DEFENDERS,

This post will provide an update on Episode 2 Part 1 work as well as announce the details about the upcoming In-game Halloween Event and Episode 2 Part 1 PTR. With that said let's get into it as this will be a long post!


For the first time ever in DDA’s history we are doing an in-game Halloween event. This event will feature some new cosmetics for both login rewards and in-game rewards. In addition to this every enemy across the game will receive a special halloween theme for the duration of the event. This Halloween Update will be released on October 14th, 2022 and the event will go until November 4th, 2022.

If you login between the dates listed above, you’ll unlock the following transmogs:

• Hallow's Evil Grin Mask
• Fish in a Jar Mask

With the introduction of the in-game halloween event we have remade Halloween Spooktacular from the original game. This map will feature the new halloween variants of the enemies permanently even after the Halloween event is over. It also has new lanes and an additional core to defend.



Completing the map will give you a Brain in a Jar Mask Accessory as a guaranteed drop, but for those out there that prefer a bit of gold or Neon to their look there will be a very low drop chance version that allows you to unlock the golden transmog variant.






As many of you know, the summoner from the original Dungeon Defenders game will be returning to DDA as The Outcast Summoner. This iconic hero has been one of the most requested heroes to return to DDA and as such we wanted to try our best to stay true to the original as best as we could, while also making adjustments to better fit DDA.

With that in mind, one of the things we felt strongly about was that the original model shown previously didn’t reflect what users expected for a remake of the Summoner. As such we’ve gone through and reconcepted and made a new model that fits the theme better.

Here is a first look at the new model!

Next up let’s talk about how the hero itself will work. After going through all the data from the Summoner Survey we have come to the following abilities, defenses and changes to the summoner.
Before we cover Hero Abilities, let's talk about some of the general features that the hero has first. The hero doesn’t have weapon slots and as such doesn’t have an actual attack. Instead the hero will be allowed to equip 2 pets at once. Additionally the Summoner will be able to equip Tomes and will be able to complete a weapon set using a single tome.

Regarding Minions we also have opted to not have Minion Units but instead use DU for the defenses. This solves 2 issues, the first being that players felt that they were missing out if they didn’t take advantage of having double the “DU” and additionally it would require we balance every map both past and present around having this feature.

Finally the Summoner has the ability to hover by pressing and holding the jump key at any point while the hero is falling. They will still be able to take advantage of the double jump as any hero can.

Primary - Minion Select

• Since the hero doesn’t attack, his primary will be used to select his minions. Currently we only allow single unit selection but will continue to iterate on this as feedback is received.

Secondary - Overlord Mode

• A big feature of the Summoner was his ability to go into overlord mode and have a more top down RTS style camera. This ability will allow the Outcast Summoner to pan around the map and place minions remotely as well as move them as necessary.

Active Ability - Flash Heal

• Flash heal offers the ability to heal nearby heroes, Minions and defenses by a percentage of their max health, scaling off the hero's Ability stat.

Buff Ability - Pet Boost

• While active the hero's pets will be buffed increasing attack damage and attack speed, scaling off the hero's Ability stat. This was a redux addition that we felt added a lot of potential to the hero being used as a DPS and playing off the ability for the hero to equip 2 pets.

Before we get started all the minions are still going through active balancing so these values might not represent what goes live for the PTR as well as adjusting balance as we receive PTR feedback.

Minion 1 - Archer (2 DU): Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Archer. Shoots non-piercing arrows at enemies. 

Minion 2 - Spider (3 DU): Summons a Crystalline Spider to the battlefield. Flings webs at nearby enemies, slowing them down and doubling all damage they receive.

MInion 3 - Siren (4 DU): Summons a Crystalline Siren to the battlefield. She casts protective shields around defenses reducing incoming damage and also attacks offensively with her ranged attack.

Minion 4 - Dark Elf Mage (4 DU): Summons a Crystalline Dark Elf Mage to the battlefield. Casts fireballs and periodically heals themselves and other nearby minions, as well as heroes.  

Minion 5 - Ogre (5 DU): Summons a Crystalline Ogre to the battlefield. Crushes enemies within melee range and occasionally fires poison snot balls from a distance.

This will mostly be a recap of the full runes introduction post as a lot of it remains unchanged from the original design but figured it was important to give a recap and fill in any blanks as needed.

Runes are broken down into two different categories they work in the following ways: 

• Hero Runes - Runes that affect your hero’s stats, attacks, and abilities.
• Tower Runes - Runes that affect your tower stats and activation (whether that’s damage or utility).

Additionally there are 2 types of Runes, General Runes and Class Runes and can be used in different situations.

• General Runes - Runes that can be applied to any hero. These are typically flat stat increasing runes, with some slight variations.

• Class Runes - Runes that are applied to a specific hero, or specific list of heroes.

