Dungeon Defenders: Awakened News

[h3]DEFENDERS,[/h3]
We’ve shown two maps in the past two weeks coming in Episode 1, and now we’re excited to present… ANOTHER MAP! Wait, sorry, we read that wrong, it was supposed to say A NEW DDA CHARACTER. Wow, that’s actually way cooler. Let’s get into it!



As hinted at in our April Fools Day “update”, we misspelled the hero name as The Andrew (an anagram for Warden, what a coincidence). A guardian of the forest that was banished to the realm our heroes find ourselves in, The Warden joins our roster to help push back the evils that stand in your way!

In our surveys and roadmap voting, the Dryad from Dungeon Defenders II was one of the most requested heroes. The Warden is her spiritual successor, using the powers of the forest to take down any foe that approaches. Let’s dive into the abilities and defenses for this guardian of the grove.

[h2]Attacks and Abilities[/h2]
Developer Note: All of these things are subject to change in regards to balance, functionality, and visuals.

Weapon of Choice: Polearm



Primary Attack: The Warden swings her mighty polearm like a scythe clearing a field, destroying foes that stand before you in melee range.

Secondary Attack - Sprout: The Warden calls forth a sprout that erupts from the ground, dealing low AoE damage to nearby enemies, shooting a seed a short distance away.

• Normal Form: Picking up the seed instantly regenerates 15% of the Warden’s mana.
  
• Wrath Form: The seed grants increased damage and movement speed for 5 seconds.

Ability 1 - Mushroom Circle: Beckons forth a burst of mushrooms from the desired location.

• Normal Form: Mushrooms heal allies within the circle, while slowing enemy movement speed and reducing attack rate.
  
• Wrath Form: Enemies take damage while within the circle. After 10 seconds, the mushroom circle erupts, dealing damage and stunning all enemies within the circle.

Ability 2 - Wrath Form: Calls upon the power of the forest causing the Warden to surge with energy. Wrath Form increases the strength of all her abilities and defenses while active, regardless of range.

[h2]Defenses[/h2]


Defense 1 - Roots of Purity: Summons a blockade that can take a beating from enemies. Blesses the ground with the Zone of Purity around the roots that allows the Warden’s other defenses to be constructed. The Zone of Purity restores 1% HP per second to any hero within its coverage.

• Mana Cost: 20 Build Mana
  
• Defense Units: 1 DU
  
• Wrath Form: The Zone of Purity becomes the Zone of Wrath, dealing damage over time to enemies within its boundaries, while also slightly reducing enemy damage.

Defense 2 - Wisp Den: Opens a portal, pulling through three wisps that focus down enemies within its range, always prioritizing high-threat targets.

• Mana Cost: 50 Build Mana
  
• Defense Units: 4 DU
  
• Wrath Form: Wisps become enraged, attacking enemies at a much faster rate.

Defense 3 - Beaming Blossom: Grows a flower that collects solar energy that then goes crazy towards enemies within its range, shooting a pure continuous beam of solar energy that deals high damage.

• Mana Cost: 70 Build Mana
  
• Defense Units: 5 DU
  
• Wrath Form: The beam becomes magically empowered, piercing through enemies.

Defense 4 - Shroomy Pit: A pit appears that spawns a Shroomy, a brave mushroom warrior of the forest. Shroomies don’t have a lot going on in their heads, and as a result they do two things. Idly stand still, and as they spot an enemy, charge legs first (they’re a bit off-balance) and explode into enemies, dealing damage in a large area.

• Mana Cost: 40 Build Mana
  
• Defense Units: 5 DU
  
• Wrath Form: Shroomies enter their own Wrath Form, applying a damage over time effect to enemies hit by their explosion.

Defense 5 - Sludge Launcher: Vines and logs are infused together, pulling in toxins from the ground, shooting out giant globs that explode on contact, dealing a large amount of damage to the first enemy hit and heavily coat them in sludge, lightly covering nearby enemies in sludge, slightly slowing them.

• Mana Cost: 80 Build Mana
  
• Defense Units: 7 DU
  
• Wrath Form: If the Warden attacks heavily sludge covered enemies, they can be stunned for 1.5 seconds.

We’ve discussed on stream quite a bit, which if you haven’t been watching you should join us on Fridays at 3:00 PM ET, the new maps and heroes we are adding to DDA. The goal is to bring back fan favorites, while also bringing in brand new additions. We’ve also got a lot of fantastic never used characters in our vault that we’ll be using as a foundation and reworking to give them new life as they make their way into DDA. The Warden is further proof we’re looking at adding in the things you, our GLORIOUS DEFENDERS, want to see in future DDA updates.


