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
Protean Check-In: What's Coming!
A Protean Check-In With Elandrian
Defenders Assemble! Sound the horns of Dragonfall! I come bearing beans!
Well, I have some beans, but I also wanted to talk about the recent launch of Protean Shift. It’s been a busy past two weeks for us here at Trendy and it’s great to finally get the expansion into everyone's hands. We’ve been scouring the forums and our various social platforms for comments and feedback, and it’s tremendously valuable for helping us shape what’s coming soon in upcoming patches. I also want to give you guys a glimpse at the future of the game as well, so read everything for all the juicy details.
In response to feedback (and just our planning in general), we have a bundle of changes, new content, and bug fixes coming soon. I’m not going to give any real time-frames… our goal is to get new changes and content out as quick as possible for everyone, but we’re a tiny team and we’re working as fast as we can! Here’s a quick list of some of our targets:
Short Term
Bug Fixes (duh.)
Buyback Functionality
This is currently in testing/iteration and we want to get it out soon. We really want to make sure there’s a way to get back items you’ve sold by accident. It will most likely just save some of the items you’ve been selling until you leave the Town or Tavern.
Better Sorting/Filtering of the Inventory
One thing we want to improve is your ability to find your good items in an easier way. This will take a little more work, but we’re going to try to give you better sorting of item types, as well as possible sorting by your strong MOD rolls… or should I say “those big 5/5 Qualibeans.”
This also might include some changes to help find Shards and manage them better, but that might require additional time as well.
Materials Vault Tabs?
This is something we’re investigating too. We saw some players talking about this so we’re looking at making a section of the vault be able to support bigger stacks of materials and connect to all the places you want to spend them. We’re aiming for this to be a “short term” add… but it might end up taking a little longer.
Medium Term
Onslaught Changes
I’m not going to go into TOO many details, as it’s still being discussed among the Design team… but I will say we have some goals for these changes.
We want to make it easier for players to play and progress together.
We want to make the floors more significant to progress between.
We want to make it easier to make meaningful progression and less punishing. (Aka. Three map floors might go the way of Skill Spheres.)
Ancient Power Changes
These are going to be some changes to make it fit more in line with the Onslaught changes.
We’re also looking at making the resets more forgiving as you gain Ancient Power too. Again, not going to go into specifics as this is still an active discussion… but we ARE reading/discussing all the various opinions from the community and our testing teams.
Longer Term (But maybe shorter than you expect?)
Better party functionality.
We’re trying to add more social functionality here… Things like better party leader knowledge in matchmaking, inviting/kicking from parties, a friends list? There’s a lot on the schedule to add here, we’re going to get to as much as possible.
Increased Multiplayer Incentive
We want people to be enjoying Dungeon Defenders together, but we know there’s not a lot of reasons to do so at the moment. We’re aiming at changing this, while still keeping solo-play viable.
Better Matchmaking.
This is another laundry list of changes, but we want it to be easier for people to play together and stay together. We also want to make the flow to get into gameplay much easier and with less interruptions and disconnects.
Guilds
Secrets...
Now all these updates and changes are well and good, but we’ve also seen a certain desire from one or two community members. It’s been spoken of only occasionally… and by so few that we weren’t sure if it was important or not to everyone...
/endsarcasm
Our heroes will be receiving some calls to action to various regions of Etheria very soon. The first region our heroes will be heading to will be a somewhat familiar location. The distress call will come from a certain coastal region...
Just for some extra beanage at the end here: There will be a new region to go to, new things to get, and possibly some new threats to face…
We appreciate all our players sticking with us as we continue to evolve and release our vision for Year Two of Dungeon Defenders II. We couldn’t have done any of this without all of your help.
Thank you from all of us here at Trendy Entertainment.
Sincerely,
Colin “Elandrian” Fisher
The Protean Shift Expansion Is Now Live!
Defenders, it’s finally time. Protean Shift is launching and we could not have done it without you.
We set out with some lofty goals, but with your help we were able to make some significant changes to Dungeon Defenders II. We wanted to give you greater attachment to your items, but also more options to share those items with your friends. We wanted to give you map choice while progressing through Trials, but also give you more ways to progress your gear while advancing through the tiers. We also wanted to give you some better options with your existing items so we added Shard Dusting and Gilding. We also hear your concern about Gilding and we’ll keep an eye on it for iteration.
We’re constantly tweaking and improving our game that we share with all of you, and we hope you will enjoy our enhanced direction for year two of this wonderful game.
From everyone here at Trendy Entertainment, thank you for supporting Dungeon Defenders II and helping us continue to move the game forward. We’re a small team in Gainesville, Florida and we appreciate every bit of excitement and support that you give us.
We hope you enjoy this “Shift” in our game, and we can’t wait to focus on what we’re working on next.
We know you want more maps, Onslaught changes and Ancient Power enhancements.
We’re on it.
Greetings Defenders,
It’s finally here, Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift is live on all platforms! Professor Proteus is now in Dragonfall and started a technomagical evolution throughout all of Etheria. Now the Defenders of Etheria can obtain new ways to fight off enemy forces, choose where they fight, and what equipment they want to use in order to ensure victory!
The Protean Shift brings a slew of new features that Defenders can use to empower their defenses and Heroes, as well as choose the way they want to play. M.O.D.S. allow for custom builds to take on any foe that comes your way, Expeditions give Defenders the choice to play any map they want in any Chaos difficulty, and Player Shops let you buy and sell items with other Defenders. There’s so much more, let’s get into it!
This is our most foundational change in the expansion. Now your gear’s stats looks much different than before. The first change is making the damage from critical strikes scale off of the base damage for both your heroes and your towers. Critical Damage is no longer a secondary stat, but is a percentage that starts at +30% damage and increases through Gear, Shards, and Ascension Levels. Because of the change to Critical Damage, the Critical Chance cap of 33% has been removed — the sky’s the limit now!
One of the goals of the Critical Damage change is to make damage more reliable. Critical Damage builds are still fun, but other playstyles should feel just as rewarding. Every hero and tower’s base damage has been increased to account for the changes made, making damage more consistent and allowing for even more unique builds!
Since we changed how Critical Damage is understood, we decided to tackle another confusing area for players: Defense Speed. The stat is now a percentage instead of being numbers that go into the thousands with no clear meaning. This change allows players to understand exactly how much faster their defenses attack rate will increase.
Gear
Defenders now possess the opportunity to build however they want to fight off their foes. Gear is meant to feel more unique, instead of receiving a legendary that gives every stat. Your gear now provides choice and lets you decide how you play!
Gear now has a primary and secondary stat. Your heroes maintain similar power as they had before the expansion, both offensively and defensively. This balance is a result of increasing base stats and the scaling of those stats. Here’s what you now find on gear:
Helmets, Gloves, Chest, and Boots
Primary Stat: Armor
Secondary: Health, Ability Power, or Hero Damage
Weapons
Primary Stat: Hero Damage
Secondary Stat: Armor, Health, or Ability Power
Medallions, Marks, and Orbs (if you have them still, you pack rat!)
Primary Stat: Defense Power
Secondary Stat: Defense Health
Totems
Primary Stat: Defense Health
Secondary Stat: Defense Power
These changes allow players to customize their builds even more than before. If you want to maintain a similar amount of balance with damage output and health on your heroes, you can do that easily. However, if you want to make an unstoppable tank that requires an army to take down, or want a glass cannon that can obliterate every enemy on the map, that option is now yours as well!
For relics, we wanted to make sure that defenses were reliable and also strong. These changes now make it so building auras and traps early do not feel punishing because they now have guaranteed Defense Health to keep them up much longer. Having Defense Power as a guaranteed stat also make damage more consistent and less frustrating when you don’t critically strike. This is just the baseline, with M.O.D.S., Shards, and Ascension Levels, you can radically change the type of damage you deal. All these changes are a shift to make Defenders stronger through the power of customization!
M.O.D.S.
Professor Proteus sent a shockwave out across all of Etheria upon his arrival, using his inventive intellect to alter every piece of gear! Magically Offense/Defensive Subroutines (M.O.D.S., or even simpler — Mods) provide the pathway of making gear your own! Mods come in a variety of power! Some are pure stat increases, from the stats you get on gear, to newly changed stats such as Critical Damage, Critical Chance, and Defense Speed. Some add elemental damage to physical damage towers, and have unique VFX depending on the element! Others offer the chance to change how your Defenses overcome specific Chaos enemies. Want to:
Have towers immune to Hex Thrower curses? You can do that.
Pierce a Shield Geodes shield? You can do that.
Make your Traps, Auras, and Nodes, immune to Cyborks?! You can do that!
Mods bring a lot of additional power and customization that many Defenders have wanted for a long time. There are over 100 Mods to discover, with more coming down the road.
Now that you have an idea of what Mods do, it’s time to discuss specifically where you have them. Mods are an extension of your gear, and are a brand new addition to various tiers of your equipment. They are an additional property to gear similar to Shards, and unlock in a similar fashion:
Uncommon
One open Mod slot
Epic:
One rolled Mod slot
One open Mod slot (two mod slots total)
Mythical
One rolled Mod slot
Two open Mod slots (three mod slots total)
Legendary:
Two rolled Mod slots
One open Mod slot (three Mod slots total)
These changes make Legendary items contain two stats, three Mod slots, and three Shard Slots, and increased stats, making them truly legendary. These Mods are just the first of what’s to come. In future updates, we are releasing additional Mods. Have an idea for more, let us know by posting on our forums, we’d love to hear your ideas!
Also, as a side note, Mods make things easier in Mastery, though they are scaled down to the appropriate Chaos tier.
Tinkering
Professor Proteus, in his astounding intellect, wanted to really provide customization and options to not only the power of gear, but also to keeping the gear and/or Mods that you’ve obtained. That’s where Tinkering enters into the mix! Tinkering is the ability to move up to three Mods at a time from one piece of gear to another piece of gear at the same time. In order to take advantage of Tinkering, certain criteria needs to be met:
Must be the same type of gear.
Moving Mods from a weapon, to another weapon.
Gear that the Mods are being moved to must be the same Chaos tier or higher than where the Mod is coming from.
Moving a Mod from a Chaos III weapon has to be moved into a Chaos III or higher weapon.
Cannot add Mods of the same type, but can override Mods of the same type.
A +6% Anti-Goblin Servo on one relic, can override a +5% Anti-Goblin Servo on another tier-equivalent relic.
Have the materials and currency to complete the transfer of Mods.
Materials are now found in Expeditions and Onslaught. They can also be bought and sold in Player Shops.
Tinkering allows you to continuously mix and match your Mods to create the build you enjoy the most. The amount of customization that Tinkering offers truly lets you play how you want. It doesn’t stop there. When combined with our new Upgrading and Evolving features, even more choices await you, even potentially choosing the look of the weapon you want!
Upgrading
Upgrading gear is something that’s been a standard feature of Dungeon Defenders II to get additional power out of the gear you find. But this is Protean Shift, so we’re UPRADING THE UPGRADE! Most gear now has the ability to be upgraded 10 times. The cost for upgrading is greatly reduced from what it previously was, but now requires you to use materials that you find throughout your journeys in Etheria or that you bought from other Defenders through Player Shops. If you have a non-legendary piece of gear, through the genius of Professor Proteus, you can Advance that gear to the next quality!