Unlocking runes is a 2 step process. First you must obtain a rune which can be found by playing various gamemodes, maps and difficulties. Some runes will have specific drop locations while others will have random drop locations. Secondly you will need to pay a gold cost to consume the rune and permanently unlock the rank of rune.

Once you’ve unlocked a rune you can choose to use that rune in any of your available slots. Each hero has 2 Hero runes and 4 Defense Runes slots. Those rune slots can be set on each individual hero. Allowing you to add more customization to the way that hero builds.

With all that recapped, let's talk about some examples of runes we can expect to see in DDA.

• Explosive Shield - Shield Throw explodes on hit, dealing 100% of it's normal damage to all nearby enemies and increases number of Bounces by X.
• Spear Trap - Every X Seconds when the Spike Blockade is attacked it shoots out 8 piercing projectiles damaging enemies for X% Tower Health.

• Arcane Blast - Arcane Surge becomes a ranged piercing projectile which deals X% of secondary attack damage.
• Bouncing Magic - Magic Missile Projectiles deal X% damage and bounces up to Y additional targets.

• Chance Grenade - Grenade Toss has a X% chance to spawn another grenade upon killing an enemy.
• Shell Shocked - Enemies hit are slowed by X% and deal Y% reduced damage for Z seconds.

• Mystical Repair - Tower Boost slowly repairs defenses for X% of tower health over Y Seconds.
• Lightning Strikes - Every X Seconds, the Lightning Aura deals Y% tower damage to a single enemy within range.

• Decoy-GR - Decoy now shoots along with the hero at the same direction dealing X% of hero damage.
• Electric Shock - Proton Beam has a X% chance to shock and stun enemies for Y seconds.

• Yum Yum Seed - Sprout Seeds on-pickup restore X% HP and gives a Healing over time for Y% Max HP over Z seconds.
• Focus Blossom - Beaming Blossom does additional X% damage for each attack made against the same enemy, stacking up to Y times.

• Multiple Marks - Increases max number of Marked targets by X.
• Spin-To-Win - Carnage consumes -50% mana and does Y% of the original damage.

• Flash Buff - Defenses within Flash Heal gain Attack rate and Power for X Seconds.
• Healing Master - The Dark Elf Mage Minion can also heal nearby defenses for X% of the normal minion healing.

Now with all this talk about runes, there is another way to acquire them that wasn’t mentioned above which would be through trading. Trading will allow 2 players to exchange items and gold between one another. 

Players can request to open a trade and then add items and offer gold. Not every item is tradable, specifically any kind of entitlement reward like from the Kickstarter. Outside of that you are free to trade Armor, Weapons, Pets, Offhands, Accessories, and now Runes.

Additionally we also added a new gameplay setting to auto reject trade requests for the popular few that don’t wish to be overwhelmed with trade requests. You can still send trade requests while this setting is enabled but any attempts for others to trade with you will be rejected without notification.

Finally since we know players will want better ways to find other traders, we’ve added a way to host a public tavern with custom session names. While this isn’t a perfect solution, we hope we can improve this in the future and potentially look at new ways to host trading lobbies.

With the first part of Episode 2 comes 2 new maps to kick off Act 5. After defeating the Lycan King, the heroes traverse a great desert uncovering forgotten locations along the way. 
You’ll have to fight your way through the Bazaar in order to progress deeper into the secrets this desert holds!

Defend your core from threats old and new in the shadow of structures from a forgotten civilization.


As we hinted at in one of our live streams there will be 5 changes to the defense roster. These changes are based on metrics, survey data and general community discussions. That said if the feedback from these changes is not well received we will look at making changes as needed.

The Sniper tower offers the squire a new single target defense that will be very strong at defeating tanky enemies. It will use a special enemy targeting priority. This tower will replace the Bouncer Blockade as we felt the blockade was often overshadowed by the other blockades in the game.

Defense Rune - Piercing Upgrade:

• Pierces an additional enemy and scales damage of the attack by X%.

The Poison Dart Tower is the first addition of a defense to the Huntress’s kit. The PDT will shoot 3 individual projectiles. These projectiles are fanned out so that they spread out and hit multiple enemies down the path. It will use a fodder targeting priority. This tower will replace the Darkness Trap, as it was the most unused defense in the game, the alternative was the Thunder Spike Trap which we felt could have more use cases.

Defense Rune - Blinding Darts:

• Enemies hit by the Poison Dart Tower have a X% to become blinded for Y seconds.

In order to make room for the upcoming defense changes, we’ve decided to merge the Blocking Field and Reflect field. This means the defense will be able to serve as a wall or a reflect field and will have the same DU scaling of the original reflect field so that they continue to be used as they have in the past.

Defense Rune - Electric Fence:

• Blocking Field deals X% of Tower Health back to all attackers as electric damage.

