The Spring Forward Update is available now on PC & PS4!
We’re getting Dungeon Defenders II ready to leave Early Access (which we’ll talk about in more detail in the near future). We’re tying up loose ends, fixing the biggest issues, squashing the biggest bugs, and polishing the most visible areas. The Spring Forward Update is the beginning of this process, and you’ll see more improvements in our regular patches after the update lands.
Here’s what’s in the update!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr2t0AKuNto
Features & Changes
Two New Chaos Tiers
This update adds Chaos VI and VII, and with it comes two new enemies, better loot, new Shards and the return of many Shards that were unavailable since Patch 19.5!
New Enemy: Hex Throwers
With their mighty javelins, Hex Throwers curse your defenses from long range! You’ll first encounter these Olympic rejects in Chaos VI.
New Enemy: Kobolds
Keep your eyes on the skies! These flying EMP Kobolds disable your defenses when they explode! You’ll first encounter what is sure to be everyone’s new favorite enemy in Chaos VII.
Weekend Event: Free Ascension Resets!
To celebrate the release of the new Chaos difficulties, we are removing the cost of Ascension Point Resets this weekend! Tweak, test and get turnt* to your heart’s content while you hone your new builds. This event will run from Friday afternoon to Monday morning EDT.
Trendy Entertainment is not responsible for any turnt-related injuries.
Tower Skins
Finally! This was by far the biggest system we needed before our Early Access exit since many of you purchased a certain Collector’s Pack a long time ago and have been patiently waiting on certain Tower Skins. This update includes 8 sets of Tower Skins available for purchase and the Collector’s Pack Tower Skins given to owners of the pack and to our Defense Council members.
Tower Skins come in Sets, and each Set includes 4 Tower Skins -- one for every defense in a hero’s kit! The first sets are for the Squire, Monk, Huntress and Apprentice, and you can find these Tower Skins available for purchase in the new Emporium shop (available in the Heroes Marketplace or via the Pause Menu). Tower Skins for the other heroes are coming soon!
We've added a new Cosmetics tab in the Inventory, and this is where you'll equip Tower Skins (and eventually Costumes). In this tab, you can individually select which skin you want on which defense -- so if you want the Corrupted Poison Dart Tower Skin and the Defense Council Blaze Balloon on the same Huntress, go for it!
Defense Council/Collector’s Pack Tower Skins
On the Store Page, we said we were going to make 4 Tower Skins for the Collector’s Pack -- one tower skin apiece for the four original heroes. Well, we’re giving you 16 Tower Skins -- that’s a skin for every Squire, Monk, Huntress and Apprentice defense! If you own the Collector’s Pack or if you’re a Defense Council member, you’ll find these Tower Skins when you login. Thanks for the support!
PC Controller Support
We’ve added near-total PC controller support! Controllers will natively work for every command and every in-game menu except for the Options menu, which we’re hoping to get setup very soon!
Bag Auto Sorting
In this update, we’ve added an Auto Sort option to bags! When you select Auto Sort, items in the bag will re-organize by type (Weapons, Armor, Consumables, etc.), and within that type sorting, items will organize by rarity (for example: Legendary Weapons, Mythical Weapons, Legendary Armor, Mythical Armor, Consumables, etc.) While this option is on, items will automatically sort based on these rules. If you wish to move items around in the bag, you’ll need to turn off the Auto Sort function.
Defense Against the Dark Assassins
We’ve added a 5-second protection between Assassin attacks while playing and a 10-second protection from Assassins after respawning. No more permanent chain-silencing!
Open Trials Matches on the Game Browser
Now you can view every open public Trials match on the Game Browser! This is perfect for finding the map to begin your win streak.
New Town Marketplace
Our world artists really went to town on the marketplace!
badumtish* But seriously, it’s amazing. New out-of-bounds scenery. New buildings. New skybox. It’s just one of those polish areas our world artists wanted to get in before we left Early Access!
The Emporium
Another feature we’ve been putting off is a unified shop, and as we’re approaching our exit from Early Access, now is the time to add it in! From this one single shop, you can find almost all of our in-game purchases. The Emporium is also available anywhere via the Pause Menu.
Other Changes
Added a kill timer for Ogres and Siege Rollers that get stuck in the spawners.
Removed the Victory Chest cutscene at the end of a match.
Removed teleporting to Victory Chest at the end of a match.
Added a new Victory splash and new victory hero animations at the end of a match.
Selecting “To Tavern” at the end of a private match will take you back to the Tavern rather than the Town.
Items picked up manually will now follow your auto-collect filtering rules.
Added Forest Biome as a Forest map for Daily Missions.
Changed Item Interact keybind on PC to Ctrl + Left-Click.
We have removed Practice maps for the time being to reduce confusion while we work towards improving the overall endgame experience.
Removed the Forge now that all of the Forge UI is accessible via the Pause Menu.
Changed anything that said “Slow X%” to “Slow to X%.”
Added the War Recruiter (DM Shard Shop) to the Tavern. (He was previously only in the Heroes Marketplace.)
Betterfied the left side of the inspect tooltip. All numbers should now truncate properly and shortened numbers now show an additional decimal place.
Accessory upgrades can now be purchased and equipped from the Costume Shop.
Betsy Cluster Nades Shard is now a Weapon-slot Shard.
Updated various UIs to the new UI format.
Balance
Buried Bastille Map
Increased Buried Bastille’s starting mana to 2400 and DU limit to 2000.
Buried Bastille was consistently coming in as one of the hardest maps to complete in Chaos Trials. As a result, we’ve increased the starting mana and DU to allow for more defenses and to minimize the amount of hero intervention needed in distant lanes.
Skyguard Tower
Fixed the Skyguard’s rotation time to always exceed its firing time. This allows the Skyguard to fire as quickly as intended by its Attack Rate.
Defense Crit Damage
Adjusted the Defense Crit Damage Ascension Power per-point value to +20, matching the value used by the Hero Crit Damage Ascension Power.
This update should have rolled out with Patch 19.5, but we missed it. Previously, this power had inflated per-point values to make it more useful. With the rebalance to Defense Crit Damage scalars in every defense, this power should have been updated to provide the same benefits as the Hero version.
Poison Dart Tower
Poison Dart Tower Damage Ascension Power now correctly increases Defense Power, rather than raw damage, making this power useful.
Slime Pit
Slime Pits now scale with Defense Speed, which means faster-attacking Slime Pits that scale much better in Chaos Trials!
Also increased base scaling from Defense Power and Defense Crit Damage.
Skeletal Orc
Reduced the Orc Skeleton Direct Command’s damage bonus from Ability Power from 12 to 9.
This Direct Command has proven quite excellent at smashing single targets, and even after this update, the potential damage output is still quite monstrous with the correct shards.
Sandstorm Warrior Shard
The Sandstorm Warrior’s buff no longer stacks with itself.
Unfortunately, the stacking effect of this Shard was never intended and was caused by a technical issue. This is actually a bug fix, but since it has an impact on certain strategies, we’ve documented it here in the balance section.
Heavy Cannonball Shard
Greatly increased the damage of the Heavy Cannonball Shard, but reduced the duration of the stun and slightly reduced the proc rate.
During our last update, we modified many Shards that added stun, slow, and other utility effects to defenses. Unfortunately, we missed the Heavy Cannonball shard in that update. As such, we've gone back and updated it, bringing it more in-line with our other defense proc shards. The stun duration has come down a good bit, but it has been accompanied by a substantial increase in damage to help ensure it remains competitive against other Shards.
Bug Fixes
Thanks to all of the players submitting bugs on our Bug Reporting Site! As we get closer to our exit from Early Access, it’s vital that everyone is reporting bugs to the site and upvoting the bugs you feel are the highest priority to fix. Together, we’re going to fix as many bugs as possible! Let’s do this.
Fixed a crash that could occur while opening and closing the Scavenger’s shop? Is it a shop? He’s just fishing around in his jacket and giving you back your loot. That reminds us: Wash that loot off. Thoroughly. You’ve been warned.
Fixed an issue where the Abyss Lord’s secondary attack could fire faster than intended. This attack now has a proper absolute maximum attack rate like other ranged attacks.