Advancing
Remember that low quality flower staff we mentioned earlier? If you upgraded it to its highest level, you can now advance it to the next quality. All gear can now be upgraded from one quality to another, taking items from the lowly Worn quality all the way to Legendary status. This isn’t the only form of improving gear, Evolving allows even more power!
Evolving
Evolving is icing on the gear permanence cake. Independent of an items quality tier, if it is upgraded to it’s maximum Upgrade level, it can be pushed to the next Chaos tier. This allows you to take even the first items you find in the campaign to be Evolved all the way to Chaos VIII strength! It’s all about choosing the gear that you want to keep with you.
Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving applies to every piece of gear that drops — weapons, armor, and relics!
Materials
New materials are added to customize your gear. With the introduction of these materials, we lowered the currency cost of upgrading gear. In your inventory, these materials are included under the current “Materials” inventory sorting option. There are some mats that drop on every map, but then there are also map-type specific materials that drop too. Here’s where you can find the materials you need:
Weapon Materials: Sewer Maps
Helmet Materials: Castle Maps
Chest Materials: Forest Maps
Glove Materials: Town Maps
Boot Materials: Ruins Maps
Relic Materials: Dungeon Maps
Materials are shown on both the map listing and under the open sessions for specific maps. Don’t want to farm a specific map-type for a material you need? You can visit our Markets to find Player Shops selling the materials you need!
New Game Modes
We’ve added additional ways for both new and veteran Defenders to fight off the evil forces that encroach on Etheria’s safety! Adventures are new ways for up and coming Defenders to fight their way through the Campaign, while Expeditions are replacing Trials and providing map choice where previously there wasn’t!
Adventures
Adventures are aimed in giving new Defenders the choice of playing different stories after defeating Betsy. You can choose to take on the Bling King, or go knock down the Harbinger down a peg or two! Maybe you feel strong enough after beating Betsy, if you’re up for the challenge, you can go straight into Onslaught or Expeditions.
Expeditions
Map choice, map choice, MAP CHOICE!! Something many of you have wanted is finally here! The Chaos Trials are finished, and Defenders can now go on Expeditions through various Chaos difficulties, choosing to play whatever map you want. The choice is yours!
The Champion Score gating for various Expedition levels is different as well, they are now:
Chaos II: 580
Chaos III: 1050
Chaos IV: 1740
Chaos V: 2750
Chaos VI: 3800
Chaos VII: 5300
Expeditions also provide the ability to acquire different materials needed Upgrading, Advancing, Evolving, and Tinkering. As noted above, different specific materials drop depending on the map-type your playing. These materials are earned both as you play a map and as you achieve victory!
Player Shops and Markets
Gear is no longer magically locked to each Hero Deck. Professor Proteus slightly alleviated the restrictions that existed previously on gear. As a result, Player Shops and Markets are here!
All Defenders are now able to list their items for sale on their own personal Player Shops. Each Defender starts off with two slots to sell gear and can expand the amount of slots they have if they want to. Most items that have not been altered in some way (Upgraded, Advanced, Evolved, or Tinkered) are able to be added to your shop! You are not able to buy gear for a Chaos tier that you are not currently on (i.e. being Chaos III, you are not able to purchase Chaos V gear from other players). To make browsing easier, you can view player shops through the Player List in the Pause Menu, or by walking up to players in the Markets.
Markets are a new area for players to gather in order to browse Player Shops. Head on over to the War Table and browse the list of active Markets! Markets are themed for various types of items that can be sold, but you can freely sell any item of choice regardless of the Market you’re in. If you don’t see a Market of the item type you’re looking for, you can always just Quickmatch and it automatically creates one for you!
Shards Features
Our new Shard systems were primarily focused on giving players more choices with their Shards. For Shards that you don’t want to keep anymore, you can now Dust them to get a chance at more Shards of that type. For Shards that you feel have more value, we wanted to provide a system to Gild and upgrade them a little bit further and protect them from Ancient Power resets.
Shard Dusting Shards are a great way to really increase the power of the Heroes you play! Some players enjoy playing on a few select Heroes, and you can get Shards you aren’t interested in using. Instead of selling Shards for a little gold, you now Dust them instead. This creates one Shard dust of it’s equivalent Chaos Tier. You can take 10 Shard Dust of the same tier, and visit the War Recruiter to purchase an additional Shard container similar to what you receive at the end of winning a map. This process is to offer an additional chance to get the Shards you want, while giving an additional function to the ones you do not.
Gilded Shards With gear getting pushed past its limits and receiving some nice improvements, it’s only fitting that Shards receive similar treatment! Gilded Shards provide additional upgrade levels to squeeze out more power, but most of all they are immune to being reset when you Ancient Power. In order to gild a Shard, you need to upgrade one Shard to its maximum upgrade level. You then have the option to Gild it by selecting 10 Shards of the same type, regardless of upgrade level, to fuse into your fully upgraded Shard. This is a focus for end-game players to grab additional power in order to take on the challenges in Onslaught, and also protect Shards from being reset when attaining Ancient Power!
New Weapons
Professor Proteus is a man of intellect, sophistication, and style. In Protean Shift every hero is receiving their own special weapons, with their own special appearances! Some of these weapons not only look legendary, but contain legendary power in the form of unique Mods. These Mods are found on the Prestigious weapons gained from attaining Ancient Power!
Protean Weapons We’re now also selling Proteus weapons that have unique models and affects. When killing an enemy with any of these weapons, they are shrunk into oblivion! These new Death Animation VFX are indicated by a skull and crossbones icon on the weapon tooltip. These items start at Campaign tier and are Legendary quality, allowing you to put three mods into them. They do require Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving in order to reach higher tiers. These unique weapon models can also be bought and sold on the Player Shops as long as they haven’t been altered (Upgrading, Advancing, Evolving, or Tinkering).
New Areas and Target Dummies
With a lot of customization here, and a gigantic wave of changes to stats, there are some improvements to our Target Dummies. In the Town hub we expanded the size of our Target Dummy area by quite a lot. There are also a new type of Target Dummy: Aerial Target Dummies! These can be hit by any anti-air towers, so you can test the damage done by towers that you previously weren’t able to.
Aerial Target Dummies are also in your Private Taverns! You may also notice that there are some new Dummy names in the mix.
Transferring into Protean Shift
There’s a ton going on with the Protean Shift, and you’re going to notice a bunch of changes to your Heroes. We made sure that you are more or less as strong after Protean Shift as you were before it. As we mentioned earlier, base stats were raised and adjusted to compensate the removal of certain secondary stats. Here’s how things will transition as you load in with this expansion.
For the gear you are wearing before Protean Shift, the Primary and Secondary stats follow the conventions mentioned above after the release. Your gear should look like this:
Weapons
Primary Stat: Hero Damage.
Secondary Stat: Whatever your highest secondary stat was previously between Ability Power, Armor, and Hero Health.
Helmets, Chest, Gloves, Boots
Primary Stat: Armor
Secondary Stat: Whatever your highest secondary stat was previously between Ability Power, Hero Damage, and Hero Health.
Relics are all going to be uniform across the board as outlined above (Defense Power and Defense Health only, the primary and secondary versions dependent on if it’s a totem or not).
Your current gear receives Mods depending on its quality, as an additional compensation for removing secondary stats. You receive one Mod for Epic and Mythical gear, and two Mods for Legendary gear. The Mods that are put onto this gear cannot roll the highest roll possible, but are going to make you stronger regardless of the roll. Transferring also provides some diversity with the Mods provided to your current gear, as the ones you receive pull from 60%+ of the total Mods added in Protean Shift.
Hero Changes
Every tower and Hero were affected by the changes brought in Protean Shift. As a result, base damage, speed, range, etc. were increased to compensate for the lack of additional secondary stats. Scaling was also greatly affected, meaning not only were the base stats increased, but also how much benefit a stat provides was also increased.
Writing the notes for all of these would have resulted in an encyclopedia, and it may have broke the forums. TL;DR things are stronger and you have the potential to be much, much stronger.
Shard Changes
Shards follow the same idea as the Hero changes. While most shards remain the same, the amount of changes that Gilding offers affects every Shard. However, there are few notable Shards that have additional stats or were change to fit our new system (that we teased for a while):
Earth Toss
Added increased Defense Range [100 - 280 (320 Gilded)]
Corruption’s bargain
Added Ability Power [0 - 300 (420 Gilded)]
Power Transfer
Now increases the Defense Critical Chance by [18% - 30% (38% Gilded)] and reduces Defense Power by -10%.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue with Gorbstock not able to hit walls.
Fixed an issue where the Abyss Lord's Direct Command was not dealing critical damage.
Fixed an issue where one Deadly Strikes shard could be equipped to multiple defenses.
Fixed an issue where mobs with the Frosty mutator were not dropping green mana.
Fixed a bug where Hero Health was not maintaining the same ratio when changing equipment.
Fixed an issue with Beacon of Storms and Beacon of Typhoons proccing when the Squire blocks melee or physical damage.
Fixed an issue with UI overlaps when splitscreen users joined a session.
Fixed an issue with additional pop-ups in the Emporium.
Adjusted the orc miniboss name in Wave 2 of Greystone Plaza of the New User Experience.
Fixed an issue with a huntress drap being destroyed in Greystone Plaza during New User Experience.
Updated old consumables to award +20% critical damage and critical chance instead of previous values.
Fixed an issue where tooltips occasionally stuck together.
Fixed an issue with new players not being sent into New User Experience maps.
Fixed an issue when trying to delete a hero that is assigned to your Hero Deck.
Fixed an issue where Broomnado was slowing enemies that were immune to slows.
Fixed a bug where EV2’s Cosmetic Manager lighting was darker than intended.
Added a warning when Defenders are matchmaking into a tutorial level.
Improved messaging on errors when not able to join a game mode that hasn’t been unlocked.
Fixed an issue with long enemy spawn times on the first tutorial map.
Clarified wording on the Serpent God’s Protection Shard.
Fixed an issue with Lavamancer’s Maw Petrify Duration talent not working.
Fixed an issue with the Hotsprings map on Floor 3 dropping a lot of sturdy or worn quality loot.
Known Issues
Weapon Mods of the same type on weapons are currently stacking for the Barbarian. This will be changed down the road, so that only elemental damage mods stack.
Want More Info On Dungeon Defenders II?
Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
Protean Shift is a giant endeavor that the entire team hopes you enjoy. Thank you for defending Etheria with us, there’s only more to come. Stay tuned!
It is time to finally announce the next expansion coming to Etheria — Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift! We’ve released information regarding this expansion and are ready to give a preview as to almost everything you can expect. The entire team has and still is working very hard to make sure this is a great experience for Defenders new and old. We’re going to cover some information posted in our DevLogs, as well as some new information, and how it all ties together. Let’s get to it!
[H1]Statistic Changes
This is our most foundational change in the update. When Protean Shift launches, you’ll notice that your gear’s stats looks much different than before. Our first change is making the damage from critical strikes scale off of the base damage for both your heroes and your towers. Critical Damage is no longer going to be a secondary stat, but is going to be a percentage increase that you can gain through Gear, Shards, and Ascension Levels. Because of the change to Critical Damage, the Critical Chance cap of 33% has been removed — the sky’s the limit now!
One of the goals of the Critical Damage change is to make damage more reliable. Critical Damage builds are still fun, but other playstyles should feel just as rewarding. Every hero and tower’s base damage has been increased to account for the changes made, making damage more consistent and allowing for even more unique builds!
