer.
    
  • The Embermount Bundle includes the Molten Juggernaut costume.
• Daily Mission Cooldown Timer
  
  • Added a timer to show you when daily missions will reset.
• New Coalescing Combat Text Option
  
  • Optimized combat text to reduce the spam and make your DPS more readable.
    
    • Damage types should now coalesce together.
      
    • i.e. Fire damage groups with fire damage, physical damage with physical, etc.
  • Crits should still be highlighted individually from other damage numbers and have increased size. The size might be too large. We'll tweak it based on your feedback.
    
  • If you still want to see individual damage numbers, you can either fire at a slower pace, or turn off coalescing damage numbers in the Options Menu.
• Added the Betsy Egg to the Defender Medal Store
  
  • You can now buy the Betsy Egg for 10,000 Defender Medals.
• Lockbox Update
  
  • Lockboxes do not drop duplicate items anymore.
    
  • If you have everything unlocked from a lockbox, a message will appear letting you know that when you try to reopen it.
• Other
  
  • Life Leech can now spawn on Guns, Canisters and Lava Arms.
    
  • Changed some inspect tooltips to show relevant stats now. For instance: The Skeletal Orc and Colossus now show DPS.
    
  • Moved Alpha watermark to just the Main Menu so that it won't get in the way of gameplay or clutter the screen.

• Flamethrower and Flameburst Towers
  
  • Extra Flame Damage Skill Sphere now has a 20% chance to hit for 100% extra damage.
    
  • Flameburst Tower Defense Power ratio increased from 3.5 to 4.1
    
  • Flamethrower Tower Defense Power ratio increased from 0.625 to 0.7
    
  • The overall result of these changes is that the Flameburst and the Flamethrower deal more damage.
• Other Changes
  
  • Black Arrow passive scales between 21% and 30% instead of 2.1% and 3.0%.
    
  • Karma Vortex passive can now roll up to 60%.
    
  • Fixed Frostbite Towers re-fire rate to work as intended. They were firing much faster than they were supposed to be. Maybe they were just excited.

• Fixed some Inventory and Escape Menu memory leaks.
  
• Fixed the "Game Is Already Running" launcher bug that prevented some players from playing.
  
• Fixed an issue when you would re-bind the E key for tower placement. Now you can move AND it will work with EV node placement.
  
• Fixed the Spectral Knights increasing the attack speed stat instead of stunning towers. Improved the tooltip’s communication of this effect.
  
• Fixed an issue where tooltips would stick around visually if you had a controller enabled but were still using mouse and keyboard.
  
• Fixed an issue where you had to press E or I twice to open the Inventory screen.
  
• Fixed the enemy health numbers not respecting the choice within the Options menu.
  
• Fixed the Thorns spheres.
  
• Fixed the Molten Citadel map icon.
  
• Fixed the Demon Lord sticking around after winning or losing the Molten Citadel Incursion.
  
• Fixed the dialogue text staying on screen for the duration of the Buried Bastille Incursion.
  
• Fixed tooltips not refreshing on Hero Swap and Level Up.
  
• Fixed the intro cinematic that plays on Ramparts Siege map.
  
• Fixed some Incursions showing up as “Defense” maps on the Pause screen.
  
• Fixed Sticky Grenades and Concussive Shots not damaging the Harbinger.
  
• Fixed a grammar error with the Proton Charge Deflect skill sphere. We change “it” to “its.” Gamechanger.
  
• Fixed the Power Surge Incursion Combat Phase timer craziness that was going on with multiple players pressing G or not pressing G.
  
• Fixed the Skeletal Archers description in the Create Hero screen.
  
• Fixed the issue where pressing Esc while sniping with a Gun Witch and changing weapons would break the Gun Witch.
  
• A fix for inspected defenses not showing stats on the tooltip pop-up.
  
• Earthshatter towers no longer appear to fire twice.
  
• Fixed victory chests bloom levels so they will stop glowing at supernova levels.
  
• Fixed an Abyss Lord tome that dropped as “Default Tome.”
  
• Removed all default weapons from being able to drop as a regular item.
  
• Fixed the Character Stat screen to stop displaying decimals so that numbers stop overlappying each other.
  