Fixed a bug where the Dark Torment damage over time effect did not appear.
Enemies should get stuck less often in the Echoing Tunnel on Dragonfall Sewers.
Fixed a bug where Cyborks were not properly affecting the Fissure of Embermount.
All decked heroes should now heal to maximum health when entering Build Phase.
Taser Suit Shard now works on Assassins that are bound to the player.
Life Leech Shard now works on the Abyss Lord’s primary and secondary attacks.
Sundering Blows Shard works properly now.
Abyss Fountain Heal Ascension Power now works properly.
Power of Embermount Shard properly works, it does.
‘ey, you remember the Fire for Effect Shard? We hear it’s working now. And properly, too! Crazy, right?
Betsy Cluster Nades Shard. Work? Properly? Now? Yes. A thousand times yes.
Fixed a bug on the Water Elemental Shard where it was doing 30% additional damage of your Defense Power rather than 30% additional damage of the defense itself. In most cases, this was resulting in lower damage than intended.
Oil Geyser Slow Ascension Power wasn’t giving any additional benefit after 15 points; it does now.
The Trials Victory screen no longer erroneously tells players to Replay Map when there is no “Replay Map” button.
Fissure of Embermount now displays on the minimap.
Fissure of Embermount’s upgrade tier now displays above it.
Fixed a bug where the Angry Nimbus base Defense Speed was a teensy tiny bit higher than intended. Does not impact gameplay, just makes his stats less mildly infuriating to look at.
Several shards with stacking effects have had their descriptions clarified to reflect that they stack off any attack rather than only primary attacks.
Changed the description of the Overwhelm Shard to match the effects. This Shard procs off of both primary and secondary attacks (the old description only said primary attacks). Added a 3 second delay between procs to prevent issues with certain secondary attacks.
Unequipping Shards from an item while your Inventory is full will now tell you they were sent to the Scavenger.
Snipe Critical Power Shard no longer incorrectly increases the Critical Damage of primary attacks.
Fixed a bug where Flying Kobolds will always dive bomb Abyss Stones. They are now wise to the tricksy Abby.
Fixed an issue where Tomes could generate with elemental damage stats even though they weren’t being applied. This fix only affects Tomes generated going forward and will not reroll previously generated Tomes.
The Mystic’s Appeasement buffs now work properly again.
Fixed a bug where the Confuse effect in the Forest Biome was set to 60s rather than the intended 5s. Players were exploiting this to perma-cc the whole map.
Power Bolts Shard can now be equipped on non-Legendary Relics.
Fixed a bug where an area would become unbuildable if you kicked a player who’s in the middle of building a defense there.
Adjusted some spawners to properly block towers in the Assault on Throne Room.
Betsy’s name splash no longer stays on the screen after she comes down on wave 5.
The icon of the Monk's Chi Blast no longer shows up near the Scavenger.
Items are now successfully removed from the Blacksmith/Relic NPC shops when purchased.
Fixed the Fire Mushroom buff stacking issue.
Updated Earthshatter to correctly deal single-target damage on all attacks.
Shards that increase stats for defenses will now update the Inventory screen stat display for your current hero (fix for the other decked heroes coming soon).
Fissure of Embermount now plays upgrade SFX when upgraded.
Fixed some incorrect names and descriptions for maps on the Any Map section of the War Table.
Fixed an issue where enemies were walking through sub-objective lanes too soon before the lane fully opened on Greystone Plaza.
Fixed an issue with the Orb display in the Relic shops.
Gran Ma'ster and War Recruiter Shard Packs now use the right Shard Pack mesh (previously they all used the Chaos 1 Mesh).
Fixed minimap icon issue for the air lanes in Little-Horn Valley.
Galactic Weapons no longer drop 100% from Throne Room in any Chaos difficulty.
Fixed an issue where Shards were using the wrong tooltips when in the Scavenger’s dirty little hands.
There is now a visual indicator for activating Pet Abilities when using gamepad.
Fixed a bug where opening a consumable box with a full Inventory would send those items to the Scavenger; now there’s a pop-up telling you that your Inventory is full.
Fixed an inspect tooltip issue with the Hornet's Nest.
Minor update to the description text for Lightning Strikes Aura to indicate that it does Storm damage.
Tier 1-3 Abyss Lord Tomes now have names and should persist between map loads.
Fixed a bug where the titles of certain consumables were not wrapping. This was most obvious with unidentified Shards.
Fixed a UI issue with the Session List.
Fixed typos in several Shard descriptions.
Fixed the descriptions for Dawn of the Blood Moon and Buried Bastille.
Known Issues
(PC/PS4) Navigation of the Costume Shop with the controller has issues.
In some cases, the Emporium UI might get stuck. Hit ESC or Back on your controller to exit out as a workaround right now.
Ascension - Movement Speed power doesn't change the hero movement speed value on the left side of the inventory. Just a visual thing.
Heroes for Hire Board - All hero images link to the Dryad in the Create Hero screen.
If the user has more than 8 inventory bags, then the price of the "max out bags" bundle will go negative. (Nothing bad happens from it.)
Controller Input: With the controller active, if you cancel a purchase from an NPC shop the cursor moves to the top of the list instead of staying where it is.
The Costume Shop will not close correctly (leaving the character stuck) when you access it via the Emporium and close it by selecting the yellow "X" close button. Just open the shop again, and you’ll be ok.
Shards - Annoyance Shard effect stays in last location the equipped hero was present.
Haunting Shard - Gains stacks from secondary attacks, but does not shoot the ghosts.
Sandstorm Warrior - Bubble showing the buff does not last the full duration of the upgraded Shard.
The hatch button doesn't pop up when the egg is ready to hatch. Closing the UI or leaving/re-entering the tavern or marketplace should cause this UI to refresh properly.
On the PS4, opening the Emporium shop via the Colonel NPC and then selecting Browse All will cause the Emporium shop to not close correctly when you exit the Costume Shop/Create Hero screen. If you experience Emporium shop problems, transitioning to another map or pressing the circle button twice in the Emporium shop will correct the issue (fix incoming later this week).
The Spring Forward Update: Coming Next Week!
Birds chirping. Breeze blowing. Leaves growing. Springtime is here!
At least, that’s what we’ve heard. For us, this Spring means staying indoors and getting Dungeon Defenders II ready to leave Early Access (which we’ll talk about in more detail in the near future). We’re tying up loose ends, fixing the biggest issues, squashing the biggest bugs, and polishing the most visible areas. The Spring Forward Update is the beginning of this process, and you’ll see more improvements in our regular patches after the update lands.
So when will the Spring Forward Update come out? How about next Tuesday, April 18th? Does that work for you? Cool. We’ll put that down in our calendars then -- April 18th: Make Great Spring for Glorious Playerbase Nation. Done!
Here’s what’s in the update:
Two New Chaos Tiers
We told you the next Chaos tiers would happen soon! This update adds Chaos VI and VII, and with it comes two new enemies, better loot, and most of the Shards that were disabled in Patch 19.5.
So what fearsome new enemies are we adding now?
Hex Throwers With their mighty javelins, Hex Throwers curse your defenses from long range! You’ll first encounter these Olympic rejects in Chaos VI.
Kobolts Keep your eyes on the skies! These flying EMP Kobolds disable your defenses when they explode! You’ll first encounter what is sure to be everyone’s favorite enemy in Chaos VII.
Beyond these new Chaos tiers, we’re continuing to investigate changes to our loot system, difficulty balance and economy. Look for improvements in the coming weeks!
Tower Skins Are Here
Finally! This was by far the biggest system we needed before our Early Access exit since many of you purchased a certain Collector’s Pack a long time ago and have been patiently waiting on certain Tower Skins. This update includes 8 sets of Tower Skins available for purchase and the Collector’s Pack Tower Skins given to owners of the pack and to our Defense Council members.
Tower Skins Tower Skins come in Sets, and each Set includes 4 Tower Skins -- one for every defense in a hero’s kit! The first sets are for the Squire, Monk, Huntress and Apprentice, and Tower Skins for the other heroes are coming soon!