The Heat Cannon provides a unique defense to the game. It’s a short ranged flamethrower defense that hits all enemies within its range arc. While this defense is limited in range it will more than make up in defense power. This defense will have a fodder targeting priority. It will replace the new empty slot where Reflect Field was.

Defense Rune - Immolation:

• Heat Cannon applies a fire DoT onto enemies dealing X% of tower damage over Y seconds.

The Plasma Defense System or PDS is an omni-directional sentry that can target and attack up to 3 separate targets at once. The defense does have one major flaw in the form of a deadzone. The dead zone prevents the tower from attacking enemies that are too close to the tower. This defense will have a modified version of the special enemy targeting but instead prioritizes Djinns, Copters, and Wyverns before targeting other special enemies. This defense will replace the Shock beam, as we felt that the crowd control it provided was just outclassed by other crowd control oriented defenses regardless of balance.

Defense Rune - Full Coverage:

• Increases the Plasma Defense System’s defense range by X% but also increases the dead zone by Y%.

This has been a highly requested quality of life for endgame players. Auto Loot 2.0 will allow players to have multiple loot filters using the existing setup. This allows players to have filters tied to specific types of items, for example having a Auto Loot Filter specifically for picking up Accessories or a filter to pick up only swords. As long as an item matches 1 of the filters in your list it will get picked up when Auto Loot happens. 

This UI will allow you to create and manage the multiple filter profiles. Each one can have a name and Icon associated to help associate them. You will be limited to 8 filters at any point.

So now that we’ve talked about all the amazing things coming in episode 2, I know you all are dying to know when the PTR will go live. On that note I can say we are aiming for the PTR to go live on October 28th, 2022 pending any major setbacks. While we had initially planned for it to start early october we felt the extra time was needed, and with the halloween event it would be odd to have those launch at nearly the same time.

After the halloween event is over and the PTR is finished we’ll look at releasing the update live after we’ve made any necessary changes based on player feedback. Once that is live we’ll begin work on the remaining Episode Part 2 work and keep you all updated as that is developed. Though it is too early to say what the timeline will be like at this moment.

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For Etheria!

Chromatic Games

Hello!
We are happy to announce that a new patch is released
Please update your product

• BETTER FPS OPTIMIZATION
  
• NEW LIGHTS AND ENVIROMENT

TRY TO SURVIVE!

• BETTER OPTIMIZATION / BETTER FPS
  
• New lights and enviroment
  
• More fluid gameplay

Try to survive on the most creepy tunnel on STEAM

Hello!
Today we have a balance build attempt, new location, and some value changes. This is the first of several critical changes to the game balance.

I will be looking forward to feed back on pacing and rewards, the level boosts still need to be tested and updated, coming really soon.

Changes are mainly

• Librarian Juleen has been added! Julio's Library music for the library is included.
  
• You will get rewards based on the total bugs you've killed of a species required in a new Quest.
  
• Requirements also increase based on total done (averaged).
  
• You will need to accept quests before a new one will go in its place, that is to get new quests with higher values. Quest expiration is something that will be added soon, just waiting on opinions on the scaling
  
• Quantum crystals (for permanent upgrades) have been reduced to 1,000 for now, still enough for a few upgrades, but you can get more by completing Prof. Mantin's quests.
  
• Quests will now only possibly generate every 2 minutes, instead of 12 seconds. This is more in line to the future, but ultimately it will go to 5 minutes.

-Fixed crash on loading worlds with big crystals in them
-Fixed issues with cannons improperly rotating
-Flaming armor now properly grants lava immunity

Greetings dinosaur hunters!

We are currently working on several improvements to trophy lodges. There will be a way to add new rooms and customize the content of these rooms in various ways. All images are work in progress images and are subject to change.

We are developing a more advanced system where players will be able to add more rooms into their trophy lodges. Currently we have implemented three types of rooms:

• Hall (the current room in game)
  
• Room
  
• Room with fireplace

Each room has doors where you can extend the lodge by adding a new room.

In addition to the square stand there will be two additional stands: Round stand and wall stand. Round stand is just a round stand on the ground to give some variance. The wall stand is something completely different as it allows hunters to display dinosaur heads on walls. We are planning to provide different kinds of backplate to the wall stand depending on the dinosaur score.







Different kinds of chairs, tables, bookshelves, beds, couches, cupboards, hangers, mirrors and shelves can be freely added to your lodge.





We’ve added a HUD to trophy lodge that players can hide with U key to take pictures. The HUD is there to guide players to the controls with which you can add items and rotate them.

Stands will also display in which direction the dinosaur will be facing making placing them easier. This is shown with an orange arrow on top of the stand when placing it.



Trophy lodge lightning and reflections have been enhanced. Trophy lodge now uses screen space reflections and cube maps.