• Players can now browse the What’s New screen with a controller.
  
• Fixed some overlapping HUD text issues when using a controller.

The Herald of Embermount update is out now! With this update comes our newest hero, the Lavamancer! Check him out in the release trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MboV7EzVu30
Here are the patch notes:

• New Hero: The Lavamancer
  
  • Utilizing his Molten Power and the ability to quickly traverse the earth, the Lavamancer wields the power of magma and fire. With new abilities and towers, the Lavamancer is ready to rumble!
    
  • For more information, see his full ability/defense reveal trailer.
    
  • The Embermount Bundle includes the Molten Juggernaut costume.
• Daily Mission Cooldown Timer
  
  • Added a timer to show you when daily missions will reset.
• New Coalescing Combat Text Option
  
  • Optimized combat text to reduce the spam and make your DPS more readable.
    
    • Damage types should now coalesce together.
      
    • i.e. Fire damage groups with fire damage, physical damage with physical, etc.
  • Crits should still be highlighted individually from other damage numbers and have increased size. The size might be too large. We'll tweak it based on your feedback.
    
  • If you still want to see individual damage numbers, you can either fire at a slower pace, or turn off coalescing damage numbers in the Options Menu.
• Added the Betsy Egg to the Defender Medal Store
  
  • You can now buy the Betsy Egg for 10,000 Defender Medals.
• Lockbox Update
  
  • Lockboxes do not drop duplicate items anymore.
    
  • If you have everything unlocked from a lockbox, a message will appear letting you know that when you try to reopen it.
• Other
  
  • Life Leech can now spawn on Guns, Canisters and Lava Arms.
    
  • Changed some inspect tooltips to show relevant stats now. For instance: The Skeletal Orc and Colossus now show DPS.
    
  • Moved Alpha watermark to just the Main Menu so that it won't get in the way of gameplay or clutter the screen.

• Flamethrower and Flameburst Towers
  
  • Extra Flame Damage Skill Sphere now has a 20% chance to hit for 100% extra damage.
    
  • Flameburst Tower Defense Power ratio increased from 3.5 to 4.1
    
  • Flamethrower Tower Defense Power ratio increased from 0.625 to 0.7
    
  • The overall result of these changes is that the Flameburst and the Flamethrower deal more damage.
• Other Changes
  
  • Black Arrow passive scales between 21% and 30% instead of 2.1% and 3.0%.
    
  • Karma Vortex passive can now roll up to 60%.
    
  • Fixed Frostbite Towers re-fire rate to work as intended. They were firing much faster than they were supposed to be. Maybe they were just excited.

• Fixed some Inventory and Escape Menu memory leaks.
  
• Fixed the "Game Is Already Running" launcher bug that prevented some players from playing.
  
• Fixed an issue when you would re-bind the E key for tower placement. Now you can move AND it will work with EV node placement.
  
• Fixed the Spectral Knights increasing the attack speed stat instead of stunning towers. Improved the tooltip’s communication of this effect.
  
• Fixed an issue where tooltips would stick around visually if you had a controller enabled but were still using mouse and keyboard.
  
• Fixed an issue where you had to press E or I twice to open the Inventory screen.
  
• Fixed the enemy health numbers not respecting the choice within the Options menu.
  
• Fixed the Thorns spheres.
  
• Fixed the Molten Citadel map icon.
  
• Fixed the Demon Lord sticking around after winning or losing the Molten Citadel Incursion.
  
• Fixed the dialogue text staying on screen for the duration of the Buried Bastille Incursion.
  
• Fixed tooltips not refreshing on Hero Swap and Level Up.
  
• Fixed the intro cinematic that plays on Ramparts Siege map.
  
• Fixed some Incursions showing up as “Defense” maps on the Pause screen.
  
• Fixed Sticky Grenades and Concussive Shots not damaging the Harbinger.
  
• Fixed a grammar error with the Proton Charge Deflect skill sphere. We change “it” to “its.” Gamechanger.
  
• Fixed the Power Surge Incursion Combat Phase timer craziness that was going on with multiple players pressing G or not pressing G.
  
• Fixed the Skeletal Archers description in the Create Hero screen.
  