We've added a new Cosmetics tab in the Inventory, and this is where you'll equip Tower Skins (and eventually Costumes). In this tab, you can individually select which skin you want on which defense -- so if you want the Corrupted Poison Dart Tower Skin and the Defense Council Blaze Balloon on the same Huntress, go for it!
Defense Council/Collector’s Pack Tower Skins On the Store Page, we said we were going to make 4 Tower Skins for the Collector’s Pack -- one tower skin apiece for the four original heroes. Well, we’re giving you 16 Tower Skins -- that’s a skin for every Squire, Monk, Huntress and Apprentice defense! If you own the Collector’s Pack or if you’re a Defense Council member, you’ll find these Tower Skins when you login after the update comes out. Thanks for the support!
PC Controller Support
Speaking of support, in this update, we’re adding near-total PC controller support! Controllers will natively work for every command and every in-game menu except for the Options menu, which we’re hoping to get setup very soon!
Bag Auto Sorting
In this update, we’re adding an Auto Sort option to bags! When you select Auto Sort, items in the bag will re-organize by type (Weapons, Armor, Consumables, etc.), and within that type sorting, items will organize by rarity (for example: Legendary Weapons, Mythical Weapons, Legendary Armor, Mythical Armor, Consumables, etc.) While this option is on, items will automatically sort based on these rules. If you wish to move items around in the bag, you’ll need to turn off the Auto Sort function.
Breaking the Assassin Cycle of Silence
Let me speak! In this update, we’re adding a 5-second protection between Assassin attacks while playing and a 10-second protection from Assassins after respawning. No more permanent chain-silencing!
Open Trials Matches on the Game Browser
Now you can view every open public Trials match on the Game Browser! This is perfect for finding the map to begin your win streak.
New Town Marketplace
Our world artists really went to town on the marketplace! *badumtish* But seriously, it’s amazing. New out-of-bounds scenery. New buildings. New skybox. It’s just one of those polish areas our world artists wanted to get in before we left Early Access!
The Emporium
Another feature we’ve been putting off is a unified shop, and as we’re approaching our exit from Early Access, now is the time to add it in! From this one single shop, you can find almost all of our in-game purchases. The Emporium is also available anywhere via the Pause Menu.
Crit Update
After Patch 19.5 came out, a lot of you told us that crits were OPOP. We believe you! We’re looking into it, and we think we’re zeroing in on the reasons why. We should have some changes for this in the update. Thanks for the feedback!
Bug Fixes
No update would be complete without bug fixes! This update fixes, among other things, a long-standing firing issue with the Skyguard that made itself more visible in Patch 19.5. The Skyguard was firing at 60% of its expected fire rate, but now this baby is singing. We also hear Slime Pits are affected by Defense Speed now! The full bug fix list will be available next Tuesday.
Patch 19.5 Out Now!
Shard Changes
According to our recent survey, Shard drops were the #1 biggest frustration from the Trials update. Our biggest focus for this patch was to improve Shard farming time speed and improve your ability to specifically target farm the Shards you want.
Each Shard Pack now contains unique Shards. For example, Shards A, B and C can only be found in Chaos I Shard Packs, while Shards D, E and F can only be found in Chaos III Shard Packs.
This also means that Standard Shards will no longer drop from within Chaos Shard Packs!
Each victory in Trials will guarantee at least 1 Chaos Shard Pack from that given difficulty. For example, when you beat Chaos II Trials, you will be guaranteed a Chaos II Shard Pack.
Before, Shard Packs had a chance to give you 1 Shard from a pool of up to 120(!) different Shards. In the patch, we’re reducing the Shard pool per pack from ~120 to somewhere between 25-35 Shards per pack, which will increase the chances of getting the Shard you want when you open a pack.
Some Shards have moved around. If you'd like to know the new drop locations, you can use the following resources:
Some Shards have been disabled from dropping, but don’t worry, they’ll return with the new Chaos tiers just around the corner!
Standard Shard Packs and Chaos 1-4 Shard Packs are now available for purchase at the Gran’Masta and War Recruiter shops.
Victory Chests will now drop 2 Shard Packs guaranteed every time.
When you win, you’ll receive one Shard Pack from that difficulty and one Shard Pack from any previous difficulty (for example, if you beat Chaos III Trials, you’ll receive 1 Chaos III Shard Pack and 1 Chaos II, Chaos I or Standard Shard Pack).
By making Shard Packs drop unique Shards, increasing drop chances within a pack, guaranteeing Shard Packs per difficulty, giving you 2 Shard Packs guaranteed on every victory and adding a Shard bonus for consecutive wins (more details below), it’ll be much faster to get the Shards you want.
Trials Consecutive Win Shard Bonus
This patch adds the first pass on our Trials consecutive win bonus, which gives bonus rewards for winning consecutive random maps in Trials. This patch adds the Shard consecutive bonus; in future patches, it’s our goal to add XP and Gold bonuses, too.
Once you win 3 consecutive random maps in a row in Trials, you’ll activate the Shard consecutive bonus. On your 4th consecutive victory onward, you’ll earn an extra Shard Pack for as long as the streak continues.
This extra Shard Pack is a guaranteed Shard Pack from that difficulty.
That means once you activate the win bonus, you’ll get 3 Shards guaranteed every victory (2 Shard Packs of that difficulty, 1 Shard Pack from previous difficulties) until the streak is broken.
Sort Shards By Name
Another pain point brought up in the survey was the frustration of trying to find the Shard you want within your Inventory. A popular suggestion (both in the survey and in the community) was a Shard filter that sorts Shards alphabetically by name, and we were able to get it in for this patch! We’re investigating more Shard filtering options and possible Shard icon improvements for future updates.
Added the “Name” filter in the All Bags -> Shards section, which sorts Shards alphabetically.
Hero Management UI Changes
Something we’ve heard from players with a high number of heroes is that it’s difficult to navigate to certain heroes in the new Hero Management UI. These changes are aimed at alleviating that frustration.
Added a Quick Select option. Quick Select displays up to 18 heroes per page. Select a hero to go to that hero’s position in the Rolodex. More improvements to the Quick Select feature will come in future patches!
You can now interact with any visible hero card in the Rolodex. Previously, you needed to use the arrows to navigate through the hero cards. (FYI: You can also use the Middle Mouse Wheel on PC to scroll through your hero cards.)
Bag Quick Scrolling
On the PC version, we’ve added hotkeys that will cycle left and right through your bags! This should make moving items from one bag to another much faster, especially for those of you who don’t have a Middle Mouse Wheel.
Q and E will scroll between left and right between bags on PC.
Reminder: The Middle Mouse Wheel can also scroll through bags, too!
Return to Tavern No Longer Forces Everyone Back to Tavern
If one person selects Return to Tavern, that person will leave. Not you. You will Continue, baby. And you’ll keep Continuing as long as you want to Continue.
New Weekend Event Support
This patch includes the ability to do Weekend Gold and Weekend XP events! Perhaps you’ll see them soon...
New Title: Discord Defender
We’ve added a new title that you can earn by being active on our Discord server!
Defense Balance Changes
With this patch, we’ve taken a serious look at the viability of all defenses as well as how several of our specific defense stats scale, and we made some fundamental changes as a result. We hope these changes will make many defenses, at least when it comes to raw DPS and utility, viable in later Chaos difficulties. You can read an expanded explanation of these changes in our Patch 19.5 Preview blog.
Defense Power scalars have been refactored on all defenses. Every defense receives more damage bonuses from Defense Power.
Defense tier upgrades now increase Defense Power and Defense Crit Damage much more significantly on low-DU defenses than high-DU defenses.
As a rule, high-DU defenses are still more efficient at Tier 5 than low-DU defenses, but this makes the gap smaller and removes much of the penalty of using 20 DU defenses like Explosive Trap.
Defense Crit Cap increased from 30% -> 33%.
Note: Hero Ascension Powers no longer break the Defense Crit Cap.
Defense Crit Damage scalars on most defenses are set to 500% that of the Defense Power scalar. Exceptions apply to certain unusual defenses, like Poison Dart Tower and Obelisk.
Defense Crit Damage Cap increased to hopefully unreachable levels.
Defense Speed has been refactored to apply consistent benefits across all defenses.