These improvements you can expect to see in the next update :)

Thank you for reading and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

• Can no longer tow a vehicle with a trailer attached.
  
• Tire ware is more visible. The color of the vehicle tire will fade with ware. Make sure to visit the tire shop before they blow.

We've made some updates to the multiplayer lobby browser.

- All multiplayer games in all regions will now be displayed in the lobby browser.

- In progress games and full games will be displayed at the bottom of the list with their buttons redded out.

-Private games are not shown in the lobby browser.

- Games are sorted based on distance from the region you first connect to, so games in regions closer to your "home region" will be listed first.

Hopefully this will streamline joining multiplayer games and show players that they are not alone in the Prodiverse.

DEFENDERS,

A patch was pushed this morning to address some issues in the 9.0.0 release ːsteamhappyː


PATCH NOTES

FEATURE

• Added controller support for the emulator that allows the player use a controller to control all emulated characters (Keyboard key binds still apply for spawning)

BUG FIX

• Fix for accessories being able to spawn with more upgrades than intended
  
• Fixed Spooktacular Bay not giving random rewards to players besides host
  
• Fixed an issue where the anti cheat was kicking people with certain colors on character skins
  
• Fixed some emulator would break some key bind commands
  
• Fixed an issue where the map selection UI would update client UI's
  
• Fixed an issue where the map selection wouldn't recover from adding players
  
• Fixed an issue where the gargoyle accessories were rolling lower than intended
  
• Fixed an issue where the elf accessories wouldn't show the number of upgrades when on inventory
  
• Fixed an issue where the elf crown icon was too large
  
• Fixed an issue where the core drops were not correct on then new maps

It's been a while since I did an update post, but figured I'd update steam and know that Minicology is alive and well. Here are some improvements made to the closed beta:

-Tutorials-
Tutorialization has been heavily increased. On the starting planet, you’ll find helpful guides on how to use electricity, how to open terraforming chests, and how to craft & farm various resources!

-Structures & Space pirates-
You’ll be able to find procedurally generated structures on some planets, staffed by fearsome lobster-pirates. As minicology’s development continues, look forward to seeing some other types of structures in future updates, each with unique loot and enemies!

-Combat changes-
-Many items now have new abilities, and the flow & pacing of combat has been improved. Enemies drop hearts to encourage more aggressive combat and allow you to recover quicker, and there are several new armor sets - some with unique set bonuses - to craft and discover!

Weapon changes:
-Guns have been completely remodeled. Taking inspiration from FPS’s, guns now feature several variables, including fire rate, magazine size, accuracy, recoil, and bullet speeds.
-New types of hammers: in addition to the old shockwave hammers that produced a shotgun-style projectile wave, we now also have ‘quake hammers’, which perform a powerful ground pound!
-Sword remodel - swords now perform a 360-degree spin attack which charges up abilities like projectiles or longer-range slashes

-Ecology Scanner-
Ecology scanner now acts as a bestiary of every creature and plant you’ve discovered. Take a look to see info like critter health, drops, and more!


-Boss reworks-
Two of the old bosses have been totally reworked. They now fit Minicology’s art style better, and have some mechanical changes that make them interact with the new combat mechanics better as well :). Bosses also now use a better gravity system that allows them to naturally navigate the planetary gravity, and will rotate smoothly across the different planetary quadrants!

-Gravity Changes-
The way gravity affects the player has been reworked since the Steam Next Fest! It’s now far more comfortable to navigate in caves and around the ‘corners’ of planets.


-Major QoL improvements
Crafting now allows for minecraft style Shift+Drag clicking, and crafting inputs will now notify you when an input is invalid and why. Some crafting inputs might even provide helpful hints on what inputs are valid!

-Electricity Remodel
Electricity is a lot nicer to use now, with a specific ‘electricity view’ that’s togglable when a generator is nearby. We’ve also added power splitters and power lines to help you connect electricity across the planet. We’ll be adding significantly more content

-Changes to mining/buckets/bottling
There was quite a bit of confusion in the Steam Next Fest demo on how mining and pickaxes worked. This has been addressed, with a new UI system for tool-based resource interactions. Should be much clearer what resources are being targeted, and various drop behaviors have been made more consistent.

-New player + background + tilemap art-
I’ve made some touchups to the Space-person’s art, giving them a little more personality and expression. Plus, there are some new animations for crouching, swimming, and flying! Background art has also been improved, and tiles have been re-shaded for readability (They’re now a little brighter near the edges, which helps a TON in telling where walls start and end - it also makes the colors pop a bit more!). Overall, the game just looks slightly nicer and more polished.

-Tons of new items-
I’ll let you discover these, but be on the lookout for some cool new weapons, tools like the big drill (great for tunneling!), and lobster-themed accessories! Enjoy!