Since we are changing how Critical Damage is understood, we decided to tackle another confusing area for players: Defense Speed. This stat is now a percentage instead of being numbers that go into the thousands. The change here allows players to understand exactly how much faster their defenses attack rate will increase.
Gear
This expansion really provides the opportunity to build how you want to, and gear is a huge reason. We wanted gear to feel more unique, instead of just giving you every stat whenever you received a legendary tier of gear. Now your gear and choices can reflect the kind of Defender you want to be.
Gear now has a primary stat and a secondary stat. For heroes, the stats vary depending on the piece of gear. On helmets, gloves, chest, and boots, the primary stat is Armor, and the secondary stat pulls from Health, Ability Power, or Hero Damage. On weapons, the primary stat is Hero Damage and the secondary stat can be Armor, Health, or Ability Power. As a reminder, base hero damage for their attacks and abilities was buffed to make sure your heroes feel comparably as powerful after Protean Shift releases compared to how powerful they currently are.
For towers, it varies as well. On totems, Defense Health is the primary stat and Defense Power is the secondary stat. Inversely on Medallions, Marks, and Orbs (if you still have any), Defense Power is the primary stat and Defense Health is the secondary stat. An additional reminder, we increased defenses base stats to try and retain the power your defenses currently possess. This leads us to M.O.D.S.
M.O.D.S.
Professor Proteus applied his inventive intellect to all of the gear in Etheria! Magically Offense/Defensive Subroutines (M.O.D.S. or even simpler — Mods) are what allow you to make your gear your own! Mods can do everything from normal stat increases (Defense Speed, Critical Damage, Critical Chance) to less normal bonuses like stun immunity on Defenses. They even offer new ways to combat your foes! Want to:
Have towers immune to Hex Thrower curses? You can do that.
Pierce a Shield Geodes shield? You can do that.
Make your traps, auras, and nodes, immune to Cyborks?! You can do that!
Mods are an additional property on gear, similar to Shards. Mods compliment Shards and also unlock in a similar fashion, based on the quality of gear, and start appearing on Uncommon quality gear:
Uncommon: 1 Mod slot
Epic: 2 Mod slots
Mythical: 2 Mod slots
Legendary: 3 Mod slots
This means that a Legendary piece of gear now has two stats, three Mods, and empowers three Shard slots, making them truly Legendary. This is just the tip of the iceberg! Over 120 Mods are here to give you the chance to defend Etheria the way you want to. Some of these Mods are the result of community feedback as a unique and engaging way of tackling challenges set before you, the Defenders of Etheria.
Tinkering
Mods are something Professor Proteus added to gear, and what good would Mods be if you couldn’t modify them? That’s where Tinkering comes into the mix! Tinkering is the ability to move up to three Mods at a time from one piece of gear to another piece of the same type and Chaos tier or higher. This means that Mods on Chaos VII weapons can only be moved to another Chaos VII weapon, from one Chaos III helmet to another Chaos III (or higher) helmet, and so on. Once you transfer Mods from one piece of gear to another, the original piece is destroyed in the process.
Tinkering allows you to continuously mix and match your Mods to create the build you enjoy the most. The amount of customization that Tinkering offers truly lets you play how you want. It doesn’t stop there. When combined with our new Upgrading and Evolving features, even more choices await you, even potentially choosing the look of the weapon you want!
UPGRADING, ADVANCING, AND EVOLVING
Upgrading Upgrading is a feature that many of you are well acquainted with, it’s the best way to squeeze extra power out of your gear. But this is Protean Shift, so it’s time to UPGRADE THE UPGRADE! You no longer max upgrade a piece of gear and wait for another piece of gear that’s a higher quality and/or Chaos tier to replace it. You can take that gear, and through the genius of Prof. Proteus, Advance that gear to the next tier!
Advancing Have an Uncommon piece of gear with the stats you want early on? You can now upgrade that piece to its max level and once it’s maxed, you can Advance that piece of gear into Epic quality. The same can be done to go from Epic to Mythical, and from Mythical to Legendary. This isn’t the only form of improving your gear, which is where Evolving comes in!
Evolving Evolving is icing on the gear permanence cake. Regardless of a piece of gear’s quality tier, you can choose to Evolve it to bring it through the various Chaos levels. With Evolving you can now choose to push a sword that you found in Chaos II all the way up to Chaos VII, and beyond!
Upgrading, Advancing, and Evolving applies to every piece of gear that drops — weapons, armor, and relics!
ADVENTURES AND EXPEDITIONS
Adventures We’re adding in additional ways for both new and veteran Defenders to play! The Campaign is now different than many of you experienced in the past. After completing the Campaign, Defenders can now take on Adventures! These let you choose specific side stories to progress and prepare for the challenges that await you in Expeditions, Onslaught, Mastery, and Incursions provide.
Expeditions Map choice, map choice, MAP CHOICE! Something many have wanted is now here. The Chaos Trials are finished, and Defenders can now go on Expeditions throughout various Chaos difficulties. Do you have one favorite map to play, and just want to play that one as you progress through different Chaos difficulties? Now you can!
Expeditions also provide the ability to acquire different materials needed for new systems being added, such as Evolving and Tinkering. Different types of maps drop different specific materials as you play through a map and as you complete them. You can choose to farm for a specific material on a specific map, or play random maps that offer more materials. These materials are earned as you play a map and when victory is yours!
SHARDS
Shard Dusting Shards are a great way to really increase the power of the heroes you play. Some players enjoy playing only a few select hero, so it can be a real bummer if you get Shards for heroes that don’t fit your play style. Now you can take any unwanted shards and break them down into dust through Shard Dusting. You can take the Shard Dust from unwanted shards and trade them in for Chaos equivalent Shard Packs to have another try at getting the shard you want. You can use this process to help work towards getting the shards
Gilded Shards All our gear is getting the ability to be pushed past its limits, so it’s only fitting that Shards get the ability to as well. When you Gild Shards, you combine Shards of the same kind to unlock additional upgrade levels. This is a focus for end-game players to grab additional power in order to take on the challenges that Onslaught, and also protect their shards from being reset when attaining Ancient Power!
New Weapons!
Professor Proteus is a man of intellect, sophistication, and style. In Protean Shift every hero is receiving their own special weapons, with their own special appearances! Some of these weapons not only look legendary, but contain legendary power in the form of unique Mods. These Mods are found on the Prestigious weapons gained from attaining Ancient Power, though that’s not the only way to get them!
Player Shops and Markets
In Protean Shift, gear is no longer magically locked to each Hero Deck. Professor Proteus has slightly alleviated the restrictions that existed previously.
All Defenders will be able to list their items for sale on their own personal Player Shops. Most items that have not been altered in some way (think Upgraded/Evolved/etc.) will be available to post on your shop! You will be able to browse all the Player Shops from the Player List on the Pause Menu. Feel free to shop to your heart's content!
In addition to creating your own Shop, you’ll be able to enter the new Markets. From the War Table, you can browse lists of open Markets and choose which to join. Markets are themed for the various types of items that can be sold, but you can still freely sell any item of your choice while you’re there. If you don’t see a Market of the item type that you’re looking for, you can always just Quickmatch and it will automatically create one for you!
The Final Bean
We’ve been spilling the beans for a while now, and there’s one last bean that we have to spill — the release date. Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift is releasing on June 19th on PlayStation 4, Steam, and Xbox One! This release is very close to one year since we’ve released and there’s more to come.
Want More Info On Dungeon Defenders II?
Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
We’ve got one more Devstream to show off more stuff coming with Dungeon Defenders II: Protean Shift. Thank you for defending Etheria with us, there’s only more to come. Stay tuned!
For Etheria!
The Dungeon Defenders II Team
SHARD FEATURE PREVIEW — DUSTING AND GILDING
Greetings Defenders,
The update is coming along smoothly and lots of work is being done as we speak. We released two DevLogs over the past two weeks, and there’s one more coming, but we didn’t want to leave a week without any beans spilling, so we’re going to spill a couple today. Just as an extra note, some of the terms discussed here and any content is still subject to change. Let’s go!
Shards
Gear and stat changes affect the entire game, meaning Shards are also affected. With the upcoming update, just about every Shard is going to change as a result (get ready for probably our longest patch notes ever). They should more or less retain their same power, but because of the stat changes and base damage increase on towers, you may find some Shards way more useful than before! There’s also an additional feature being added that affects Shards, what we’re currently calling Shard Dusting.
Shard Dusting While a lot of Shards are gaining additional strength or coming into the spotlight because of tower/gear changes, there are many different Shards in the game. Very few people utilize all the Shards that drop. Some people like playing with the base four heroes and focus on Shards for them, and some like using just the Mystic and the Lavamancer. Getting Shards for the heroes you don’t use can sometimes feel like you aren’t working towards improving your own unique build. With Shard Dusting, you can now find a utility for unwanted Shards instead of just selling them for little gold.
Taking the Shards you do not want, and deconstructing them into dust, it now allows you to acquire another chance at getting a Shard you want. For a set amount of dust, you are able to go to our Shard vendor and trade your dust for another Shard container that contains a random Shard from the appropriate Chaos tier. This a feature the community asked for, and we’re here to deliver! Getting multiples of the same Shards also has an advantage as well.
Gilded Shards Gear is getting a major overhaul and additional features to increase its power, we wanted to give Shards some attention as well. With this next update, the Shards (both wanted and unwanted) you find are going to possess more utility than they currently do. Gilded Shards are Shards whose power pushes past the current limits. When gilding a Shard, they gain increased upgrade levels, increasing their power. That’s not the only bonus — Gilded Shards do not get reset when you attain Ancient Power, alleviating some of the currency costs that come with resetting!
Now you might be thinking, “Lawlta, how do I gild my Shards?”, and that’s a great question. Gilded Shards come from combining a specific number of the same Shard. We’re not announcing any specific numbers yet, but we want to make sure this feature feels good to use, and are getting great feedback from our RPG and RQA testers. The goal for this is to allow players who are pushing in end game Onslaught to increase the power of their favorite and/or most used shards. This is our first step towards adding more goals for end game players that have long lasting impact on their power.
New Weapon Models
Professor Proteus is a man of intellect and sophistication, but also a man of style. There are more weapon models coming for every weapon type this update, and they may be attained in a special way. Here’s a sneak peek of what our artists created:
2D Concept Art by Zack Smith
3D Models by Zack Smith
There are more weapons coming, this is just a sneak peek of the awesome ones we are introducing into this update!
An Even Further Look to the Horizon!
The beans continue to flow! The systems discussed here build upon all of the things we discussed in the previous DevLogs. Believe it or not (actually just believe it), there’s even MORE coming!
The next DevLog is going to be a summation of everything we put out so far, as well as a feature that brings together a lot of the features revealed in recent weeks. There may also be a release date in there that’s sooner than you (don’t) think. It’s going to be our last DevLog before we release the Patch Novel™ (calling them notes doesn’t capture just how gigantic that post is going to be).
A lot of the changes that are coming give us a lot to create additional future content. Many of the changes within this huge update, including Shard Dusting, are a result of community feedback on what Defenders want. The feedback all of you provide is incredibly important. Game development is a very arduous process, and at times can feel like we aren’t listening if the changes you want are not released very quickly. These changes (and ones coming in future updates) have a heavy community influence to them. You all are great at providing constructive feedback and it helps us make sure the additions we make are something you enjoy! :)
If you want an early look (as well as helping us polish things before release), our testing groups are just for you! There’s so much coming, and every bit helps to make this expansive update great.