Attack Rate caps have been refactored. Primarily damage-dealing defenses have rate caps of 4x faster than base Attack Rate. Primarily utility defenses have a rate cap of 2x faster than base Attack Rate.
We’ll keep an eye on this. We would ideally have similar rates on all defenses, but certain utility defenses become nearly unstoppable (by themselves) at very high attack rates.
Defense Rate shard no longer breaks the Attack Rate cap on a defense.
Default Attack Rate of some very-slow defenses has been slightly increased to reduce overkill damage inefficiencies on Goblins and other weak targets.
Lightning Strikes Aura and Earthshatter are the primary beneficiaries.
All defense-based stuns, slows, and similar utility effects, including those provided through shards, have had their durations updated to account for the changes in Defense Speed and Attack Rates.
In many cases, this means that the duration of these effects are slightly lower, as the defense can apply them more frequently at higher defense speeds.
Ascension Powers and Shards that increase the duration or power of stuns, slows, and other utility effects have also been rebalanced for the same reasons.
Defense Range Gambit Ascension Powers have been refactored and standardized across defenses.
All many-target defenses (like the Flame Aura and the Flamethrower) may now gain up to a 25% increase in range from these powers.
All fixed-target defenses (like the Hornet’s Nest and the Cannonball Tower) may now gain up to a 50% increase in range from these powers.
We will keep an eye on these values and adjust accordingly, but we want fixed-target defenses to receive larger benefits from range upgrades than many-target defenses.
Fissure of Embermount now benefits from Defense Speed.
Gunwitch Sniper Roost tower has double the default crit chance.
Snaking Sands now benefits from Defense Speed and no longer has a hidden 12s cooldown.
Sand Viper’s Defense Power scalar heavily revised. Should now be much more competitive with other fixed-target towers.
Obelisk’s Smite and Fire mechanics have been heavily revised.
Smite Damage and Rate are now displayed on Inspect.
Smite rate now properly scales with Defense Speed and no longer has hidden cooldowns.
Additional Obelisk buffs (Shield, Transmog, Bubble) now apply more frequently thanks to Defense Speed scaling.
Fire (from maximum appeasement) stats are now more clearly labelled on Inspect.
A chunk of the Obelisk’s damage output has been moved from Fire to Smite. While we like the mechanic of rewarding players for playing combat Mystics, we did not want the Fire effect to be so vital to the defense that the defense was useless outside of it. We’ll keep a close eye on this balance going forward and try to ensure its viability in a non-Fire spam role.
Lightning Strikes Aura health no longer breaks during tier upgrades, and the health has been reduced to sane values.
Reflect Beam description clarified to explain the Torpedo effect better.
All effects that modify the slow % of a defense or ability are now multiplicative, rather than additive.
Tier upgrades, Ascension Power upgrades, and shard upgrades that improve slows are now multiplicative, rather than additive. This means that a 10% improvement on a base 65% Slow will only reduce the Slow to 58.5%.
This was a necessary step to fix some defenses in achieving negative slows on enemies, as well as giving us more room to improve slows with additional shards / powers.
This affects the Oil Geyser, Proton Node, Frostbite Tower, and the Dryad’s Powder Toss ability.
Frostbite Tower's chill/slow effect has been rebalanced across all Ascension Powers/shards/upgrades (no more moonwalking…)
Through Ascension Powers/shards/tier upgrades, the maximum slow the Frostbite Tower can achieve is around 50% now, rather than being -15%...
Mystic’s Serpent’s Coil has been heavily improved.
Benefits from Mystic’s defense Ascension Powers.
Benefits from Defense Speed stat.
While it still cannot be upgraded, it is a very efficient 20 DU defense now.
Poison Dart Tower’s projectiles deal basic damage again. We will be revising this defense’s mechanics again once technical upgrades allow us to handle the Crit Damage issues more gracefully.
Frosty Power shard no longer stacks with itself.
We felt the power of this shard was strong enough on its own that allowing it to stack, especially in conjunction with a specific other shard, was giving too much bang-for-the-buck.
Colossal Fissure scaling stat changed to Ability Power and now deals damage properly.
Hero Balance Changes
Increased default mana regeneration on the Apprentice, Huntress, Monk, and Squire from 2 MP/s to 3 MP/s.
Abyss Stone damage increased by 10%, but Abyss Knight damaged decreased by 10%.
Abyss Lord's primary damage ability is intended to be his Abyss Stone, but we've noticed the trend is to spam Abyss Knight more so when it comes down to brass tax.
As a result, we're moving some of his damage dealing power from Abyss Knight to Abyss Stone to separate the functions of these two abilities a little more.
Fixed several Abyss Lord and EV2 ability descriptions incorrectly specifying they scaled from stats they did not scale from. Abilities scale from Ability Power.
Molten Brimstone Tome now has proper gameplay values, scales entirely from Ability Power, and functions more usefully at shard level 1.
Power of Storms shard has been refactored completely.
Shard description updated to state the new effect. When triggered, it increases mana regeneration by 20 MP/s for 3s but has a 10s cooldown (at max level).
Shards that deal damage directly now have proper, unique Crit Damage scalars.
Crit Damage from these shard attacks can no longer reach infinite values…
Campaign Balance Changes
Enemy levels in Campaign have been increased to account for the increases in overall defense damage.
Hero level 1 stats slightly increased to account for slight increase to enemy levels in campaign
Except EV2. Her level 1 stats were slightly decreased, because for some reason they were way, way, way higher than everyone else’s….
Certain intro enemies had their HP reduced in the campaign (Lady Orc, Wyvern, etc.)
Chaos Balance Changes
Enemy levels in Chaos have been increased slightly to account for the increases in overall defense damage.
We paid specific attention to enemies that are generally not affected by defenses (Witherbeast, Siege Rollers, etc.) and re-weighted their stats accordingly. They can still be slain in a timely fashion only by heroes.
In combination with the above changes, we’ve reduced the Chaos 1 enemy level by 10%. The result of this along with our defense balance changes should result in a smoother entry into Chaos 1. We’ll continue to monitor both player feedback and our internal data to see how players are progressing into Chaos 1.
Stuck Special Enemy Fixes
One of the biggest bugs we wanted to fix was the Stuck Special Enemy bug where Siege Rollers and other Special Enemies were getting stuck in their spawners. Our world builders have gone through the maps reported to us and changed geometry within the spawners that were causing trouble. If you see a stuck Special Enemy after this patch, please report it to our bug site!
Bug Fixes
<*>Fixed a crash when replaying The Wyvern’s Den.
<*>Fixed a duplicating bug in the Inventory.
<*>Slow improvements now show as benefits rather than negatives on all inspect and Ascension Power interfaces.
<*>Mana Bomb no longer causes the Flamethrower to stop attacking.
<*>Flamethrowers will now attack the Demon Lord.
<*>Fixed Shield Geodes touching Cores and setting them to 3K health.
<*>Shield Geodes moving over EV nodes will no longer create a Shield on the nodes.
<*>Frosty Bind Shard now properly improves slow speed.
<*>Howling Feast Shard now functions properly.
<*>Withering Fountain Shard now functions properly.
<*>Lateral Blast Shard now properly deals damage.
<*>Mega Rock Shard now properly deals damage.
<*>Rain of Oil Shard ignite now properly deals damage.
<*>Defense Crit Damage and Destruction Shards now work on EV2’s Buff Beam.
<*>Weapon Manufacturer now updates if you equip gear after it’s built.
<*>Monk Skyguard Slow Ascension Power now properly caps at 20.
<*>Lightning Touch Shard, Water Elemental Shard, and Shattering Torpedo Shard now deal proper bonus damage.
These shards had bugs that would sometimes cause them to deal considerably more or less amounts of extra damage. The damage stated on the shard description is now their actual bonus damage and should show properly as damage numbers.
<*>Fixed an issue where the Flamethrower would try to target enemies outside of its range.
<*>Fixed a bug where the Pumpkinator Shard was applying to defenses of the hero who equips it.
<*>Fixed an Inventory tooltip issue that would display items with the wrong item type information.
<*>Rain of Oil Shard description clarified.
<*>Bots of Oil Shard description clarified.
<*>Updated EV2 Shard descriptions.
<*>Updated several Shard descriptions that used incorrect stat names.