• Fixed the issue where pressing Esc while sniping with a Gun Witch and changing weapons would break the Gun Witch.
  
• A fix for inspected defenses not showing stats on the tooltip pop-up.
  
• Earthshatter towers no longer appear to fire twice.
  
• Fixed victory chests bloom levels so they will stop glowing at supernova levels.
  
• Fixed an Abyss Lord tome that dropped as “Default Tome.”
  
• Removed all default weapons from being able to drop as a regular item.
  
• Fixed the Character Stat screen to stop displaying decimals so that numbers stop overlappying each other.
  
• Players can now browse the What’s New screen with a controller.
  
• Fixed some overlapping HUD text issues when using a controller.

Here are the notes for Patch 14.5!

• Sky Dragon’s Fury
  
  • We fixed this weapon doing one damage. It wasn’t cool, so we told it to stop.
• Medium Sphere
  
  • Experience Bonus Sphere fixed
• Large Spheres
  
  • Bewitching Hour Sphere fixed
    
  • Boost Blockade Health Sphere fixed
    
  • Charge Primary Sphere fixed
    
  • Crane Stance Sphere fixed
    
  • Dragon Stance Sphere fixed
    
  • Empowering Calm Sphere fixed
    
  • Extra Flame Damage Sphere fixed
    
  • Fire for Effect Sphere fixed
    
  • Fight Me Not Sphere fixed
    
  • Lightning Damage Sphere fixed
    
  • Long Range Sphere fixed
    
  • Powerful Spears Sphere fixed
    
  • Shiny Spokes Sphere fixed
    
  • Spiders Kiss Sphere fixed
    
  • Steam Powered Sphere fixed

Excited for the Lavamancer? He's coming on Tuesday! (Are we still doing phrasing?) Check out his official trailer below for more details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M

Here are the notes for Patch 14.5!

• Sky Dragon’s Fury
  
  • We fixed this weapon doing one damage. It wasn’t cool, so we told it to stop.
• Medium Sphere
  
  • Experience Bonus Sphere fixed
• Large Spheres
  
  • Bewitching Hour Sphere fixed
    
  • Boost Blockade Health Sphere fixed
    
  • Charge Primary Sphere fixed
    
  • Crane Stance Sphere fixed
    
  • Dragon Stance Sphere fixed
    
  • Empowering Calm Sphere fixed
    
  • Extra Flame Damage Sphere fixed
    
  • Fire for Effect Sphere fixed
    
  • Fight Me Not Sphere fixed
    
  • Lightning Damage Sphere fixed
    
  • Long Range Sphere fixed
    
  • Powerful Spears Sphere fixed
    
  • Shiny Spokes Sphere fixed
    
  • Spiders Kiss Sphere fixed
    
  • Steam Powered Sphere fixed

Excited for the Lavamancer? He's coming on Tuesday! (Are we still doing phrasing?) Check out his official trailer below for more details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M

You’re gonna lava the Herald of Embermount update when it erupts August 16th! This update contains our first truly flaming hero - the Lavamancer. Lavamancer enjoys long walks on volcanic ash, magma puppies, and using his transformable magma arm to simultaneously wound his enemies while cauterizing their wound! He’s a sweet sweet man, really. If you haven’t already, meet the Lavamancer in his official trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M
Want to see the Lavamancer in action? Tune into our Devstream this Friday at 5PM EDT! We're also giving away his costume to several lucky viewers!

The Herald of Embermount update also heralds (see what we did there?) an option to display massive amounts of damage in a more streamlined way. With this option turned on, you’ll be able to see more of the beautiful world of Etheria as you hashtag rek AF (or whatever you kids are hashtaggin these days). See the handy GIF (that’s GIF with a hard G) below for an example!



Here’s what we’re working on this week:

The Lavamancer is nearly complete. There are a few concerns we’re running some tests on, but otherwise he is ready to rumble. I am now out of the engine and back in documents. Working with the Mystic team as they start building her assets and animating them. The Lavamancer looks fantastic. The team did a wonderful job bringing that volcano to life. We hope you enjoy using him.

We're giving more love to the Crumbled Bulwark level. Visuals are turning into the right direction now! Only true defenders without fear will see the light on this dark place…



We are still redoing the visuals of the Crumbled Bulwark level. At this point, it has even become more dark and gloomy...the perfect place to feature a new enemy, a really dangerous one.