Want More Info On What’s Coming?
Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
There’s even more information coming next week. We’re really excited to share the last beans of this update, and hope you enjoy what’s coming. Stay tuned!
For Etheria!
The Dungeon Defenders II Team
DEV LOG 98 — REFORGING, UPGRADING, AND EVOLUTION!
Greetings Defenders,
Our second DevLog has arrived as promised! These DevLogs are going to build upon one another, making the order of their reveals very important. If you have not had the pleasure of reading our previous one, click here. It makes a lot more sense if you understand what’s going on and why these additions and changes are important.
In the previous DevLog we talked about giant changes to stats and gear in Dungeon Defenders II. Every piece of gear is going to be affected by these changes. Critical chance, critical damage, and speed are revamped; base damage is boosted to compensate for these changes; and gear is gaining magical properties. These features and changes are to allow players to build how they want to and have the tools needed to take on challenges they encounter with the heroes they enjoy.
This isn’t going to be our last DevLog for this update, but there is a ton to cover here. The things we are covering in this DevLog continue to increase what we are able to do as we release future content. Enjoy!
A Quick Note From Elandrian
Colin Fisher (Elandrian) — Associate Producer
Hey, Everyone!
Just a quick check-in from me to make sure expectations are clear! All the features mentioned in this post are still work in progress/in development and shifting based on feedback and theming with our expansion. The names of the features may change, but the overall goal and core functionality will most likely remain the same.
I hope everyone appreciates the additional beans that Mark and Jose provide today. Beans are weird. Did you know the first game I worked on was as a designer for a certain popular baked beans brand’s website? True story. Anyways, back to spilling.
Sincerely,
Elandrian
REFORGING AND UPGRADING!
Mark Telfer — Technical Designer
Hey, Defenders!
In the last dev blog, we left you with some juicy tidbits about how we are revamping the gear system and adding new magical properties. If you haven’t read that one, go check it out now! At the end of the previous Devlog, I promised more bean spillage, and it’s time to deliver (TE-liver™)!
Magical Property Reforging
I’ve had the pleasure of playing a ton of the new content coming to DD2, and I’m having too much fun finding and utilizing the new magical properties on gear. I even found one awesome property that let my defenses counter those pesky Cyborks I was fighting! Truly some great stuff! I fell in love with the relic that the property was on and knew I wanted to perpetually bask in its intrinsic majesty. That is, I thought I did, until I found another relic with an equally amazing property a few minutes later. So there I was, staring down the barrel of a gut-wrenching choice. In a moment of passion, should I spurn my beloved Cybork-countering property for the new relic, or do I thwart this temptation and preserve the ardent bond I have with my current relic. I don’t know about you, Defenders, but my delicate little heart just can’t handle decisions like these. I knew that for the sake of Etheria, I had to protect all heroes from such agonizing choices. And besides, I’ve always been the type that wants to have his cake and eat it too.
So with that, I have one simple question for you, Defenders. Do you also like to have your cake and eat it too? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could discover two incredible properties on separate pieces of gear, and bring them together in a glorious union? With great pleasure, I can announce Magical Property Reforging, which lets you do just that. Cake for everyone!
Property Reforging empowers you to transfer properties from one piece of gear to another. Prepare to get crazy, creative, and experimentative! The only barrier between you and a perfect combinations of properties is your imagination! Fear not, for you don’t have to pray for an item drop that naturally possesses perfect combinations of properties. You, yes you, can mix and match them to your heart’s content. You don’t like a property on your favorite weapon? Overwrite that sucker with a better one. Want to give that weapon a boost! Throw a new property into a slot that rolled blank! Did you find a more powerful version of a property you are already using? Purge it for the better one!
So how exactly does this bad boy work, you ask? Well first, you must defend Etheria and reap the sweet, sweet gear rewards for doing so. Once you find two (or more) magical properties you want that reside on separate pieces of gear, head over to the town or tavern. Find a brand new character populating the town who loves to tinker with things, and initiate a Reforge. From the reforge screen, you select gear that you want to transfer properties from and gear that you want to transfer properties onto. You can then transfer any number of properties from one gear to another so long as there are available property slots. Once you’ve concocted a marauding masterpiece, confirm the transfer and get back to showing the enemies of Etheria who’s boss! Be careful though, the gear you transfer properties from gets destroyed by the reforging process and only the gear that you transferred properties onto survives.
You can transfer properties between two pieces of gear so long as certain guidelines are followed:
Properties must be transferred between two pieces of gear of the same type (both are weapons, or relics, or helmets, etc).
The gear you are transferring properties from must be earned in a Chaos difficulty that is at or below the Chaos difficulty of the gear you are transferring properties onto (i.e. you can transfer properties from Chaos V to Chaos VII gear, but not the other way around).
All properties on a piece of gear must be unique.
Only one elemental attunement is present.
Other than that, the sky's the limit!
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Mark! I’ve seen you on the devstream before! You’re a smart, good-looking, cool, weird-looking, strong, Mark-looking guy, but pray tell, you’ve overlooked something here! All of the new gear properties and reforging sound great, but what good is all of this if I’m currently progressing through DD2? I get a lot of gear upgrades each map. Doesn’t this mean all my gear and the effort I make reforging will quickly become obsolete?” Well, dear reader, you are correct. I am indeed weird-looking. You are also correct in that this does pose a challenge to this new gear system. The challenge here is what I like to call gear permanence, or in the case of the current live game, the lack thereof.
Gear Permanence and You!
One of the reasons I love working on (and more importantly playing) Dungeon Defenders II is because of how unique of a game it is. One of these unique aspects is how we handle hero progression after you reach level 50. As you test your might in Chaos Trials, gear is progression. Cumulative and incremental progress to your heroes comes in the form of a consistent flow of new item drops that possess increasingly higher gear scores. Equipping those items on a frequent basis raises your champion score, and building champion score unlocks new challenges for you to take head-on.
This system is pretty cool, but it’s not conducive to long-term attachment to a specific piece of gear. Since the Barbarian’s Wrath update, the loot system assures that the plethora of gear you earn continuously rolls higher gear scores so long as you’re playing at the appropriate difficulty. Throughout the course of even one map, you’re likely to see higher gear scores for a given slot many times over. This meant that swapping gear several times in one map would be a formidable progression strategy. The current system encourages, and in fact rewards you, for constantly swapping to new gear with a higher gear score. This system results in gear being ephemeral during progression and furthermore, relegates all of the new gear we are creating to nothing more than a short-term decision.
That’s not what gear in Dungeon Defenders II should be. Equipping behavior should be a result of careful and meaningful deliberation which rewards the opportunity to carve out a creative and unique playstyle. Having to constantly swap gear makes this deliberation fruitless and frivolous. We knew that if we are truly going to make the gear revamp meaningful, we must allow players to keep their favorite gear long-term and ensure the gear remained viable in the process. Essentially, we had to ensure that players had the freedom to make gear permanent if they desired.
Equipment Upgrading and Evolution
At the heart of creative and diverse gameplay is freedom. Freedom means emancipating players from constraints that would otherwise impede their goals as heroes of Etheria. Based on this sentiment, we’ve totally revamped the equipment upgrading system, and it is with great pleasure that I can announce the brand new system that will take its place: Upgrading and Evolution!
Now what do I mean when I say freedom? Buckle up! Our new system literally lets you take the first piece of gear you ever earn in Campaign and power it up to a strength that is greater than the current Chaos VII gear cap in the game. That’s right, Defenders. If you find any awesome piece of equipment that you like, you can keep it viable for as long as you want. Do you love the Harbinger’s shield that you get for completing campaign? You can power that bad boy up beyond the Chaos VII cap. Do you love a property the way I love the Cybork-countering property? Upgrade the gear that it’s on and power it up beside you as you progress.
So how does all of this work? Like I said earlier, the current upgrading system will be replaced. Gone are the days where you have a small amount of upgrade levels that max out. Instead, you will be able to take your chosen piece of gear through a two-step process called (new) upgrading, and evolution.
(New) Upgrading!
Every piece of gear will track the chaos level that it was dropped in. As you know, each Chaos has a gear score range that can drop, a min and a max if you will. That range will be abstracted to a meter on our new upgrading screen. Filling this meter will power your gear from the min to the max of the corresponding Chaos range. If you get a gear drop whose gear score falls somewhere between the min and the max, meter levels will automatically be awarded retroactively. Filling that meter substantially beefs you up and makes your enemies cower before your fortitude. Once that meter has been filled and you’re at the max of that Chaos level’s range, you’re not done —you’re ready to Evolve!
Evolution!
Okay! So your gear is beefed up, and you’re at the maximum gear score possible from the Chaos level the gear was dropped in. It’s time to evolve! Evolution allows you to break that gear past its current Chaos level and bring that gear up to the minimum of the next Chaos level. Magical properties see a massive strength increase when you perform an evolution to ready you for the next challenge that you undertake. The upgrade meter then is set back down to 0. You can keep repeating this process for as long as you wish to keep using a piece of gear. You can even use this process to evolve gear past Chaos VII! MIGHTY POWER AWAITS!
Upgrading and Evolution Costs
Currency cost, especially gold costs, will be substantially different than our current upgrade costs. You can spend currency for each upgrade/evolution you preform. Currency isn’t all you’re going to need to do this though…
New and powerful materials have been discovered across Etheria that make power boosts like this possible. With this update, these materials drop in specific maps and at specific difficulties as you defend Etheria from the goblin legion. Gather these materials up because they empower you to perform these brand new upgrades and evolutions.
The Road to Freedom!
So at this point you might be saying to yourself, “I want to gather as many of these awesome materials up as possible, but Mark just said that they only drop on specific maps. Right now, I can’t just choose a specific map I want to play, especially in Chaos Trials. Isn’t that a problem?” Defenders, I wasn’t kidding when I said that we are striving to give you the freedom to play the way you want. I’m going to let Jose take it from here and make our next big announcement. That said, I’ll leave you with this: Jose, the rest of the team, and I STILL aren’t done revealing all of the big things that are coming in this next update. We seriously have even bigger features to announce in the future. I can’t wait for more bean spillage to occur.
Love,
Mark
EXPEDITIONS!
Jose Villegas — Technical Designer
Hey everyone! Last week’s Dev Log was all about the changes to the core systems of Dungeon Defenders II. Now, let me tell you about the new stuff we are making, and things to get you even more excited for the future of the game.
One of the long standing pain points for the community has been the lack of map choice in Chaos Trials. With this in mind, I’m excited to tell you we have taken a look at this and the Trials are finally over. You now have Expeditions.
Expeditions take the same encounters that you have grown to love (and hate) from Trials, but adds the ability to choose any map you want to play. Actually, we have taken one step further and allow you to select any map that was previously unavailable to that Chaos level!
This new game mode also ties into our improved Upgrade system that we are unveiling today. In order for you to upgrade your items, and reforge your properties around, you must gather all sort of materials across Etheria. Each type of map (Town, Spooky, Castle, Forest, Ruins, and Dungeon) award you with different materials, so make sure to play all of them.
There are still a few secrets we are keeping before the release of the update, so make sure to keep coming back in the following weeks for more info!
