Dungeon Defenders II - [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:
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
Dungeon Defenders II - [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:
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
Dungeon Defenders II - [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 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.
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:
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
Dungeon Defenders II - [CG] Lawlta

Ahoy Defenders!

Patch 4.1 has docked in Etherian ports and is now live on all platforms. This patch is focused on providing some nice change to perfect Mod drop rates, improving the visibility of Mod quality, polishing Mob pathing, and more. Get your eye patch and parrot ready, let’s set sail into some notes!

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 in this patch allowed us to do calculations on changing the drop rates specifically. Previously we expected players to see a perfect Mod of any kind within less than nine hours of active gameplay (active gameplay being time spent efficiently and quickly completing maps, not just with the game open). After hearing feedback, we sent out a survey that gave a lot of good information. Our testing and simulations validated the feedback and our feeling was that there was more to add to this system. This first phase looks to increase the drop rate so on average you see a perfect Mod in less than four hours of active gameplay on average (which matches up with 31% of people surveyed asking for 1-5 hours, and 40% asking for 5-10 hours). This average is based around solo play, so multiplayer sessions may much shorter averages. When talking about averages there are going to be outliers, but for the short term this is the best fix we felt comfortable putting out.

The second phase of this is a lot more complex and requires a lot of work and discovery on our end, and it should be coming with our next update. We are working diligently to get rid of any outliers that cause players to feel as if they haven’t seen one in over 50 hours of active gameplay. Alongside that we also hear the desire to target farm Mods, and while it’s not something we’re going to provide outright, we are looking into way(s) to ease this quite a bit. We’re going to touch more on this as we get closer to our next big update (which isn’t too far away)!

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, especially if you’re colorblind. Now there will be a number that reflects the quality nestled gently on top of the “Qualibean™.”



We’ve heard additional feedback on Mods regarding sorting and distinguishing perfect quality and are currently looking into ways to make this better.

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. We changed A LOT of their behaviors and fixed a lot of stuck/pathing issues in this patch with some new logic. 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.

Prestigious Weapons
When Isle of Dread was released, players had the opportunity to earn a Prestigious weapon every 10 floor of Onslaught before floor 100, and every 20 floors after floor 100. With how the update was applied, it required people to overcome previous highest floors to receive these rewards. It didn’t feel great to have players reclimb to take part in this new system.

With this patch, we were able to get this working. As a bonus, all players as of this patch are able to go complete every floor a Prestigious Weapon drops and receive one. For example, if yesterday you completed Floor 60 and received a Prestigious Weapon, you are now able to not only complete Floor 60 to receive another one, floor 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 can be completed again and you’ll receive another Prestigious Weapon for each!