The Demon Cache has been found! Congrats on hitting the books and getting some extra loots!

As for the next map, Crumbled Bulwark. The level design team was rather unhappy with the original theme that was done on this map. It lacked the character and depth that we want to push forward with our levels. So we decided to give Crumbled Bulwark a makeover. (Keep in mind the gameplay layout will remain unchanged.) This visual update will give the map more character as well as some of the updates will allow for a much more robust Incursion that we have planned for this map.

Wrapping up the last of the extended Lavamancer VFX work for the milestone. Had some time to modify my workflow in a way that allowed me to capture more gifs.

Oil Geyser Attack/Eruption



New Right charge click VFX


Currently Listening To: Bonobo - Nothing Owed (live version)

Finalizing the Lavamancer means that I have been full swing on our next hero, The Mystic! I am extremely excited for this character, and hopefully you will be too. Here is some of what I have been up too.





Keep an eye out for this lady in the future. She will be joining our cast of heroes soon!

You’re gonna lava the Herald of Embermount update when it erupts August 16th! This update contains our first truly flaming hero - the Lavamancer. Lavamancer enjoys long walks on volcanic ash, magma puppies, and using his transformable magma arm to simultaneously wound his enemies while cauterizing their wound! He’s a sweet sweet man, really. If you haven’t already, meet the Lavamancer in his official trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M
Want to see the Lavamancer in action? Tune into our Devstream this Friday at 5PM EDT! We're also giving away his costume to several lucky viewers!

The Herald of Embermount update also heralds (see what we did there?) an option to display massive amounts of damage in a more streamlined way. With this option turned on, you’ll be able to see more of the beautiful world of Etheria as you hashtag rek AF (or whatever you kids are hashtaggin these days). See the handy GIF (that’s GIF with a hard G) below for an example!



Here’s what we’re working on this week:

The Lavamancer is nearly complete. There are a few concerns we’re running some tests on, but otherwise he is ready to rumble. I am now out of the engine and back in documents. Working with the Mystic team as they start building her assets and animating them. The Lavamancer looks fantastic. The team did a wonderful job bringing that volcano to life. We hope you enjoy using him.

We're giving more love to the Crumbled Bulwark level. Visuals are turning into the right direction now! Only true defenders without fear will see the light on this dark place…



We are still redoing the visuals of the Crumbled Bulwark level. At this point, it has even become more dark and gloomy...the perfect place to feature a new enemy, a really dangerous one.

The Demon Cache has been found! Congrats on hitting the books and getting some extra loots!

As for the next map, Crumbled Bulwark. The level design team was rather unhappy with the original theme that was done on this map. It lacked the character and depth that we want to push forward with our levels. So we decided to give Crumbled Bulwark a makeover. (Keep in mind the gameplay layout will remain unchanged.) This visual update will give the map more character as well as some of the updates will allow for a much more robust Incursion that we have planned for this map.

Wrapping up the last of the extended Lavamancer VFX work for the milestone. Had some time to modify my workflow in a way that allowed me to capture more gifs.

Oil Geyser Attack/Eruption



New Right charge click VFX


Currently Listening To: Bonobo - Nothing Owed (live version)

Finalizing the Lavamancer means that I have been full swing on our next hero, The Mystic! I am extremely excited for this character, and hopefully you will be too. Here is some of what I have been up too.





Keep an eye out for this lady in the future. She will be joining our cast of heroes soon!

The Lavamancer comes out this month on PC & PS4! Meet the Lavamancer in his official trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M
Learn more about him in this week's Dev Log:

We’re in the middle of a final push to get the Lavamancer wrapped up! Be sure and check out the hero video above for a fun look at his themes, abilities, and towers. Here’s a breakdown from me on the hero, designed by Dan Haddad with some images he snapped for me in one of our test map.

Resource – Molten Power
The Lavamancer uses a unique resource called Molten Power, which functions like mana for other characters except he resupplies this for himself through one of his towers, called a Fissure of Embermount. You can place up to three Fissures in the map, each generating a mana pick-up every twenty seconds. If you play it right and keep mental track, you’ll be max molten power non-stop and that means more fire!