<*>Shard and Shard Pack tooltips now display their sell price.
<*>Mystic’s Defense Crit Chance Ascension Power now displays the proper number.
<*>When EV2 nodes are stunned, all nodes display the stun VFX.
<*>Fixed an issue where the Ascension Point displays would overlap.
<*>Updated The Dead Road boss schedule to spawn from Wave 2 onwards.
<*>Fixed goofy Monk weapon holding in certain situations.
<*>Fixed VFX on the Quake Shard.
<*>Harbinger Squad challenges updated to be completed on Campaign Hard instead of Nightmare II.
<*>Fixed a sub-objective naming issue on Forgotten Ruins.
<*>Gold Ingots now look like Gold Ingots instead of weird Gold Crystals.
<*>Campaign Relics no longer have a chance to generate with Defense Range.
<*>Fixed lighting issues on several maps.
<*>Fixed collision issues on several maps.
<*>Fixed several typo issues.
<*>Fixed an issue where some costumes were displaying incorrect names and descriptions.
Introducing Gobu Defenders II
Over the past year, we’ve worked under the cover of darkness on a game-changing update — so game-changing we’re compelled to do something special. Something extraordinary. The game is evolving. The name should evolve, too.
We’re excited to introduce the world to Gobu Defenders II!
Become a Goblin Warrior and defeat the evil Heroes standing between you and your rightful claim to the Eternia Crystals. This update introduces five new Goblin Warriors, completely new gameplay, the Commander system, and more.
Become a Goblin Warrior
Despite an average height of 4’10”, the Gobu Legion stands tall. The Legion represents all Goblins within the Old Ones’ Army, but only a select few are called upon to be Goblin Warriors. These brave few are gifted with incredible powers -- which includes the incredible power of dying fast and often!
Play as one of these brave Goblin Warriors in the update:
Mudgrinder, the Siege Roller Expert
Steampot, the Mech Engineer
Screechy, the Expert of Death
Fastrocket, Death with Wings
Mr. Bombs, the Demolitions Gobu
We’ll reveal the full powers of our Goblin Warriors in a future news update.
Begin the Gobu Assault
As a Goblin Warrior, it’s your job to lead the charge on the battlefields of war. Gone are the days of playing as those pathetic humans. They’re the enemy now! Beyond your incredible power of dying, your biggest strength is the size of the Gobu Legion. Your best tactic is to run in a straight line directly at their defenses. Don’t dodge. Don’t jump. Just run straight ahead until you overwhelm their defenses with your claws, your jaws and gallons of your goblin blood. And when their defenses are down, kill the Heroes, destroy the Eternia Crystals and then...the thing happens. You know, the thing. The crystal blows up, the world gets dark, and it has something to do with the Old Ones. There’s totally a strong lore basis for it. And it’s up to you to make that happen, gobu!
Become the Commander
The Gobu Legion is vast, but they need a leader. Someone cunning. Bloodthirsty. Someone willing to sacrifice as many gobu as it takes to win. They need a Commander. And they need You.
Every three months, a new Commander is selected by the community. The Commander is the ultimate authority over the Gobu Legion. Commanders decide where to attack, what resources to gather and what daily objectives to complete. As the Gobu Legion completes these orders, new bonus reward options are unlocked, and it’s up to the Commander to choose which rewards to give the Legion. Commanders also get a unique, full-size Betsy mount to display their awe-inspiring power to other players. Our first community Commander is none other than Dreamanime, whose dedication to the Gobu Legion is second-to-none.
Patch 19.5 comes out next week! This patch contains changes to Shard drops, balance, UI and more.
Ever since the Trials update, we’ve been working on improvements based on your feedback. We sent out a survey last week about Shards and the Trials playlist, and beginning with Patch 19.5 we’d like to start introducing most of those ideas into the game.
The full Patch 19.5 Notes will be available when the patch comes out, but below is an overview of the changes coming. More patches and improvements will come in the following weeks.
Shard Drop Changes
From the survey results, we learned that most players were satisfied with the concept of Shards but not with their current implementation. In fact, Shard drops were the biggest point of dissatisfaction in the entire update. The main areas of concern were the time it takes to get the Shard you’re looking for and frustration over the confusing setup of Shard Packs (which is what we call the containers you get from Victory Chests).
These are the areas we’ve focused on in Patch 19.5:
Improving Shard Target Farming Right now, Shard Packs do not drop unique Shards per pack. There’s a lot of overlap between different Shard Packs, which means players can get a Standard Shard from a Chaos III Shard Pack, and players don’t understand where they need to farm in order to get the Shard they’re looking for (say, the coveted Defense Range Shard, which can actually drop from multiple Chaos Shard Packs).
In Patch 19.5, each Shard Pack will have unique Shards. For example, Shards A, B and C can only be found in Chaos I Shard Packs, while Shards D, E and F can only be found in Chaos III Shard Packs. This also means that Standard Shards will no longer drop from Chaos Shard Packs!
Along with this, each victory in Trials will guarantee at least 1 Chaos Shard Pack from that given difficulty. For example, when you beat Chaos II Trials, you will be guaranteed a Chaos II Shard Pack.
With these changes, you’ll be able to specifically target the Shards you want. Once this update goes live, we’ll share the complete Shard drop locations on our Wiki and to those players who are making amazing webtools (like Czokalapik’s DD2Tools).
Improving Shard Farming Time Right now, Shard Packs have a chance to drop up to 120(!) different Shards. In the patch, we’re reducing the number of Shards per pack from ~120 to somewhere between 25-35 Shards depending on the pack, which will increase the chances of getting the Shard you want when you open a pack.
We’re also changing the drop rates and drop setup on Shard Packs in Victory Chests. Instead of having a chance to drop between 1-3 Shard Packs, Victory Chests will now drop 2 Shard Packs guaranteed every time. When you win, you’ll receive one Shard Pack from that difficulty and one Shard Pack from any previous difficulty (for example, if you beat Chaos III Trials, you’ll receive 1 Chaos III Shard Pack and 1 Chaos II, Chaos I or Standard Shard Pack).
We’re trying to get the first pass on the Trials consecutive win bonus into this patch, which gives bonus rewards for winning consecutive random maps in Trials. This first pass would add a Shard bonus. Once you win 3 times in a row, you’ll earn an extra Shard Pack on every victory after that for as long as the streak continues. This extra Shard Pack would be a guaranteed Shard Pack from that difficulty. That means once you activate the win bonus, you’ll get 3 Shards guaranteed (2 Shard Packs of that difficulty, 1 Shard Pack from previous difficulties) until the streak is broken. If the Trials win streak doesn’t go into Patch 19.5, it will be available in a patch soon thereafter.
By making Shard Packs drop unique Shards, increasing drop chances within a pack, guaranteeing Shard Packs per difficulty, giving you at least 2 Shard Packs guaranteed on every victory and adding a Shard bonus for consecutive wins, it’ll be much faster to get the Shards you want.
Sort Shards By Name
Another pain point brought up in the survey was the frustration of trying to find the Shard you want. A popular suggestion (both in the survey and in the community) was a Shard filter that sorts Shards alphabetically by name, and we were able to get it in for this patch! You can find the “Name” filter in the All Bags -> Shards section. We’re investigating more Shard filtering options and possible Shard icon improvements for future updates.
Hero Management UI Changes
These were discussed in a previous blog, and they’re coming in Patch 19.5! Something we’ve heard from players with a high number of heroes is that it’s difficult to navigate to certain heroes in the new Hero Management UI. We’re adding a Quick Select option that allows you to see a large number of heroes at one time and then go to that hero in the UI. We're also allowing you to select the other cards in the Rolodex view without having to click the darn arrows. This isn’t the end of our Hero Management UI improvements. More changes coming in future patches.
Bag Quick Scrolling
On the PC version, we’ve added hotkeys that will cycle left and right through your bags! This should make moving items from one bag to another much faster, especially for those of you who don’t have a Middle Mouse Wheel.
Return to Tavern No Longer Forces Everyone Back to Tavern
If one person selects Return to Tavern, that person will leave. Not you. You will Continue, baby. And you’ll keep Continuing as long as you want to Continue.