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s Colossus not consistently attacking enemies in lane.
  • Fixed an issue with Earthshatter Tower not attacking Vanguard Gorbstock, Vanguards (shield goblins), Ranged Ogres, and Cannon Ogres.
  • Fixed an issue with Anti-melee Servo not working with Angry Nimbus.
  • Fixed an issue with the Harpy Tower functioning without a World Tree.
  • Fixed an issue with some towers where their Inspect DPS was not calculating Crit Damage and Crit Chance.
  • Fixed an issue with Angry Nimbus shocking enemies without the Dryad in Corrupt Form.
  • Fixed an issue with parties being disbanded upon transitioning.
  • Fixed an issue with towers affected by Boost Aura losing their yellow VFX when upgraded.
  • Multiplayer bonuses now work properly in Incursions and Onslaught.
  • Fixed an issue with EV2 getting stuck in the Proton Charge firing animation while moving.
  • Pet eggs can no longer rot in player shops.
  • Fixed an issue with Power Transfer showing a negative value.
  • A hard gold cap has been set at ~2,300,000,000 gold.
  • Made adjustments to the Mastery tab on the World Map to improve Mastery
  • Ranged Ogres no longer shoot into the sky when hit by Starfall. As a result the Ranged Ogre Space Association has been disbanded.
  • Chaos VI Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise now correctly drop C6 shards.
  • Now able to quick match for any region in the Expeditions tab of the World Map.
  • Lavamancer’s submerge travel SFX now play correctly.
  • Adjusted how jumps are handled slightly for smoother gameplay.
  • Fixed an issue on Xbox where players attempted to join maps that no longer existed.
  • Fixed an issue where Defender Pack pets and redeem code pets were starting with 5/10 affection. You gotta earn their love!
  • Adjusted the Game Browser UI elements on controller that appeared out of place.
  • Fixed an issue with Replay From Wave where Dryad Defenses would still work without the World Tree.
  • Fixed an issue where the Rain of Oil shard stopped functioning if you swapped to another hero then back to the Abyss Lord.
  • Fixed Vanguard Gorbstock’s minimap icon. It was too tiny.
  • Fixed an issue with Replay From Wave where Weapon manufacture weapons could not be set.
  • The Shackled Mod no longer applies to Lady Orcs, only triggers on Dark Assassins now.
  • Fixed a Gem Well timing issue.
  • Fixed an issue where players were unable to back out of the War Table if they expanded regions on the World Map.
  • Adjusted the Floor 30 and 38 Onslaught Flair rewards listing.
  • Fixed some War Table issues showing Chaos 4 and 5 enemies incorrectly.
  • Updated the Lightning Grenade Pet Ability description.
  • Made it so Player 2 in splitscreen is not able to be kicked while in a party where the leader isn’t Player 1 or 2 of the splitscreen group.
  • Fixed an issue where loading into hard versions of the campaign was causing 5001 errors.
  • The Forbidden Worshipper’s Mask was too small. We made it bigger. What’s the Forbidden Worshipper’s Mask? Secrets.
  • Changed the title screen to have “Play Now” only for new, returning, and freshly installed players to reduce confusion.
  • Fixed an issue with consecutive win bonuses were not carrying over correctly between games.
  • Fixed a couple issues with splitscreen players not able to be invited to parties.
  • Have adjusted Dryad Towers targeting AI slightly. Continuing to investigate this.
  • Fixed an issue with Tenacity not preventing EMP Kobold tower stuns on certain towers.
  • Added a potential fix for Green Mana not being properly distributed if the Warm Up phase is skipped before all players load in.
  • Added a lock icon for locked War Table regions.
  • Fixed an issue with hitting “Yes” on Replay From Wave breaking if done while a Core destruction cutscene played.
  • Fixed an issue with towers refreshing properly when a play who disconnects rejoins.
  • Fixed an issue for players who play at 4k resolution with the Option Menu going off-screen.
  • Fixed a visual issue when rerolling Defender Packs without enough medals.
  • The Favorable Wind Mod now correctly shows the stacks icon.
  • Added Mastery Star info to the Region and Difficulty drop downs.
  • Fixed an issue where the Player Shop UI wasn’t closing automatically when build phase starts.
  • Mastery stars were removed from filtering in the Advanced View.
  • Fixed an issue with items updating properly for returning players.
  • Changed a the Tinkering load screen to correctly show the Gobsplosion Mod info.
  • Fixed an issue with SFX not playing properly for buyback.
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
  • Tabbing when matchmaking on world map before the UI updates can matchmake into an unintended game mode.
  • On splitscreen some NPC shops some UI elements come through the window. The shop is still the focus and works correctly, just visually not perfect.
  • Replay from Wave on Lost Temple sometimes keeps a broken core model.
  • Replay from Wave on Lost Temple is not maintaining the correct lanes/mutators.
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:
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
Nov 5, 2018
Dungeon Defenders II - [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:
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
Dungeon Defenders II - [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:
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
Dungeon Defenders II - [CG] Lawlta

Greetings Defenders,

We're excited to finally be announcing the release date for Dungeon Defenders II: The Isle of Dread Update! Originally it was going to be announced during our Dev Stream, but when have pirates ever followed the rules?!

The Isle of Dread Update is releasing on Wednesday, September 26th — THAT'S NEXT WEEK!

Dev Stream 85 is happening tomorrow, September 21st at 3PM EDT, is going to show off more of what's to come. We cannot wait for you to get this update into your hands and hooks!

Click here to check out a lot of the changes and features coming!

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team
Dungeon Defenders II - [CG] Lawlta


Greetings Defenders,

Protean Shift Patch 3.2 is now live! 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:
We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Dungeon Defenders II - [CG] Lawlta


Greetings Defenders,

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. There’s more coming in our next update, but there’s also more coming next week with Protean Shift Patch 3.2!

There are some nice quality of life features that are coming with next week’s patch, let’s get into it!

Multiplayer Incentives
Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. When playing together, enemies get stronger, but there’s not any increased reward for that increased risk. Well not anymore! We have been testing and looking for ways to reward players without trivializing content. With this patch, when grouping with other Defenders, you will receive additional loot from the victory chest. This scales per player added to the session, meaning the more Defenders you play with, the more loot you receive. The more loot you receive, the higher the chance at getting perfect mods!

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! The Material Vault is 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 you will be able to automatically use them when interacting with items. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly!

On the Horizon
There’s a giant “wave” of stuff coming to Etheria in our next update that is sure to knock your socks off. Related to multiplayer incentives, we’re going to be providing Defenders greater control over the parties they start, something many of you have asked for is on it’s way. We can’t get into a ton of the stuff coming just yet, but give Elandrian’s Check-In a visit to get an idea for what’s coming!

Bug Fixes and Optimizations
As always, we’re going to be squishing a lot of bugs, increasing performance, and increasing stability. 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:
We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team
Dungeon Defenders II - [CG] Lawlta


Greetings Defenders,

Patch 3.1 is now live on Steam! This is our first Protean Shift patch that brings some nice quality of life changes, balance changes, and a slew of bug fixes. Let’s get into it!

MODS
  • Shocking Revelation Mod
    • Stun duration reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second.
      • Stun was lasting way longer than the intended power of this Mod.
Quality of Life



Buyback has been added! It is shown as the last tab in your inventory and items are removed from buyback if you leave the session you're in.