Essentially,
Jose
A Further Look to the Horizon!
Alec Saare (Lawlta), Community Manager and Bean Overlord
Hey All,
As promised, the beans continue to floweth! The systems discussed here build upon all of the things we discussed in the previous DevLog (found here). There’s still more information coming (wuuuuuut), and as you can expect, it builds upon everything covered here! Crazy, right?
We talked about some major systems in the game here today. One of the common issues presented talking with all of you is that gear doesn’t feel special and that it doesn’t really matter until you’re maxed out. These changes are to help address that, and we are confident you’ll enjoy what we’re cooking up. Also Expeditions providing map choice, where have I seen that requested before? :) Your feedback is invaluable to the things we create. Though it takes time, we are always listening and trying to get everything possible into the game. Keeping your feedback constructive and objective makes it easier to find the things that matter most, and ways to implement it so that you not only enjoy it, but utilize potential new or additional systems. Now you may be thinking, what else could they possibly talk about next time with these changes. Here’s a small hint: there’s an aspect of gear you all use currently that we haven’t talked about yet. Is that vague enough? I think that’s vague enough. You’ll have to wait for the next DevLog to find out!
If you want a sneak peak (as well as helping us polish things before release), our testing groups are just for you! There’s so much coming, and every bit helps to make this expansive update great.
Smooches,
Lawlta
Want More Info On What’s Coming?
Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
We’re going to give even more details very soon! Our designers are excited to continue sharing what they are working on and explain what changes are coming and why. Stay tuned!
For Etheria!
The Dungeon Defenders II Team
Dev Log 97 — Stat and Gear Improvements!
Greetings Defenders
Our pledge with this gigantic update is to increase and improve communication. This is our first DevLog in a series of DevLogs coming your way! We recently teased big changes to two very important stats: Critical Chance and Critical Damage. There is so much coming with Professor Sebastian Proteus, here’s what he’s bringing in this DevLog:
Stats: Critical Chance, Critical Damage, Speed, and more are getting their impact cranked up!
Gear: Stats aren’t the only thing changing. Gear now has a primary and secondary stat, as well as unique magical properties to really amp up your playstyle!
Properties: Now a part of gear and relics, properties lend a much needed helping hand into bringing interesting builds to the Defenders of Etheria!
There’s a ton of information to cover here. These are the foundational changes that affect everything else you are going to see in future DevLogs. These changes open the door for a lot of features we are wanting to add. It’s a lot to take in, so let’s begin!
Stat Improvements!
Jose Villegas, Technical Designer
Hey Everyone!
I’m excited to tell you that big changes are coming soon to DD2. We have been paying close attention to the balance of the game for a while, so we took it upon ourselves to tackle several of the core systems of DD2, and how to improve them.
Similar to the recent changes to Shards and Gear Progression, the goal of these changes is to enhance your DD2 experience by making things as clear and simple as possible. To this extent, we modified and improved how stats work:
Hero and Defense Critical Damage: This was my biggest source of concern by far. Previously, Critical Damage was a separate stat that increased damage from critical strikes independently from your regular non-critical damage, which meant that one had no relation with the other. We felt that this directly conflicts with what most players would expect from a normal critical damage system, where your critical damage was a multiplier that affected your regular damage. So, we made precisely that change. With this update, your critical damage is a percentage that affects any source of damage. Whenever you trigger a critical strike, your regular damage is multiplied by your critical damage stat. Revolutionary!
Hero Damage, Defense Damage, and Ability Power: Since the overwhelming majority of your damage in DD2 came from critical damage sources, we are increasing how much damage your regular attacks, abilities, and towers deal. So whenever you login after the update, your base damage is now stronger than ever!
Hero and Defense Critical Chance: Now that your normal and critical damage pulls from the same source, we decided to also remove the 33% Critical Chance cap previously used. In order to encourage people to make whatever builds they find the most fun, we opened the floodgates and removed the crit cap!! Our goal is to make crit builds an option for players, and an actual choice rather than the only way to play the game.
Defense Speed: This is an obscure stat in the game. Each Defense currently has a Defense Speed stat that affects how fast it attacks, however, it was not very clear how much you gained whenever you increased it. Due to the fact that it was a numerical stat instead of a percentage, making the conversion between that number and the attacks per second is very difficult, since each tower worked differently. For example, the Defense Rate Shard increased your Defense Speed by 33%, but that percentage changed the stat, and not the actual attack rate, so it affected different towers in different ways. In this update, Defense Speed is also a percentage, and is directly tied to the actual attack rate of the Defense. Whenever you raise the Defense Speed you will know exactly by how much you are increasing that tower’s attack frequency.
Now, you may be asking, if Defense Speed and Critical Damage are changed this much, how does that affect gear? Well, we are improving the gear in the entire game! We know that right now gear is a little bit stale and lacking in variety, so we are introducing our new “Magical Property” (work-in-progress name) system on gear that is going to shake things up quite a bit. These new properties are all about gaining power in new ways, including Defense Speed and Critical Damage. We are going to update you with more info about the changes to gear sooner than you expect =).
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. We are listening to your feedback, and all of the changes we are doing are with the goal of making DD2 a better game for you. Thanks for enjoying our game, and please let us know how can keep doing better!
Essentially,
Jose
Magical Properties!
Mark Telfer, Technical Designer
Hey Defenders!
It’s been a while since I last checked in with you all, and boy, do I have a ton to share! We’ve been hard at work making some gargantuan additions to Dungeon Defenders II over the past few months, and I am excited to say that I can finally spill the beans on some of what the team has been working on. Hang on to your CatHatters, because gear in DD2 is in for a wild ride.
The Current State of Gear
As we were wrapping up the Barbarian’s Wrath update, I sat down with the team and we all took a hard look at gear. There were many things we saw as opportunities to improve upon. At its heart, Dungeon Defenders II is a loot-centric game. Conquering enemies and beating down precocious little gobus gives you a bonanza of gear drops on each map. Getting a piece of gear should be an exhilarating experience! That dropped piece of gear should represent potential untapped, possibility incarnate, and the spoils of victory well earned. It should inspire creativity in builds and a diversity of outcomes. In essence, gear equipping should be a meaningful and gratifying choice that lets you define your identity as a hero of Etheria.
Unfortunately, the current gear of DD2 falls a bit short of this goal. As most of you know, gear currently has a primary stat, a varying number of secondary stats, and a differing amount of shard slots (depending on its tier). There is a very limited number of secondary stats in the game, and this hampered the amount of unique stat combinations we could drop for you to play with. For example, a legendary medallion has every single defensive secondary stat on it. That means there is only one type of legendary medallion in the game! That’s the antithesis of giving players meaningful choices.
Exacerbating this issue, there was one particular stat that was of supreme significance - Critical Damage. If you’re not building for maximum Critical Damage right now, then what are you doing!? Critical Damage accounts for the vast majority of damage output a player can potentially do. This meant everyone was essentially building in a singular way. Boooooring! Needless to say, the design team knew we could do better.
Jose worked hard to bring order to the Critical Damage system (outlined above), and brought sanity to critical damage output; it will no longer disproportionately affect DPS. Because of this adjustment, we now had a ton of wiggle room within the game balance to introduce new ways for you slay enemies. That’s when things got crazy. The design team made a pot of coffee, locked themselves into a room, and started imagining unique, fun, and crazy ways that we could let the heroes of Etheria dispatch the goblin legion. The time has come where I can (finally) let you in on where we landed.
Magical Properties Everywhere!
With great excitement, I can announce that all gear in the coming update will have the chance to roll new, unique, game-changing properties that allows you to creatively concoct entirely new strategies in DD2. These properties are affixed to gear that drops and defines playstyles, empower creativity, and engender build diversity to the likes that Etheria has never seen. These aren’t your Grandma’s old gear passives! What are some of the insane things properties can do, you ask? Well, my friend…
Have you ever wanted to make goblins explode upon death and have that explosion ripple out onto the luckless enemies in near proximity? You can do that! Oh, did I mention that if you’re smart then you create a chain of explosions?
Have you ever wanted to make your cannonball tower deal elemental water damage? You can do that! Would you prefer a different element? Pandora’s Box has opened when it comes to elementally attuning non-elemental towers.
But despite how awesome both of those are, I must confess that I have a favorite. I’ve always had trouble with those pesky Shield Geodes. I love building Cannonball Towers and Poison Dart Towers, but those knuckleheads always reflect my projectiles. Well, they used to... until I found a property that makes projectiles penetrate shields. Just don’t tell Lawlta that I told you*. ;) (*Lawlta note: I see everything!)
These awesome properties, and many many many more, have a chance of dropping on the gear you earn while playing. The better the gear (mythical, legendary, etc.), the more properties there are. There will be properties for both your towers and your heroes, and they can be combined to glorious effect. And did I mention properties get crazier and more powerful the further you push in DD2?
These new properties will come to replace many of the secondary stats currently on gear. Don’t get me wrong, secondary stats such as Hero Health are still on gear, but there are less of them. Gear will soon only have one primary and one secondary stat.
Properties fill in the gap that the removed secondary stats left, and gear is vastly more interesting because of this. Instead of being forced to see and use the same four secondary stats, you now have a myriad of choices in which properties you want to play with. With all these changes to gear and items, one thing we did not change was shard equipping. Prepare to make some serious decisions on property combinations and how confluences of different properties that best compliment your playstyle!
I’d love to tell you more, but Lawlta is breathing heavily over my shoulder and I fear for my safety. However, I can tell you that this isn’t even half of what we are working on for this upcoming update. Seriously! This isn’t hyperbole! There is way more coming your way, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Until next time, Defenders!
Love,
Mark
A Quick Note From Elan!
Colin Fisher (Elandrian), Associate Producer
Hey everyone,
I hope that gives a little more information about some of the systems that are coming up in this expansion. I hope people get excited about our new Magical Properties (the name is a work in progress) and the other statistical changes on gear. In our playtests, we’ve seen that it’s provided some new defensive options that were otherwise unviable.
We’ll be releasing more information in the coming weeks to let everyone know about the plethora of system, balance, and content changes that are part of this expansion.
If you’re interested in checking out the changes early, you can join our playtester groups, the Remote Playtesting Group (RPG) and the Remote Quality Assurance (RQA). These groups have access to a test build of the upcoming changes and have been instrumental in providing feedback while we flip our balance on its head. If you’re interested, make sure you’re 18 or older, can test on PC (rewards are available to every platform though!), and contact our RQA Manager, Dani Moore!
(It’s dani dot moore at trendyent dot com. Why don’t links work well? I don’t know. We’ll fix it one day… Game systems are more important. Right? RIGHT!? PLEASE CONFIRM FOR ME.)
Lovingly,
Elandrian
A Look To The Horizon!
Alec Saare (Lawlta), Community Manager and Bean Spiller Extraordinaire
Hey All,
We discussed quite a bit of information here, but this is only the tip of the controlled burn and frosty mutated gobu-berg. There is so much more coming on top of this that we are going to get EVEN MORE information out soon. The bean spillage that occurred here will continue to flow!