Defense Balance Changes
With this patch, we’ve taken a serious look at the viability of all defenses as well as how several of our specific defense stats scale, and we made some fundamental changes as a result.
Below is a deep-dive into how we approached balance for this patch and how we hope these changes will make many defenses, at least when it comes to raw DPS and utility, viable in later Chaos difficulties.
Defense Speed and Defense Power One of the biggest changes has been a complete overhaul of the Defense Speed formula. Previously, some defenses would benefit very heavily from Defense Speed, while others would hardly benefit at all. Some defenses had very restrictive rate caps, while others had very flexible rate caps, and that made it difficult to balance these defenses as item stats progress into Chaos 5 (and soon, Chaos 6 and beyond…).
So, we took a step back and rebalanced all Defense Speed scalars and rate caps across all defenses. Defenses scale consistently with Defense Speed now, such that +100 Defense Speed gives the same % DPS benefit to each tower. We also fixed a number of defenses that had hidden cooldowns that prevented their Defense Speed from correctly affecting their Attack Rate. There are still a few exceptions (Slime Pit still needs more work before it benefits from Defense Speed), but nearly every defense now benefits from it in an obvious way.
As to Attack Rate caps, we adjusted those to more consistent levels. Most raw ‘damage’ defenses (like the Flamethrower) can go up to 400% faster than their starting attack rate, while more ‘utility’ defenses (like the Geyser Trap) can go up to 200% faster.
We also looked at various utility effects, especially stuns and other forms of hard crowd-control. Those effects become more potent as the attack rate gets faster, so we made adjustments to the duration of many of these effects. We have a rough target ‘uptime’ that we try to maintain, and as such, most of these utility defenses saw balance updates to prevent them from reaching ‘infinite stunlock’ situations at higher firing rates. In addition, we also updated many of the Shards that add utility effects (especially stun procs) to ensure those also don’t develop into ‘infinite stunlock’ situations as Defense Speed increases.
Is this a buff or a nerf? It varies. Some defenses, like the Earthshatter Tower, were receiving very little benefit from Defense Speed, and this change results in substantial improvements. Others, like the Flamethrower Tower, were benefitting heavily from Defense Speed and will see no benefit.
But fear not! Across-the-board, we made increases to the Defense Power ratios of nearly every defense! Every non-blockade is now much deadlier to the foes of Etheria, especially in earlier difficulties, thanks to the increase in raw damage numbers. This increase is intended to help offset the loss of Attack Rate on some defenses, but you will definitely see some defenses (like the Cannonball Tower) once again strike fear into the hearts of Etheria’s enemies.
Also, we modified the base attack rate of some defenses (Lightning Strikes Aura, we’re looking at you) to try and reduce the amount of ‘overkill’ damage these defenses were inflicting on weaker enemies. Many single-target towers are much stronger in this update, and we hope you’ll try them out again! (To note: We’ve discussed other changes to single-target towers to make them more appealing, and we’ll continue to keep an eye on the community’s tower usage data and feedback for more improvements.)
Defense Crit Chance and Crit Damage Defense Crit Chance and Damage had similar scaling issues to Defense Speed. Both stats were very underutilized in earlier difficulties, making it hard for new players to appreciate the stat. Making things worse, we discovered several bugs with Defense Crit Chance where specific Shards and Ascension Powers allowed you to exceed the Crit Chance maximum, creating random inconsistencies where some heroes could have higher Crit Chances than others.
We’ve fixed all those bugs (we hope!) and also set new baselines. All defenses now have an innate Crit Chance of 10%, up from the old 3%, to make the Crit Damage stat more valuable early in the game. In addition, we increased the Crit Chance max to 33% on all defenses and fixed the bugs that were allowing various defenses to bypass the maximum.
Defense Crit Damage was re-standardized across all defenses to make it a much more valuable stat, rivaling that of Defense Power once your Crit Chance gets close to the max. In general, you should see much more value in the Crit Chance and Crit Damage stat on Defenses, as pretty much every defense receives much better benefits from the stat.
Defense Tier Upgrades Yet one more major defense change is the complete rebalance of how defenses progress as they receive tier upgrades in-game.
Some defenses scaled very poorly at later tiers, namely low-cost defenses like the Explosive Trap. Others gained massive benefits from each upgrade like the Earthshatter Tower.
We’ve redone every tier upgrade to provide larger benefits for low-cost defenses and less benefits for higher-cost defenses. As a general rule, higher-cost defenses still perform more efficiently at Tier 5 than lower-cost defenses, but with this rebalance, the gap is much, much, much smaller.
Fans of Explosive Traps, Oil Geysers, and other low-cost defenses rejoice, as you can now upgrade these defenses without fear of them becoming grossly inefficient by Tier 3+!
Max Target Changes Some defenses were limited in the number of targets they could affect, with the cap being 8 (some exceptions). Other defenses could affect an unlimited number of targets, and there was not a lot of rhyme or reason as to which defenses had caps and which did not.
As of this patch, all defenses have a max targets of 10. Defenses that used to have a max of 8 targets have been increased to 10, and defenses that had no cap are now capped at 10.
To note, these caps exist to try and make the balance between fixed-target defenses and many-target defenses somewhat plausible. We’ll keep an eye on it moving forward and make adjustments as the relative balance between these subtypes dictates.
Range Gambit Ascension Powers Not to sound like a broken record, but Defense Range had scaling issues as well, most notably with the inconsistencies between how the Range Gambits would affect different defenses. The Skeletal Ramster notoriously had almost no benefit from this Power, while Explosive Trap could alter the face of Etheria at maximum values.
And once again, we went back and re-standardized how defenses are affected by Defense Range. We broke this down into roughly two categories:
Fixed-Target defenses, meaning those that generally hit a set, small number of targets, will get large benefits from Range Gambits. This includes the Cannonball Tower, Hornet’s Nest, and others. As the range benefit to these towers generally doesn’t really let them clear a wave that much faster, they receive more benefit from Range Gambits.
Many-Target defenses, meaning those that generally can hit 5+ targets, will get much smaller benefits from Range Gambits. This includes defenses like Flame Aura, Skeletal Ramster, and others. (That said, the Ramster will get more Defense Range from the Gambit in this patch than it currently does.) As each range increase on these towers makes it more likely they’ll hit additional targets, these defenses receive less benefit than Fixed-Target towers from Range Gambits.
This is something new that we’re testing out for the first time, and we’ll continue to adjust the Gambits as we go along. This change does NOT affect the Defense Range shard Deadly Strikes, as we’ve left that at a flat % increase for now.
Enemy Levels and Stats
With all these defense buffs, we had to make a few tweaks to the levels of enemies to ensure they didn’t get blown out of the water. The level of all enemies, in all difficulties, across both the Campaign and Chaos difficulties has increased. But fear not, as your mightier defenses will make quick work of these slightly-tougher enemies! The net effect is that balance has taken a slight shift towards defenses, away from heroes.
To note, we paid special attention to enemies that are generally immune / unaffected by defenses and have altered their stats accordingly. Pests like Witherbeasts, Dark Mages and Siege Rollers, which are very difficulty to kill with defenses, have had their stats re-weighted to ensure they can still be slain by hero focus-fire in a very timely fashion.
Chaos 1 Enemy Level Reduction
In combination with the above changes, we’ve reduced the Chaos 1 enemy level by 10%. The result of this along with our defense balance changes should result in a smoother entry into Chaos 1. We’ll continue to monitor both player feedback and our internal data to see how players are progressing into Chaos 1.
Stuck Special Enemy Fixes
One of the biggest bugs we wanted to fix was the Stuck Special Enemy bug where Siege Rollers and other Special Enemies were getting stuck in their spawners. Our world builders have gone through the maps reported to us and have made changes to the spawners that were causing trouble. So far things are looking good, but if you see a stuck Special Enemy after this patch, please report it to our bug site!
Mana Regen Updates
We wanted the base 4 heroes to have a little more ability uptime to closer match some of the heroes like Gunwitch. As a result, we’ve increased the base mana regeneration of our core 4 heroes from 2 MP/s to 3 MP/s. This should have a big impact on Campaign (50% more mana!), and this should give roughly about 20% more mana alongside the Channel Shard.