Added the option to not show a warning when selling a Mythical or Legendary quality item.

Bug Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where Ancient lifesteal was not healing players.
  • Fixed an issue where Tenacity was not reducing by the amount listed.
  • Fixed an issue where listing an item did not warn the player they will need to pay a tax to remove the item.
  • Fixed it so all anti-orc Mods now apply to Berserker Orcs.
  • Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard and Shielding Guard Shard showing as Campaign Shards and awarding Campaign Dust.
  • Fixed an issue where the Withering Bubble Shard was not dropping in Campaign.
  • Fixed an issue so the Initiate can use the Drain Aura Mod now.
  • Fixed an issue where Shatterquake was showing fire VFX.
  • Fixed a typo on the Lifeburn Armor Mod.
  • Fixed an issue where Seismic Flame was lasting longer than intended and updated its description for clarity.
  • Updated the Buried bastille description.
  • Fixed an issue where the Seismic Launch Chip allowed the Squire to complete the Smack Up Monk challenge.
  • Adjusted the Terrablade weapons to have full descriptions.
  • Fixed an issue where Hard Mode Campaign items could not transfer Mods to Normal Mode Campaign items.
  • Fixed an issue where some pets had way higher Crit Damage than intended.
  • Fixed an issue that occasionally when gaining Ancient Power players would not receive an Ancient Power weapon.
  • Fixed an issue with item stacking in inventories and not being able to re-stack them.
  • Fixed an issue with Chaos V glove Tinkering using a shiny chest material instead of a shiny glove material.
  • Fixed an issue with Private Tavern and Town vendors not updating their stock correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where the Lash Out Ascension talent was not functioning for the poison damage.
  • Fixed an issue with consecutive win bonuses applying to special Play Shop purchases.
  • Fixed an issue with Flame Aura hitting players when the owner leaves town.
  • Fixed an issue with X-splosion Mods killing players.
  • Fixed an issue with Drain Aura damaging players.
  • Fixed an issue with Incursion Weapon Mods being replacable via Tinkering.
  • Fixed an issue with Lunar Portal and Ghastly Halberds spawning more than intended.
  • Fixed an issue with Onslaught and Ancient Power challenges not unlocking correctly.
  • Fixed an issue where Autumeow’s tail would change colors incorrectly.
  • Fixed an issue with tooltips overlapping in splitscreen shops.
  • Updated the attack speed icon on Axes.
  • Removed the Death Override icon on the Protean Shield.
  • Items with zero Mods are hidden in the Reforging Quick Picker window when selecting an item to pull Mods from.
  • Fixed an issue when creating a hero that offered “select hero” instead of the option to “back”.
  • Fixed an issue with dropped equipment showing gamepad context that doesn’t work on PC.
  • Fixed an issue with the cursor going behind Mods on Wayfarer weapons.
  • Changed the description of Vial of Dragon Sweat to not say “Open to Unlock”.
  • Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s Skeletal Ramsters and Skeletal Archer towers not showing their base when an elemental Mod was equipped.
  • Fixed an issue where oil traps on Ramparts slowed Berserker Orcs.
  • Fixed an issue with overlapping UIs when splitscreen players join while a fullscreen window is open.
  • Fixed an issue with protective Downgrade Servo not updating its stats when inspecting it after it gets downgraded.
  • Fixed an issue where Feed x10 was consuming 10 pieces of food even if 10 was not needed to cap the pet.
  • Fixed an issue with Flamethrower tower VFX not getting bigger with Defense Range.
  • Fixed an issue with “Create Hero” appearing unlocked if you tried to purchase a hero and did not have enough currency.
  • Fixed an issue with tower abilities not stopping when the tower is stunned.
  • Fixed an issue with Defender Packs where rerolling would leave the previous contents on the ground.
  • Fixed an issue with The Defender of Etheria achievements not unlocking on Xbox.
  • Fixed an issue where the inventory would lose navigation input on controllers.
  • Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard’s VFX appearing in the middle of players instead of at their feet.
  • Fixed an issue with Automation Shard not working on Snaking Sands, Slime Pits, Geyser Traps, and Angry Nimbus towers.
  • Fixed an issue with the falling leaf VFX on Forest Biome not triggering correctly.
  • Changed two shards to now be named “Betsy’s Zapper” and “Betsy’s Beam” to better fit the UI.
  • Implemented a sound for un-equipping gear.
  • Implemented a sound for equipping shards via Right Mouse Button.
  • Fixed an issue with placing Mods into the third slot of a Legendary/Epic that was advanced, that caused them to not function properly.
  • Adjusted Abyss Stones hit SFX location to emit from the correct position.
  • Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s book landing correctly when he dies.
  • Updated the bag icons with Blue Gem Icons.
  • Fixed an issue connecting to an event server that could result in a crash.
  • Fixed the VFX for EV2 canisters.
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:
We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team
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