The systems we are going to talk about continue to build off what’s discussed here, they're real game changes. All stats are being changed and rebalanced, new magical properties (work-in-progress name) are being added to really empower your gear. Seriously, some of them are crazy, and we took good care in making sure they also address some of the great feedback many of you have provided (thank you for all your efforts on that front). These changes really offer us a lot of opportunities to continue creating awesome and rewarding systems and features! As we release information, you’ll see how everything builds upon the previous post. There might even be some information about how game modes are affected or even more information about your gear coming! ;)
If you want a sneak peak (as well as helping us polish things before release), as Elandrian outlined above, our testing groups are just for you! There’s so much coming, and every bit helps to make this expansive update great.
XOXO,
Lawlta
Want More Info On What’s Coming?
Check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:
We’re going to give even more details very soon! Our designers are excited to continue sharing what they are working on and explain what changes are coming and why. Stay tuned!
For Etheria!
The Dungeon Defenders II Team
The Sky City Bank Arrives!
A red spaceship has arrived in Etheria! Dragonfall guards have questioned a small robot that says his name is “Protobot.” After a brief examination, Protobot hands a mysterious letter to the guards. Let’s open it and see what it says:
Greetings Defenders!
I thought everyone could benefit from one of my more recent discoveries that I’ve made in my research, my new Shrink-o-matizing technology! It really was just a simple matter of combining a crystal core with the matter quantizing array. This allows all sorts of items and materials to be stored at a much smaller size than before! This is only one of the many new item transmorphications that I plan on making.
I do hope that Protobot is in good health and did not damage anything upon his arrival. He’s had some slight malfunctions in his navigational subroutines recently, but his Shrink-o-matizer is in perfect condition! You can trust your items to be protected and stored properly upon the Vault Ship.
I can’t wait to arrive in Dragonfall to share all of my latest research with all of you. I simply was held up making some last minute adjustments to my latest creation, the Robo-witch Prime! Or was it Mecha-witch? Gunda-witch? Don’t worry, I’ll figure out what I’m calling it and head right over! I can’t wait to share all my latest findings with everyone! The Old Ones won’t know what hit them!
Sincerely,
Professor Sebastian Proteus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_00szBO9u7o
Patch 2.4 crash landed into the Dragonfall Marketplace today and is now live! This patch brings a highly requested feature in the form of a shiny spaceship — The Sky City Bank! With the bank’s arrival come some tremendous improvements to load times, optimizations, and bug fixes. Let’s get into it!
Sky City Bank
The Sky City Bank is now available! This futuristic bank is located directly behind the Emporium in Town, or next to the training dummies in your Private Tavern. The bank is used to store items that you want to hold onto, but don’t necessarily need on your journeys throughout Etheria.
For starters, every player gets at least one Bank Vault for free right when they login. This means if you only have the default inventory space, you now have that same default inventory space AND a Bank Vault upon logging in!
For people that purchased the old Inventory Packs or the Bag Booster Pack are going to notice a shift in their inventory. Bags obtained through those packs become Bank Vaults with this patch. Previously it confused players when they saw other players with ten or eleven bags, when they could only have eight. Because of this, we are standardizing inventory bags.
The change looks like this:
Pre-Patch 2.4
8-11 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
0 Bank Vaults
Post-Patch 2.4
8 Possible Maximum Inventory Bags
12 Bank Vaults
FREE Sky City Bundle
To celebrate the Sky City Bank’s arrival, we are offering a FREE bundle that you can redeem from the in-game shop for 0 Gems. This bundle awards:
One additional Bank Vault!
Shutter Shades Flair!
By redeeming the free bundle, you are able to start off Patch 2.4 with at least two free Bank Vaults! This bundle is available for two weeks, so grab it while it’s here!
Stack Splitting
This patch brings the ability to split stackable items into different stacks and amounts. For instance, if there’s a stack of 99 pet food in your inventory, you can now break it down into two or more stacks of whatever size you choose. Want to keep some items on you, but store the rest of the stack in the bank? Now you can do that! Stacks on stacks on stacks.
Transfer All
Now that the Sky City Bank is open for business, moving items quickly to the bank is a must. You can now move an entire bag full of items with one button press. The “Transfer All” button moves all non-locked items in the bag you currently have selected into the Bank Vault that you have selected. You can move Locked Items as well, they are just done individually. “Transfer All” also automatically stacks any stackable items so you don’t have to!
Load Time Improvements
Patch 2.4 contains an emphasis on inventories. Our Lead Programmer looked into ways our inventories could be better to really add some “oomph” to this patch. After investigating how profiles saved, loaded, and handled inventories, we made a lot of improvements when loading into any part of the game! Some players are going to notice drastic load time decreases, while others may notice slightly quicker loads.
General Changes
Pets
When at the Hatchery, eggs can be hatched directly. No more drag and dropping or incubating!
Visuals
Tower Inspect UI updated for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (PC already has this).
Zapper Kobold Flier now has a red outline.
Made Lavamancer Weapon drops larger, something hot now looks cooler.
Mana Node received some visual improvements.
Slight tweaks to some of the Barbarian’s Accessories.
Minor adjustments to the Barbarian’s whirlwind.
Blacksmith’s shop no longer has a confirmation pop-up for purchases.
War Table Cybork info now includes that they disable nodes.
Bug reporting page received updated buttons.
Audio
New audio cue for Wave Complete!
Betsy fight sequence in Dragonfall Bazaar received updated sound cues.
Added and improved on Berserker Orcs during the Glitterhelm matinee.
Hero Changes
Dryad
Corrupt Form
When building a tower in Corrupt Form, towers now gain the Corrupt benefits when placed.
Slime Pit Tower
No longer slow enemies that are immune to slow. Berserker orcs aren’t afraid of slimes!
Huntress
Shards
Explosive Poison
The shard is now working correctly, spreading poison if a poisoned enemy dies.
Shards
Inspiration
Can no longer be equipped to the Abyss Lord or EV2
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where EV2’s Proton Charge could produce higher than intended damage while gaining zero heat.
Fixed an issue with the Barbarian’s Leap preventing resource decay.
Fixed an issue where the Flamethrower Tower’s VFX did not get larger when defense range was increased.
Fixed an issue where Auto-Equip Relics did not work on the first press.
Fixed an issue where Chaos 3 Shard Packs were not on the Emporium.
Fixed an issue when comparing equipment on the Squire.
Fixed an issue where the Barbarian could get out of bounds in The Throne Room.
Fixed an issue where the Sub-Cores are on the incorrect sides in The Throne Room.
Adjusted the Dryad Starfall resource cost so it no longer overlaps.
Fixed an issue that allowed parties to play the tutorial maps (we are looking into letting parties into these maps down the road).
Fixed an issue that caused an infinite loading screen. Please let us know if you experience them after this update.
Removed the ability to auto-equip when in the Portal.
Fixed a bug where multiple towers could be placed simultaneously. May look into adding a stable version of this down the road.
Fixed an issue where several weapons were not consistently dropping in the world without their vfx visible.
Fixed an issue where the Lavamancer VFX would appear on some maps when using the Barbarian Leap.
Fixed an issue where the champion crowns were not properly rotated on hero cards.
Updated an issue where golden eggs would show up as a regular egg in several places.
Fixed an issue where purchasing the last item in the list from the Blacksmith or Relic Hunter shop using a controller causes the list to lose focus.
Fixed an issue where several items in the blacksmith shop were displaying improperly.
Fixed an issue where item comparison was not working for equipped items.
Removed references to the shards being equipped on the sell all message.
Equippable is now spelled correctly in the shard folder when you have no shards available for the gear slot. Stay in school kids.
Removed a reference to the old pet bag when trying to hatch an egg with a full inventory.
Fixed a visual issue where a large number of shards displayed the current upgrade level is in the wrong location on the tooltip.
Quest Complete pop-up will now say Daily Mission completed when completing a Daily Mission.
Attempting to equip a shard to an invalid tower slot throws either unknown error, or no error. Now has a valid error string.
Fixed an issue on XB1 where sub-core icons were not being removed after losing a sub-core.
The Sky City Bank is the first arrival for something much larger coming to Etheria. Over the next couple months we are going to be actively discussing the new features coming with our next expansive update. For more information sources as we post updates, be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter (doing so also gets you the Pirate Monk and Academy Apprentice skins for free):
We’re still tinkering away to get some gigantic changes to Dungeon Defenders II that we think you’re really going to enjoy. More information coming soon!
For Etheria!
The Dungeon Defenders II Team
BARBARIAN'S WRATH OUT NOW!
Greetings Defenders,
The Barbarian’s Wrath, Update 2.3, has stormed into Etheria! This update heralds the arrival of the Barbarian, a pure damage hero powerhouse; huge changes to item progression and gearing; shard changes to get you out of the inventory and into the battle; and updates to many important systems. Grab your axes, it’s time to slash through some barbaric patch notes!
https://youtu.be/FMSJV2vNb1w
NEW HERO: THE BARBARIAN!
“Hailing from the mountains of Etheria, the Barbarian is a notorious warrior king that can wield the powers of Wrath and Fury to crush his enemies. Becoming an unstoppable flurry of muscle and steel, the Barbarian can hurl himself into battle becoming a whirlwind of death. His foes tremble at the mighty shouts of this tremendous warrior leaping in to crush his enemies.”
The Barbarian is the first hero to have two unique resources: Wrath and Fury. Wrath is gained whenever the Barbarian deals damage, and Fury is gained whenever damage is received. In order to put out the most damage you are going to be in the fray constantly. Stance dancing and balancing your Wrath and Fury are your keys to being an unstoppable force!
The Barbarian is a hero with only damage abilities — four abilities and four stances that modify his play style:
Furious Slash
A mid ranged Fury resource spender that pierces enemies but does not trigger weapon shard activation abilities.
Staggering Shout
A mid ranged frontal cone debuff ability whose effects are modified by the Barbarian’s primary active stance.
Whirlwind
A powerful persistent AOE damage ability that gains different abilities based on the primary active stance.
Hawk Strike
A high damage short ranged attack that consumes all the Barbarian’s Wrath resource when used.
Tornado Stance
Increases movement speed, attack rate, and jump height, but primary attacks deal less damage. With Tornado Stance active, Staggering Shout and Whirlwind will slow.
Turtle Stance
Reduces attack speed and less mobility, but takes less damage and become immune to crowd control. Staggering Shout gains a stun and Whirlwind withers enemies.
Siphon Stance
Turned damage dealt with primary attacks into self-healing. Siphon Stance causes Staggering Shout to apply a lifesteal debuff to affected enemies, converting Whirlwind damage dealt into self-healing.
Lightning Stance
Gain bonus storm damage to primary attacks and chain storm damage every third attack. Each hit causes self-inflicting damage. Staggering Shout causes enemies to take more damage and Whirlwind gains chain storm damage.
Along with the Barbarian are a lot of visual additions. There are the four material effect costumes and the terrifying Blood Reaver costume with five additional accessories, twenty-seven different axes, and custom enemy death animations for smaller enemies. Send them gobus flying!
Loot Revamp
Item Progression Items and upgrades produced a lot of issues for players as they progress through Onslaught and Chaos Trials. With this update, we took a good hard look at items and progression. Players wanting to progress the fastest used a system called “muling” to have a steadier stream of gear upgrades drop. Now, mules are a thing of the past! Every piece of equipment that drops is now based off of the highest gear score you’ve seen drop. Not picked up, not equipped, but dropped. All of this is tracked behind the scenes, taking all of the spreadsheet calculating and muling away, so you can get into the action sooner!