But we must also mention we had to make substantial changes to the Power of Storms Shard. Sadly, the Shard was bugged -- it was giving some heroes nearly infinite ability mana, which was not the goal for the Shard! We’ve reworked this Shard, and it now provides a large burst of mana every 10-12 seconds, but it no longer feeds the hero a nearly bottomless stream of ability mana. The Shard’s description has been overhauled, so the actual impact/effect is clearly stated, and players can work out if they’ll benefit more from Channel or Power of Storms in their build.
New Weekend Event Support
This patch includes the ability to do Weekend Gold and Weekend XP events! Perhaps you’ll see them soon...
And More Bug Fixes
Which includes Shard fixes (hello, Frosty Bind), defense bug fixes and more.
Full patch notes will be available when the patch comes out next week!
Trials & Shards Feedback Survey [Now Closed]
Update: This survey is now closed. Thanks for the nearly 3,000(!) responses, and thanks again for your feedback!
Greetings Defenders,
We’ve created a survey to gather more feedback about Shards and Trials. This survey also contains some ideas we’re discussing on how to improve these two systems, and we’d love to hear your thoughts on them. Click here to fill out the survey!
Patch 19.4 is available now! Thanks again for all of your feedback so far, and we'll continue to make adjustments to the game in our forthcoming patches.
Here are the notes for 19.4:
Chaos Enemy Spawn Changes
Here's our Chaos philosophy: For each Chaos tier, we want to introduce enemies that counter certain defenses and strategies. Based on that, we want to reward you for recognizing and countering that threat. Each Chaos tier should have its own counters and strategies, and the build variety should be in the ways that you can counter them. Not everything should be effective, but there should be enough things that are effective to keep things interesting. Before this patch, the combination of Chaos enemy spawns muddied the enemy and defense counterplay. There were so many types of defense counters happening that there was a very narrow set of counters you could use, especially in Chaos IV and V. These changes are aimed at expanding the viable set of defenses per-Chaos.
Chaos II
Cyborks are an anti-trap/aura/node enemy. If you’re attempting to take down Cyborks with these defenses, you’re going to have a hard time. If you’re building around the Cyborks, we want to reward you for that behaviour. We don’t want to spawn enemies that also counter the defenses you would use to destroy Cyborks, so in Chaos II, there are no longer any Vanguards from the previous Chaos (Chaos I).Vanguards are replaced in the rollouts with standard enemies. We adjusted some of the support enemies (Dark Mages, Kobolds, Witherbeasts, etc.) in the same manner of reinforcing the Cyborks.
Removed Vanguards from Chaos II
New Chaos II Enemy List: Cyborks
Chaos III
Chaos III is all about the Shield Geode and blocking projectiles, so having Cyborks show up in this Chaos impairs your ability to counter the Geode. Again, we don't want to punish players for countering the Chaos enemy theme; however, Vanguards support the Shield Geode theme of projectile blocking, so you will still see them in Chaos III.
Removed Cyborks from Chaos III
New Chaos III Enemy List: Shield Geodes, Vanguards
Chaos IV
This Chaos is centered around the Berserker Orcs. Berserkers are all about being fast and dealing high damage upon reaching defenses, so using things like stuns and knockups to slow them down are your main counter for this threat. Cyborks counter most of those kinds of effects, so you won't see Cyborks in this Chaos tier anymore.
Removed Cyborks from Chaos IV
New Chaos IV Enemy List: Berserker Orcs, Shield Geodes, Vanguards
Chaos V
Chaos V is all about Dark Assassins. We want players to work together to get those pesky Assassins off, or if you’re solo, we want your defenses to have a clear line of sight on them to prevent them from teleporting and healing. So having Shield Geodes and Vanguards disrupts that, so you won’t see them in Chaos V anymore.
Removed Shield Geodes and Vanguards from Chaos V
New Chaos V Enemy List: Dark Assassins, Cyborks, Berserker Orcs
Once you try out these changes, let us know how they feel. We’ll continue to make tweaks to the experience based on what we’re hearing!
Siege Roller No Longer Destroys Traps, Auras and Nodes
Rejoice! The Siege Roller caused players to never build certain defenses out of a certain crushing fear, and we figured that with our Chaos enemies providing enough counterplay, we can remove this.
There's also a bug where more Siege Rollers are spawning than intended. We're looking into a fix for the near future.
Item Comparison Change
Now you can more easily compare two pieces of loot in your Inventory, even when the items are equipped. Pick up an item and hover over another item to compare those two items directly against each other. More Inventory UI changes coming soon! (Note: For now, the default Relic comparison popup is disabled.)
Multiplayer Enemy Scaling Reduction
It looks like the multiplayer enemy scalar was dramatically increasing the difficulty in multiplayer matches, so we’ve reduced the multiplayer enemy health and damage scalar from 35% to 25% per player. For multiplayer scaling, our goal is not to punish you for your playing with your friends. Our long-term goal for MP scaling is to increase enemy stats for each player added to ensure the content isn't trivialized and to increase the rewards you get per player added to encourage MP games. For the time being, we have reduced the enemy stat scaling per player added until we can make those changes.
Thanks for the feedback on this issue, and we’ll continue to make adjustments!
Campaign Changes
We’ve been monitoring progression from Campaign into the Chaos difficulties, and we’ve found we agree with player sentiment that the initial ‘jump’ is a bit too awkward to make. The goal with these changes is to make breaking into Chaos a bit more sensical and easy, by providing more Chaos-ready loot in the final few Campaign maps. We'll continue to monitor this and make adjustments as needed.
Secondly, we wanted to put an end to players blitz-farming Harbinger’s Warship as a way to get easy XP. While this wasn’t much of an issue for players at the appropriate difficulty, players with very high-end gear could clear the map much quicker than desired. As a result, this map now provides much better Campaign loot, but provides no experience after the first clear.
Assault on the Throne Room can now drop the highest power items in the campaign, the same as Harbinger’s Warship.
Harbinger’s Warship only provides experience on the first clear, and subsequent clears provide almost no experience.
The Harbinger himself drops over double the number of items (on average), making killing him far more rewarding for players gearing up for Chaos 1.
Construction Shard Update
We love the Construction shard, but we felt the repair rate bonus was starting to trivialize some encounters. A number of strategies started to evolve around repair-stalling enemies at blockades rather than building defenses to counter enemies earlier in-lane. We want to ensure that Construction remains a valuable shard, but as we move forward, we very much want to see key enemies engaged prior to reaching the blockades. As a result, Construction has lost some of its punch, although it remains a significant time saver when it comes to repairing blockades.
Base bonus decreased from +125% to +25%
Max bonus decreased from +205% to +75%
Ghastly Halberd and Lunar Portal Revisions
The summoned halberds came out of the gates a bit too high on the DPS. (That’s putting it mildly. Turns out it was the best weapon/shard in the game, for like, forever.) As such, Ghastly Halberd underwent major revisions to bring its power down enough that you might actually find upgrades that will replace it in later difficulties. Coincidentally, since everyone was blinded by the Ghastly Halberd’s total OP’ness, we also noticed Lunar Portal had similar issues (to a lesser extent), so this has received minor revisions.
Ghastly Halberd
Max Summons 5 -> 3
Halberd Damage scalar decreased 350% -> 150%
Halberd Attack Rate decreased by 50% (attacks only 2x per second now)
Descriptions of both of these effects now documents their damage, attacks-per-second, and lifespans.
Bug Fixes
Dark Assassins were unintentionally being instakilled by shattering and other instakill effects. (Next on our list is looking into the Frostbite fast-freezing bug.)
Worm Scarf now properly reduces damage taken, instead of increasing damage taken. We had thought that dying faster was going to provide an advantage on some maps, but it turns out we were horribly, horribly wrong, and we should have realized that players generally don’t want to die faster by equipping expensive shards. ;)
Goblin melee units had somehow starting equipping themselves with Armor-ignoring cleavers. We’ve discovered their treachery, and have forced them to start using their normal cleavers once again.
Gunwitch’s hands have become quite frostbitten, and she will no longer sometimes double-fire Ice Needle as she warms them up.