Grab these burning meteors for more Molten Power!



These fissures burn the devil out of any enemies that come close. Where you place these is up to you depending on your aggressiveness during Combat Phase. If you put them behind a bunch of barricades, you’re missing out. His right click, Dash, allows you to zip across the battlefield like the flash and is super useful for getting in or out at a moment’s notice.



If you place your fissures in offensive spots, you can Erupt them (see Eruption later on), grab more molten power on the spot and Erupt again in an AOE fiery cataclysm. Use Dash to swoop out if you get swarmed, or swoop in the detonate. Think about how you place your Fissures of Embermount, as they are key to your resources.

Melee
The Lavamancer is our first from-scratch hero who no longer takes steps during his melee rotation. You’ll often hear us refer to this as root motion. This means you can move around independently of what melee strike he’s doing during a sequence, which is great for timing hits and gives you much better control over where you are. I know Dan and I were chatting about making the Lavamancer beastly for health, so he can actually throw down in Nightmare IV without being one-shotted. I know he’s tweaking that as I write this, so keep your eyes peeled on his final health numbers. When you pick up weapons for the Lavamancer, his arm morphs into an earth version, whether that’s a mace, sword, or his own special gauntlet drops.

Harden and Inflame
Another ability he has is Harden and Inflame. Think of these as stances or modes you toggle between. In this case, the Lavamancer controls his temperature by shifting between these two forms. When Hardened, he expels heat and cools into solid rock, reflecting projectiles and reducing damage taken. While in this form, Inflame reignites him with volcanic heat, buffing both movement speed and melee attack damage.



Eruption
His signature ability is Eruption, which emits a fiery shockwave of molten energy, burning the crap out of enemies and buffing the Defense Power and Defense Attack Speed of all nearby defenses. Eruption causes cool effects to your nearby defenses, too, so if you can run up and hit it near your own defenses, the effect is a hilarious molten plasma soup of fiery death.



Submerge and Emerge
Lately we’ve been giving heroes different ways to move. The Gun Witch has her broom, EV2 had Death from Above, and we recently gave the Monk his own flying cloud with an Incursion weapon. This time, and fitting perfectly with the theme or volcanoes, earth, and molten destruction, is Submerge and Emerge. When activated, the Lavamancer burrows underground, gaining super-fast increased movement speed and healing over time. Pressing jump, primary attack, or the ability again launches the Lavamancer with a devastating uppercut, breaching the surface of the Earth and damaging nearby enemies. This type of mobility is fun because not only are you completely hauling butt, you're underground so you don’t fly off ledges. Similar to the Gun Witch’s Vroom Broom, a healing ability can take up key real estate on your action bar. Having an ability with multiple functionality just adds to its usefulness.

Although Dash is awesome, the immunity from submerge makes you think about your movement in different ways!

Maw of the Earth Drake
The Lavamancer shapes the Maw of the Earth Drake out of solid rock, which fires a molten beam slowing enemies over time until they turn to stone. Enemies in stone form taunt their former allies into attacking them. When under the effects of Eruption, the Maw fires two beams and turns enemies to stone faster. Great way to slow a lane down as opposed to just killzones.

Oil Geyser
The Lavamancer creates an Oil Geyser that spews out hot oil, slowing, damaging, and applying the oiled effect to enemies. If you use Eruption near these, the Geyser spews out a pillar of molten magma, burning all nearby enemies for increased damage.



Volcano
His last defense is a massive volcano that rains burning meteors down on enemies exploding for massive damage. While under the effects of Eruption, the volcano spews out meteors at an accelerated rate with increased damage. Look for snaps of this in the video.

In summary, the Lavamancer would makeHendrix smile and Beavis have a brain aneurysm. So if you want to set the world on fire, grab him when he comes out this month!

Molten Citadel went out on all platforms on Tuesday morning, and we’ve been singing Disco Inferno continuously since then and assuming everything is perfect. Jk though… There are a couple of known issues we’re looking at right now (health bars being messed up on PS4 and some Skill Spheres not working) and we might be issuing a patch next Tuesday (but probably not since we’re in stabilization for the next milestone). Also, we’ve gotten a chance to take a peek at the passive re-roll issue on PS4 from when we accidentally rebalanced the game so expect something in the coming weeks there (if only a re-roll).