Gear Score
We mentioned above that gear is tracked off of the highest gear score item you’ve seen drop. Gear score is a new take on a previous system used to display an item’s power — iPwr. This system previously did not reflect the strength of an item correctly, causing items that may not be upgrades to have a higher iPwr than equipped items. This affected item progression and the general flow of how players were intended to progress.
Hero and Champion Score
Hero and Champion Score are additional ways to help measure the strength of your heroes’ gear! Hero Score is the average of all the gear equipped to any specific hero, and is shown on your hero cards as shown above. Champion Score is the highest Hero Score among all of your heroes, indicated with a crown above your hero cards (and a smaller one on the hero with the highest Hero Score). These scores are used to let you know when you’re ready for growing challenges you encounter as you progress. To better smooth out progression, different Chaos Trials are unlocked once you reach the appropriate Champion Score.
Auto-Equip Gear and Shards
There is a lot to learn in Dungeon Defenders II in order to become the greatest Defender of Etheria! While gear maketh the Defender, it can be a lot to manage when learning the intricacies of every hero and enemy. To help through this process, we’ve created an Auto-Equip feature for both gear and Shards. Both buttons (located below your relics) have you confirm if you want to use this feature, and if confirmed, equips the highest Gear Score for every slot. For relics, it will discern between a blockade and towers, focusing on equipping Totems for blockades and Medallions/Marks for all other towers.
If you wish to only Auto-Equip the highest gear score per slot, you will be able to select the slot and “Auto-Equip Slot”. On PC this is bound to "U" by default; on PlayStation 4 by pressing “”; and on Xbox One by pressing “”.
Shards
Previously, Shards were placed into Shard Slots located on equipment. This system caused Defenders to spend more time in their inventory, moving shards around any time they received an upgrade or wanted to change their build than we liked. When progressing for the first time, or after gaining Ancient Power, this meant a lot of time spent managing your inventory.
In this update, Shard Slots are now equipped on equipment slots directly to your heroes! This means as you receive upgrades, you equip them and your shards stay put. You can still equip up to three shards per slot. However, all three slots will be active only if you have the appropriate tier equipped. Slot activation follows the same conventions it previously did, with Uncommon activating the first slot, Epic activating the first and second slots, and Mythical and Legendary activating all three.
In this update, shards that are on equipment already equipped to your heroes are automatically migrated to those heroes. You login and continue playing without having to manage the shards they were previously wearing. However, shards slotted into equipment that is in your inventory will be removed from the gear. If your inventory is full, the shard(s) are placed into Shards of Containment and sent to the Scavenger.
Incursion Weapons
Incursion weapons are very unique items in the game as they each contain unique passives that previously took up a Shard slot. With this Shard change, we wanted to make sure that Incursion weapons were still something players wanted to acquire. Now, all Incursion weapons will retain their passives AND have three Shard slots. We took a balance pass at these weapons as well, which we’ve included below.
What Happens To Stored Shards?
For users that do not have enough inventory space to hold all of the shards that was previously attached to gear, we've created the Shard of Containment. This Shard is a tool used to segway Defenders into our new Shard system while reducing stress of losing items many of you have farmed. Any shards previously in equipment that cannot fit in your full inventory with the Shard migration are placed into a Shard of Containment and sent to the Scavenger.
The Shard of Containment holds up to 16 shards before another one is created. These are located on the Scavenger and NEVER expire. Shards will be grouped by their upgrade level, bundling the highest Shards together, and the lowest Shards together. This makes it easier to decide which Shard of Containment to open in order to get all of your most used shards.
In order to use a Shard of Containment, you must have the amount of inventory slots open equal to the number of Shards located within the Shard of Containment. If you have 8 Shards, in order to open a Shard of Containment you’ll need 8 inventory slots.
Shards of Containment are a tool we’re using as we bring in our new Shard equipping system. There are more inventory management changes coming down the road!
New User Experience
There’s a lot for new Defenders to learn in order to properly defend Etheria, and it is not an easy undertaking! This update introduces a New User Experience to help acclimate new players understand the basics of the game without getting bogged down on reading tons of details and instructions.
There are a myriad of changes that go along with this:
New floating instructional text!
Tutorial level replaced with new animated interactions with Betsy!
Huntress available immediately
Ascension UI locked until 50
Mananode Changes Green mana allocation is now completely different! Mananode chests are a thing of the past, here’s what you see now:
Green mana is now automatically distributed by Mananode itself at the beginning of the Build Phase!
There is no longer a green mana cap. There is a green mana bar that goes to 2000 green mana. If you go above this amount, the bar starts to fill again!
Mana and gold collection radiuses are TRIPLED during the build phase. No more pesky out of reach mana!
These changes are an additional measure to allow Defenders to do the things they enjoy the most: building and fighting!
General Changes
When you create a hero, you can now choose to create them at your highest hero’s level or at level 1.
On gamepads, hitting Right Button + D-Pad Down will open the Inventory.
The D-Pad can now be used on gamepads to navigate the left side of the inventory.
Added East and West descriptors to subcores for Throne Room maps.
Added new Loading Screen text:
“Mastery provides some of the toughest challenges in all of Etheria but rewards you with powerful Hyper Shards, golden pets, flair, and more!”
“The stars you earn across different Chaos difficulties in Mastery pool together. Tackle maps in any order that you want to unlock rewards!”
“Defender Packs contain costumes, accessories, exclusive flair, and much more! Earn them by achieving victory on your current highest Onslaught floor!”
“Feeling lucky? Rerolling Defender Packs gives you another chance at earning rare rewards!”
“Beating Incursions allows you to purchase exotic weapons from the Wayfarer.”
“Got eggs? Visit the Stable Boy in the Town HUB or Tavern to hatch new pets!”
“Pet eggs that expire in your inventory will turn into resources that you can use to evolve your pets.”
“Get your style on! You can access the Cosmetics Manager from the Inventory.”
“Climbing higher in Onslaught and earning Ascension Levels allows you to unlock your Ancient Power!”
“Need a boost? You can spend gold and Defender Medals to upgrade equipment and shards!”
Defender Packs
We’ve added a slew of new costumes and flair to our Defender Packs:
Flair (crowns):
Ebonfire Blaze
Winner’s Crown
Flair (Wings):
Gilded Honorwings
Earth Drake Wings
Great Eagle Wings
Hive Strike Wings
Gargoyle Wings
Flair (Sets):
Bonemancer Set: Bonemancer Crown and Bonemancer Wings
Bramblewood Set: Bramblewood Crown and Bramblewood Wings
Costumes:
Gilded Chrome EV2
Rosen Chrome EV2
Amethysium Chrome EV2
Verdanite Chrome EV2
Carbide Chrome EV2
Incursion Weapons
Incursion Weapons maintain their previous effects as passives with the new Shard changes. With maintaining these passives, we took a balance pass to adjust some slightly overpowered passives, while buffing underperforming passives.
Molten Tome Now deals:
1000% (previously 950%) Ability Power per Meteor.
850% (previously 650%) Ability Power per Lava Fissure.
200% (remains the same) Ability Power burning over 5 seconds.
Haunted Halberd
Summons up to 5 (previously 3) Halberds that deal 250% (previously 150%) Ability Power.
North Pole
Secondary Projectiles now deal 350% (previously 1000%) Hero Damage.
Shadowflame
Now hits up to 4 targets dealing 75% (previously 135%) Hero Damage.
Glaive of the Storms
Storm deals 1000% (previously 1500%) Ability Power as Storm Damage.
Bolts deal 350% (previously 500%) Ability Power as Storm Damage.
All Incursion Weapons not listed here will have their max upgraded shard values applied to their new passives. For instance, Terra Blade’s passive will pierce up to 3 targets dealing 100% Hero Damage.
Hero Updates
Barbarian Abilities
Furious Slash: Mid-range attack that pierces enemies.
Cost: 5 Fury
Cooldown: 2 seconds
Tornado Stance: Hit faster, move faster, jump higher, but deal less damage.
Cost: 6 Fury per second.
Cooldown: None.
Turtle Stance: Take less damage, become crowd-control immune, but move slower.
Cost: 6 Fury per second.
Cooldown: None.
Siphon Stance: Gain Health Points while attacking.
Cost: 6 Fury per second.
Cooldown: None.
Lightning Stance: Attacks gain additional lightning damage, but self-inflict damage.
Cost: 10 Wrath per second.
Cooldown: None.
Staggering Shout: Debuff enemies in a frontal cone.
Cost: 15 Wrath.
Cooldown: 5 seconds.
Whirlwind: Deal Area of Effect damage to enemies within melee range.
Cost: 26 Wrath per second.
Cooldown: None
Hawk Strike: Deal massive damage in a small area. The more Wrath consumed, the higher the damage.
Cost: All Wrath.
Cooldown: 10 seconds.
Shards
Zephyr’s Warpath: Increase movement speed in Whirlwind by 5%-105%.
Found in Campaign.
Equipment Slot: Boots
Full Shell Ahead: Increases movement speed while in Turtle Stance by 25-525.
Found in Chaos I.
Equipment Slot: Boots.
Turtle Power: Increase Damage Protection while in Turtle Stance by 1%-21%.
Found in Chaos II.
Equipment Slot: Chest.
Cowabunga!
Echoing Shout: Increases the duration of Staggering Shout debuffs by 0.5s-4.5s.
Found in Chaos III.
Equipment Slot: Helmet.
Draining Strikes: Increase the healing from Siphon Stance by 5%-25%.
Found in Chaos IV
Equipment Slot: Helmet.
Maelstrom: While Lightning Stance is active, the Barbarian's attacks have a 5%-25% chance to drench enemies, stunning them for 1.5s-3.5s.
Found in Chaos V.
Equipment Slot: Weapons.
Talon Strike: Hawk Strike now stuns for 2s-4.5.
Found in Chaos V.
Equipment Slot: Weapons.
Boiling Blood: Causes the Barbarian to take 20%-2% of his Max Health as damage, every 5s during combat phase gaining Fury.
Found in Chaos VI.
Equipment Slot: Chest.
Shellshock: While Turtle Stance is active the Barbarian's attacks wither enemies hit for 3-13
seconds reducing their damage to 75%-35%.
Found in Chaos VI.
Equipment Slot: Weapons.
Ride the Lightning: Increase the damage bonus of Lightning Stance by 1%-21%.
Found in Chaos VII.
Equipment Slot: Gloves.
Wreckless: The Barbarian deals up to 0.5%-20.5% bonus damage based upon current Wrath.
Found in Chaos VII.
Equipment Slot: Gloves.
Bug Fixes
Adjusted Dark Arts Apprentice green clouds effect.
Fixed issues causing floors to appear black.
Fixed an issue causing crashes when opening extremely large numbers of Defender Packs.
Adjusted the material on the Yesteryear Nymph costume.
Fixed an issue on Nimbus Reach with the Victory Chest always being Powerful (green).
Fixed an issue on Dead Road in death areas where character models would fall through the map.
Fixed an issue with Direct Command not castable on multiple Skeletal Orc towers.
Fixed an issue where Slime Pits were not dealing damage to enemies affected by the Power Block mutator.
“To HUB” now says “To Town”.
Fixed an issue being able to play as a deleted hero.
Fixed an issue where Haunting Shard was not showing the correct VFX.
Fixed an issue when using a controller that would lock NPC/Object interactions.
Fixed an issue when multiple cores are active and one dies, it would show a dead core with 75% health value.