Enlightenment, a mythical Apprentice Magic Staff, is now equippable again, and will once-again generate as a random mythical weapon skin.
Fixed a bug where the Dryad came back to life with 1 health if she died in Corrupt Form.
Fixed collision issues on Unholy Catacombs.
(PS4) Fixed a bug where the Victory Screen wasn’t fully visible while in split-screen
(PS4) Fixed a bug where, while in split-screen, picking up or equipping an item would make it appear twice in the Inventory.
Known Issues
We’re taking a deep dive into the stuck Siege Roller spawns that are being reported to us. If you see a stuck Siege Roller, please report the map, lane name, wave and difficulty on our Siege Roller reporting thread.
EV - Shield Geodes moving over EV nodes cause the nodes to create a visual Shield.
Looks like a set of Vanguards and two Shield Geodes manage to sneak their way into Chaos 5. We'll nuke them.
We’re also investigating changes to our loot system, Shard drops, gold gain and more. Keep the feedback coming! <3
Changes Coming to Chaos, Siege Rollers and More
Greetings Defenders,
It’s been a wild couple of weeks here at Trendy. We’re excited to see people coming back and braving the Trials of Chaos. We’ve also truly appreciated all the feedback you’ve provided as it is helping guide our actions towards improving DD2 overall! As we mentioned earlier this week, we’re not done with the Trials update and have a series of changes we’re considering, implementing, and testing. Some are scheduled to come out next week, some are going to take us a couple weeks to complete, and others are scheduled to come out in future milestones. To show you that we are listening and taking your (sometimes soul-crushing) feedback seriously, we wanted to take some time to discuss some of the concerns you’ve raised since the Trials update:
Changing Chaos Enemy Spawns
Here's our Chaos philosophy: For each Chaos tier, we want to introduce enemies that counter certain defenses and strategies. Based on that, we want to reward you for recognizing and countering that threat. Each Chaos tier should have its own counters and strategies, and the build variety should be in the ways that you can counter them. Not everything should be effective, but there should be enough things that are effective to keep things interesting. Right now, the enemy and defense counterplay is muddied by the current combination of Chaos enemy spawns. There are so many types of defense counters happening that there's a very narrow set of counters you can use, especially in Chaos IV and V.
In next week's patch, we're changing the enemy spawns in Chaos II, III, IV and V:
Chaos II
Cyborks are an anti-trap/aura/node enemy. If you’re attempting to take down Cyborks with these defenses, you’re going to have a hard time. If you’re building around the Cyborks, we want to reward you for that behaviour. We don’t want to spawn enemies that also counter the defenses you would use to destroy Cyborks, so in Chaos II, there won't be any Vanguards from the previous Chaos (Chaos I).
Vanguards are replaced in the rollouts with standard enemies. We adjusted some of the support enemies (Dark Mages, Kobolds, Witherbeasts, etc.) in the same manner of reinforcing the Cyborks.
Removed Vanguards from Chaos II
New Chaos II Enemy List: Cyborks
Chaos III
Chaos III is all about the Shield Geode and blocking projectiles, so having Cyborks show up in this Chaos impairs your ability to counter the Geode. Again, we don't want to punish players for countering the Chaos enemy theme; however, Vanguards support the Shield Geode theme of projectile blocking, so you will still see them in Chaos III.
Removed Cyborks from Chaos III
New Chaos III Enemy List: Shield Geodes, Vanguards
Chaos IV
This Chaos is centered around the Berserker Orcs. Berserkers are all about being fast and dealing high damage upon reaching defenses, so using things like stuns and knockups to slow them down are your main counter for this threat. Cyborks counter most of those kinds of effects, so you won't see Cyborks in this Chaos tier anymore.
Removed Cyborks from Chaos IV
New Chaos IV Enemy List: Berserker Orcs, Shield Geodes, Vanguards
Chaos V
Chaos V is all about Dark Assassins. We want players to work together to get those pesky Assassins off, and if you’re solo, we want your defenses to have a clear line of sight on them to prevent them from teleporting and healing. So having Shield Geodes and Vanguards disrupts that, so you won’t see them in Chaos V anymore.
Removed Shield Geodes and Vanguards from Chaos V
New Chaos V Enemy List: Dark Assassins, Cyborks, Berserker Orcs
Once you try out these changes, let us know how they feel. We’ll continue to make tweaks to the experience based on what we’re hearing!
Siege Roller Changes
In next week's patch, the Siege Roller won't destroy traps, auras and nodes! Rejoice! The Siege Roller caused players to never build certain defenses out of a certain crushing fear, and we figured that with our Chaos enemies providing enough counterplay, we can remove this.
There's also a bug where more Siege Rollers are spawning than intended. This won't be in next week's patch, but we're looking into a fix for the near future.
Inventory Loot Comparison Improvement
In next week’s patch, we’re including a way to more easily compare two pieces of loot in your Inventory, even when the items are equipped. You can pick up an item and hover over another item to compare those two items directly against each other. For example, in the picture above you can see our friendly neighborhood QA maestro Petire comparing an unequipped Totem with an equipped Totem.
Comparing Upgraded vs. Unupgraded Loot
While this is still in the investigation phase and not scheduled for next week’s patch, we’re discussing how to improve the user experience of determining whether an upgraded loot drop is better than your upgraded loot. Right now, our idea is to display the maximum potential stat value so you can determine if that shiny new loot drop will be better once it’s fully upgraded without having to do tricksy head math.
(super work-in-progress shots)
Hero Management UI Improvements
Something we’ve heard is that players with a high number of heroes are having a hard time navigating to certain heroes in the new Hero Management UI. We’re working on a Quick Select option that allows you to see a large number of heroes at one time and then go to that hero in the UI where you can then put them into your deck, check out stats or equip loot without putting them into the Deck. We're also allowing you to select the other cards in the Rolodex view without having to click the darn arrows. These changes are not in next week's patch, but they are coming soon.
Bag Sorting
Another big pain point we heard is that players can no longer sort individual bags. We’re still in the investigation period here, but this is something we want to get in sooner rather than later. Once we have more to show, we'll show you in a future blog!
Thanks again for all of your feedback! While we don’t have concrete details to share right now, we’re also investigating changes to improve the new loot system, Shard drops and more. We’ll have more details to share in future blogs.
And as a final reminder: Our 3X Daily Weekend Event is live from now until Monday. Enjoy!
Love,
The Trendy Team
Hotfix 19.3 and 3X Daily Weekend Event!
Greetings Defenders,
Thanks for your feedback so far! Today’s hotfix addresses some of the bugs we’ve seen since the last patch, and we’ll have more fixes in our patch next week. Keep an eye out for our blog later today where we discuss the bigger changes we’re making to Chaos enemy spawns, Siege Roller, UI and more.
Also, at 1PM EST today, we're turning on 3X Daily Missions for the weekend! Enjoy!
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where Flamethrowers and Fissures would stop attacking
Fixed an issue where Colossus, Skeletal Orc and World Tree would take increased damage from enemies after upgrading
Fixed an issue that was causing the Cybork’s EMP attack to shutdown the Angry Nimbus, Moss Hornet’s Nest and Slime Pit from longer range than intended
3x Daily Weekend Event!
Get three Daily Missions every day this weekend!
Here’s how it works: Every 8 hours starting at 1PM EST today, you’ll receive a new Daily Mission until the event ends on Monday. Make sure you complete all of your Dailies to take full advantage of the event!
Mission Madness runs from 1PM EST today until Monday, March 13th at 2PM EST
The Endgame Update is Here!
Greetings Defenders,
Trials: The Endgame Update is available now, and the servers are back online! For an overview of the changes, check out the Trials Update Page.
This update represents our shared vision of the core Dungeon Defenders II gameplay experience. It’s the culmination of two years of new features, bug fixes and conversations with you about where the game should go. As a result, this update is MASSIVE. But it’s also not the end. From here, we’ll continue to expand our endgame with more Chaos tiers, more Shards, more maps, and … well, you’ll just have to wait and see.
On a personal note: We hope you love this update as much as we loved making it. Many of us gave up our holiday breaks, our nights and our weekends to make this update a reality. This game is built by the seemingly endless passions of our small team, and with your support, our game will keep growing and growing.