Live Team side, we’ve been working on a couple things. First, we’ve added in additional logging to client-event server communication so we can get better info on where connection issues are coming from. Second, our Playverse guru whipped up a tool that allows him to peer into time on all servers simultaneously so we can make sure that it’s not out of whack. Third, we did a deep dive into our Steam transactions code to try to improve the overall stability of the system and ferret out a couple of bizarre reports we received. Also, the new guy is looking at Tornados not working randomly, but we’re having trouble getting any sort of reliable information from that, so if you have any ideas of why Tornadoes occasionally just fail to knock up enemies, let us know.

Here's a pic of the current state of the Wild West level!



Now that we're done with the Wild West level, we're moving on to the Crumbled Bulwark, the "winner" of the Influence Vote! We're going to do a visual pass in the level so it looks more interesting. We also want to add new features like new gameplay areas for just the players.

Lastly but not less important, you might meet with a certain creature in this dark level...

Demon Lord is out and tossing boulders at everyone now. So that means, onward and upward to the next Incursion. Crumbled Bulwark was the “troll winner” of the Influence Vote, so that means it's time to make an exciting Incursion for that location. Any ideas on incursions you guys want to see on Crumbled Bulwark, be sure to leave those down in the comments.

As for the map itself, we are making 1 or 2 adjustments to the level to create some extra space for the player. We want to make sure the gameplay for these maps remains faithful to DD1, but also want to give players new things to explore!

Testing and bug finding with the Lavamancer is a go. Speaking of go, been playing Pokemon Go recently and found this rare Dugtrio.

Ain’t he the cutest?

The Lavamancer comes out this month on PC & PS4! Meet the Lavamancer in his official trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0WqDkQ0s-M
Learn more about him in this week's Dev Log:

We’re in the middle of a final push to get the Lavamancer wrapped up! Be sure and check out the hero video above for a fun look at his themes, abilities, and towers. Here’s a breakdown from me on the hero, designed by Dan Haddad with some images he snapped for me in one of our test map.

Resource – Molten Power
The Lavamancer uses a unique resource called Molten Power, which functions like mana for other characters except he resupplies this for himself through one of his towers, called a Fissure of Embermount. You can place up to three Fissures in the map, each generating a mana pick-up every twenty seconds. If you play it right and keep mental track, you’ll be max molten power non-stop and that means more fire!



Grab these burning meteors for more Molten Power!



These fissures burn the devil out of any enemies that come close. Where you place these is up to you depending on your aggressiveness during Combat Phase. If you put them behind a bunch of barricades, you’re missing out. His right click, Dash, allows you to zip across the battlefield like the flash and is super useful for getting in or out at a moment’s notice.



If you place your fissures in offensive spots, you can Erupt them (see Eruption later on), grab more molten power on the spot and Erupt again in an AOE fiery cataclysm. Use Dash to swoop out if you get swarmed, or swoop in the detonate. Think about how you place your Fissures of Embermount, as they are key to your resources.

Melee
The Lavamancer is our first from-scratch hero who no longer takes steps during his melee rotation. You’ll often hear us refer to this as root motion. This means you can move around independently of what melee strike he’s doing during a sequence, which is great for timing hits and gives you much better control over where you are. I know Dan and I were chatting about making the Lavamancer beastly for health, so he can actually throw down in Nightmare IV without being one-shotted. I know he’s tweaking that as I write this, so keep your eyes peeled on his final health numbers. When you pick up weapons for the Lavamancer, his arm morphs into an earth version, whether that’s a mace, sword, or his own special gauntlet drops.

Harden and Inflame
Another ability he has is Harden and Inflame. Think of these as stances or modes you toggle between. In this case, the Lavamancer controls his temperature by shifting between these two forms. When Hardened, he expels heat and cools into solid rock, reflecting projectiles and reducing damage taken. While in this form, Inflame reignites him with volcanic heat, buffing both movement speed and melee attack damage.