Fixed a split screen issue where core health bars were not displaying correctly.
Fixed a frame drop issue when inspecting a billboard and then looking away from it.
Fixed an issue with Betsy’s Curse zones disappearing when switching heroes.
Fixed an issue with The Abyss Lord’s primary attack SFX.
Fixed a split screen issue where health bars for Player 1 were appearing much larger than intended.
Known Issues
Inputs were reset for all platforms.
Sometimes you have to hit “Auto-Equip Relic” a few times before it works.
When using the All Bags option in the inventory and sorting items by Weapons, it will cause all items in the inventory to disappear. Purely a visual issues and toggling inventory bags will refresh the inventory screen and they will reappear.
Occasionally the Auto Equip function doesn't prioritize the highest gear score items first.
Occasionally players will get stuck on a black screen when trying to load into the Outdoor HUB. Restarting the game will fix it (or if you know where the menu options are in the escape menu you can click the Leave game button which will still work if you can find it).
Occasionally when booting up the game with the controller already active, the navigation focus will be on one of the social media links to the side instead of the main menu options.
The keybindings that appear throughout the tutorial maps don't show the correct button icons with custom keybindings set.
The icons of the towers on the mini-maps of the tutorial maps are different colors.
Some of the weapon firing rates did not carry over correctly.
DEV LOG 96 — BARBARIAN’S WRATH
Greetings Defenders,
In our most recent Devstream we announced that the Barbarian is making his glorious return to defend Etheria once more. His return is something Defenders waited for a long time, and he’s bringing some great features with him:
New Hero: The Barbarian, a whirlwind of wrath and fury!
New User Experience: New Defenders are thrown into the action of defending Etheria!
Shard Slot overhaul to spend less time in your inventory and more time on the battlefield!
Item Progression rework to increase power and knowledge of the gear you acquire!
We recently discussed the changes to the shard system and our item progression during our last Devstream (check it out here). Our latest Devstream recapped that information and also showed off the might and power of the Barbarian in all his glory! This update included a lot of work to create this new Hero and make some much anticipated changes to core systems of the game. Let’s get started!
Since working at Trendy, there have been two things that our brave, powerful, and passionate community of Defenders have wanted for a long time: The Barbarian and a way to track gear strength. Everything in this update has been affected directly by the feedback and desires that all of provide, and we’re very grateful for your help in making the game better as a result.
Creating The Barbarian was an amazing process to be a part of. We went from having a base design, and overhauling him completely to crank his epicness up to 11! There was a huge goal of capturing the spirit of the Barbarian from Dungeon Defenders 1 and turbo-charging that spirit. The result is a whirlwind of wrath and fury that is both an immovable object and an unstoppable force. HE. IS. A. BEAST.
With his arrival is something as a player I am stoked to see in the game — gear and shard changes. As someone who has gained Ancient Power and is climbing Onslaught, not having to move shards combined with the changes to gear progression and visibility feels so great! You’ll experience yourself very soon.
The introduction to Dungeon Defenders II is also vastly different than before. Our veteran Defenders are not exposed to this area of the game, but we noticed a lot of newer players were not getting pumped up with the original tutorial and so we set out to improve tenfold! Now new Defenders experience action from the get go, with a certain dragon really setting the pace of the rest of the game.
We cannot wait for all of you to really sink your teeth into this meaty update!
Colin Fisher, Associate Producer (Elandrian)
Hey everyone, just a quick update from me. I have been making larger posts recently about upcoming features so the Dev Log won’t have TOO many tidbits… but I’d like to give everyone some pieces to start thinking about. There’s some areas of our game that we’re planning to improve, so I’d like to clue you in on what those are. I’m sure I’ll have mentioned some of them before, but I’d just like to reiterate what we’re looking into next.
We’re looking at ways to store items, ways to create and customize existing items, ways to exchange items, and ways to enhance items. Did I mention that we’re heavily looking into making items more interesting? We have some features that we’re planning, but we’ll reveal more specifics about them at a later date. There’s a lot of ways we want to make the game more engaging and interesting to players, while also figuring out a plan to continue rolling out new content like maps, costumes, heroes and such. We’re a small team, so finding that balance between improving areas of the game while also adding content is a challenge.
We appreciate our community that are playing, giving feedback, and even just following our updates on the site, forums and social outlets. Can’t wait to tell you guys about what’s to come, so stay tuned!
Eric Petrie, QA Designer (Petire)
Being a Dungeon Defenders player and playing a ton of Barbarian in the past, I wanted to bring the visceral gameplay of jumping across the map at rapid speed while also clearing hordes of enemies and wiping bosses off the map with a speed second to none. One of my goals was to bring back the stances that made the Barbarian so much fun to play, flying between lanes and destroying any enemy.
He is meant to have some of the strongest and most fun abilities to use that require an active playstyle to have his damage reach its highest potential. Many different ideas were thrown around to allow players to interact with other players or other heroes/defenses; the end result is we wanted the Barbarian to be focused on just absolutely demolishing the hordes of monsters you face. This means that instead of being able to buff others, he can debuff enemies in some fun and unique way for other heroes and defenses to interact with.
Daniel Driussi, 3D Character Artist
I was recently hired at Trendy, and I am very excited to be here! When I started there was a working model of the Barbarian that was already modeled and textured by the previous character artist. Likewise this older barbarian was fully playable, but it did not meet the new look that we were trying to achieve. So my first task here was to model and texture the “New” Barbarian.
The process to create the 3D model of the Barbarian consists of a couple of steps. First, I took the concept art into Zbrush and quickly made a body. Then I took that into Maya to complete the rest of the modeling and created the clothing and armor. Many iterations went into making sure everything worked properly.
From that point, I took the model into 3D Coat and Photoshop to paint the textures. My biggest hurdle that I faced in getting the “style” of the textures of the barbarian was matching the look of Dungeon Defenders.
This took a lot of work, but I am glad to say that the hurdle was vaulted and the Barbarian looks awesome next to all the other characters in game. Now that he is finished, I really enjoy seeing this hulking mass of muscles, that I helped to get into this game, glide through combat like a beautiful murder ballerina!
Keith "Keithimator" Walheim, Animator
Hey Defenders! Rage, wrath and sheer power were just a few of the words going through my head while animating the Barbarian. Oh, and SMAAAAAAAASH! He is definitely not a dainty ballerina, but he is still quite an agile character. I would say one of the greatest challenges while animating this human tank was moving all that muscle mass around while making him quick enough to react for the Defender playing him. One way we approached this was to really focus on emphasizing the weight shift in his shoulders.
Some of my favorite animations that I got to work on for this bad boy were the death animation (finding interesting ways to make characters meet their demise can be fun), and the stances.
The four stances were challenging because of the animation needed to depict the functionality of the stance in a split second, while still showing the weight of this huge character. One of the animations that I had the most fun with was a one armed handstand pushup that unfortunately didn’t make it into the game, but you can see it here.
There is one thing related to the Barbarian I got to animate that I feel makes playing him a whole lot more interesting, the enemy death animations. Each time the Barbarian smashes a Kobold, Goblin, or Javelin thrower they will — well, give him a try and see what happens. Run, don’t walk!
Jose Villegas, Technical Designer (TrendyJose)
Hey Everyone! Since last update I have been ESSENTIALLY focused on various Quality of Life improvements. Chief amongst those is the revamp of the previous iPwr system. In theory, iPwr should have been a good indicator to know how strong an item is, but in practicality it didn’t reflect that. You could have an uncommon item drop alongside a legendary item and both of them would have similar iPwr, but because the legendary had multiple stats, it seemed to be way better. This led people into equipping lower iPwr items by trying to maximize their stats.
This also led to the ‘muling’ issue many of you are aware of. Since the highest iPwr of your heroes would determine the drops you see in the game, you were encouraged to have a throw-away character to get the best drops.
GearScore is the solution we came up for both issues. A piece of equipment’s GearScore value is determined after evaluating every single element of what makes it strong. That is the value of the item’s stats, the number of Shard slots it will enable, and the number of secondary stats it has. Like we mentioned in the Devstream, GearScore should give you the certainty that an item with a greater GS value is overall better than a lower one. Of course, if you are pursuing a certain strategy, you are encouraged to play the game your own way and ignore GS.
Alongside this, I want to say under no ambiguity: Muling is dead. The gear that we are dropping in the game has no relation, whatsoever, with what you have equipped, or what’s even in your inventory. The strength of the items that you see in DD2 is tied to your progression. The more you play, the stronger items you will see, across all game modes. Of course, each game mode and difficulty has a ceiling of the strength at which items may drop, so you are encouraged to always keep pushing higher.
On a different note, we also brought some improvements to Shard management. We want you to keep playing the game with the least amount of interruptions as possible, so we decided to streamline the Shard equipping process. Now shards will be tied to Gear Slots, instead of Gear. This will allow you to naturally equip better Gear, without having to move your Shards around to keep your same build. These Shards improvements come with inventory adjustments to the UI so you can quickly equip and unequip shards.
Anyhow, I’m sure these new systems will allow you to keep doing what you like to do the most: blasting goblins and building towers. I’m more than happy to listen to your feedback, post on our forums and I will see it. Happy defending =).
Mark Telfer, Technical Designer (TrendyMark)
Hey Defenders! From this day forward, I am officially taking all noobies under my wing! Since the Power of the Ancients update, I’ve been hard at work revamping the new user experience (NUE) of Dungeon Defenders II. Our goal was to make the first hour of the campaign exciting, informative, and most importantly, a showcase for what makes Dungeon Defenders II special.
Over the past couple of months we’ve brought testers into our studio and watched them play both the current tutorial level and the first hour of the campaign. These tests revealed that many people were confused about how to interact with some of the fundamental systems of DD2. Players were having a hard time understanding how to interact with gear that was dropping, they were forgetting to go to the green mana chests, and worst of all, many didn’t realize you could swap between different heroes!
It was clear that the new user flow needed an overhaul. The approach we took involved creating immediate stakes for players by throwing them straight into the action-packed combat of DD2. We also wanted to incrementally introduce the foundational systems of the game so that players could fully appreciate their intricacies. Finally, we wanted to present each mechanic in a way that is concise, clear, and within context that demonstrated its value.
After many late nights and frequent focus group testing of our work, I am very pleased to announce that my self esteem remains (mostly) intact and that our new user experience will be dropping “sooner than you expect.” Happy defending!
Love,
Mark
P.S. All of the designers read every single forum post. Keep the awesome feedback coming.
Dani Moore, Remote QA Lead
Our testing groups had fun putting the early Barbarian through his paces. The ability to combine stances made for some interesting discovery of combinations, but also some interesting bugs and balance issues over the course of testing.
The new shard slots were immediately pounced upon as a solid quality of life addition by most of the testing folks, and thankfully didn't present too many issues.
We're also looking to expand our tester pool once again. Our testers get the chance to try out our still-in development work, in exchange for some cool stuff as a thanks. They help us with balance, feedback and bugs and their contributions to our releases are very valuable.
We have two teams:
RQA - our daily bug hunters (for folks with lots of free time each day),
RPG - our larger team for balance and feedback (for folks with limited free time).
If you are interested, drop me an email at dani.moore@trendyent.com and ask. I'm happy to provide more information on both teams to see what best suits. A big thanks to everyone involved in the Barbarian and the heaps of work and sweat that went into it all.