Eruption
His signature ability is Eruption, which emits a fiery shockwave of molten energy, burning the crap out of enemies and buffing the Defense Power and Defense Attack Speed of all nearby defenses. Eruption causes cool effects to your nearby defenses, too, so if you can run up and hit it near your own defenses, the effect is a hilarious molten plasma soup of fiery death.



Submerge and Emerge
Lately we’ve been giving heroes different ways to move. The Gun Witch has her broom, EV2 had Death from Above, and we recently gave the Monk his own flying cloud with an Incursion weapon. This time, and fitting perfectly with the theme or volcanoes, earth, and molten destruction, is Submerge and Emerge. When activated, the Lavamancer burrows underground, gaining super-fast increased movement speed and healing over time. Pressing jump, primary attack, or the ability again launches the Lavamancer with a devastating uppercut, breaching the surface of the Earth and damaging nearby enemies. This type of mobility is fun because not only are you completely hauling butt, you're underground so you don’t fly off ledges. Similar to the Gun Witch’s Vroom Broom, a healing ability can take up key real estate on your action bar. Having an ability with multiple functionality just adds to its usefulness.

Although Dash is awesome, the immunity from submerge makes you think about your movement in different ways!

Maw of the Earth Drake
The Lavamancer shapes the Maw of the Earth Drake out of solid rock, which fires a molten beam slowing enemies over time until they turn to stone. Enemies in stone form taunt their former allies into attacking them. When under the effects of Eruption, the Maw fires two beams and turns enemies to stone faster. Great way to slow a lane down as opposed to just killzones.

Oil Geyser
The Lavamancer creates an Oil Geyser that spews out hot oil, slowing, damaging, and applying the oiled effect to enemies. If you use Eruption near these, the Geyser spews out a pillar of molten magma, burning all nearby enemies for increased damage.



Volcano
His last defense is a massive volcano that rains burning meteors down on enemies exploding for massive damage. While under the effects of Eruption, the volcano spews out meteors at an accelerated rate with increased damage. Look for snaps of this in the video.

In summary, the Lavamancer would makeHendrix smile and Beavis have a brain aneurysm. So if you want to set the world on fire, grab him when he comes out this month!

Molten Citadel went out on all platforms on Tuesday morning, and we’ve been singing Disco Inferno continuously since then and assuming everything is perfect. Jk though… There are a couple of known issues we’re looking at right now (health bars being messed up on PS4 and some Skill Spheres not working) and we might be issuing a patch next Tuesday (but probably not since we’re in stabilization for the next milestone). Also, we’ve gotten a chance to take a peek at the passive re-roll issue on PS4 from when we accidentally rebalanced the game so expect something in the coming weeks there (if only a re-roll).

Live Team side, we’ve been working on a couple things. First, we’ve added in additional logging to client-event server communication so we can get better info on where connection issues are coming from. Second, our Playverse guru whipped up a tool that allows him to peer into time on all servers simultaneously so we can make sure that it’s not out of whack. Third, we did a deep dive into our Steam transactions code to try to improve the overall stability of the system and ferret out a couple of bizarre reports we received. Also, the new guy is looking at Tornados not working randomly, but we’re having trouble getting any sort of reliable information from that, so if you have any ideas of why Tornadoes occasionally just fail to knock up enemies, let us know.

Here's a pic of the current state of the Wild West level!



Now that we're done with the Wild West level, we're moving on to the Crumbled Bulwark, the "winner" of the Influence Vote! We're going to do a visual pass in the level so it looks more interesting. We also want to add new features like new gameplay areas for just the players.

Lastly but not less important, you might meet with a certain creature in this dark level...

Demon Lord is out and tossing boulders at everyone now. So that means, onward and upward to the next Incursion. Crumbled Bulwark was the “troll winner” of the Influence Vote, so that means it's time to make an exciting Incursion for that location. Any ideas on incursions you guys want to see on Crumbled Bulwark, be sure to leave those down in the comments.

As for the map itself, we are making 1 or 2 adjustments to the level to create some extra space for the player. We want to make sure the gameplay for these maps remains faithful to DD1, but also want to give players new things to explore!

Testing and bug finding with the Lavamancer is a go. Speaking of go, been playing Pokemon Go recently and found this rare Dugtrio.

Ain’t he the cutest?