[h2]What’s Next[/h2]
We’re going to be streaming The Warden THIS WEEK on April 23rd at 3:00 PM ET over on Twitch, showing off all of her nature-infused power. If you’re not able to make the stream, we post our VODs and a condensed version of the new info in a “Just the Beans” edit the following week on YouTube.

We’re also going to continue doing weekly reveals until Episode 1 is out in the wild, so there’s a lot to look forward to. With all of this going on, we’re still continuing our Nintendo Switch and PlayStation development. The console development takes the efforts of specific individuals, so while we’re showing off all the episodic content we’re working on, rest assured that we’re still diligently working on getting DDA onto the remaining promised consoles.

[h2]Social Defenders[/h2]
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

[h2]DEFENDERS,[/h2]
Every day we inch closer to releasing a lot of the awesome hard work that many of us here at Chromatic have been focused on in order to get some great content out to you all. That also means we inch closer to revealing a new part of Episode 1. Oh wait, that’s today! Let’s get into it.

[h2]New Weapons - The Woodland Set[/h2]
What would a new update be without new weapons? These aren’t all of the new weapons you’ll be seeing in Episode 1, but they are pretty friggin’ awesome! They are themed around the first two maps, being more focused on a living forest.



Bonus, there’s one in 3D. You’ll have to wait for the episode to release in order to see the rest!



Maybe they have something to do with our next hero? Nah, probably not. They’re just cool runic weapons from the woods, don’t need to think about it past that at all.

[h2]New Map - The Outpost[/h2]
As previously mentioned, we’re focusing on remaking some of our previous maps with some changes to gameplay, while bringing in a brand new map as the boss map of the episode. The Outpost is following that formula. The Outpost is a remake of the Drakenfrost Resort map from Dungeon Defenders II, a map that not many people have had the opportunity to explore and defend. It hangs on a cliff, overlooking where you’ve previously come from, and acted as a barracks of sorts to keep soldiers of Etheria stationed outside of town, with a giant belltower to warn of incoming threats.



One of the things we wanted to do with these maps in this act is have a seasonal shift as you play through them. You’ll notice a dramatic shift and change in the season and tone as you progress onwards and fight the enemies that await.



These maps are some of our favorites visually, and there’s still some you haven’t seen. There’s so much you haven’t seen yet… Maybe we’ll shake that up next week a bit. Maybe. Probably. Just look out early next week for some B E A N S. That’s the “What’s Next Section”. Watch, we’ll put all of that there.

[h2]What’s Next[/h2]
These maps are some of our favorites visually, and there’s still some you haven’t seen. There’s so much you haven’t seen yet… Maybe we’ll shake that up next week a bit. Maybe. Probably. Just look out early next week for some B E A N S. See, we did it. This is a callback to the previous paragraph. Something about these forests is driving us a little crazy.

[h2]Social Defenders[/h2]
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

[h2]DEFENDERS,[/h2]
We’ve been talking a lot about what’s to come in Dungeon Defenders: Awakened future, teasing at various bits here and there, and by making this sentence even longer, we’re still teasing more just putting off the inevitable of what’s coming your way.

Real quick, let’s talk about how Ramsters came to exist. Hamster and ram? That doesn’t even make any sense! Oh wait, you probably wanted to talk about the first thing. Okay, time to talk about the first thing. Let’s get into it.


Now what the heck are Episodes? Well in short, they’re our FREE major content updates, but MCU was already taken (you may have heard of it), so Episodes it is! We covered the “in short”, so now it’s time to describe the “in long”.

An Episode continues the story of our heroes adventure but it also does a lot of other things, specifically they ADD A LOT OF NEW CONTENT. But what is “content”, where does it come from, and does it truly exist? To answer in reverse order, yes it exists, we make it, and that first one is too philosophical, and we’re sure you want to get right to the good stuff.So let’s talk about what you can expect.

[h2]New Maps[/h2]
In each episode of Dungeon Defenders Awakened you’ll be receiving four new maps that increase in difficulty off the base campaign. We’re following a formula for the new maps where we provide a brand new map as well as recreate three fan favorite maps. Maybe we’re going to show off the first one later on in this post (spoiler: we are).

[h2]New Enemy[/h2]
With each episode, there will be a new enemy that comes into the fray. The new enemy will be similar to the nightmare enemies, bringing in new mechanics that you’ll need to thwart in order to achieve victory.

[h2]New Boss[/h2]
The last map of each episode contains a brand spankin’ new boss. These are similar to the previous bosses, requiring more active hero combat to take them down. They will be thematic to the content that we’re releasing, as well provide unique and thematic loot.

[h2]New Heroes[/h2]
Yes, that’s correct, PLURAL. Each episode contains two heroes, with one hero being a throwback to a previous hero, and the other being a completely brand new hero. These heroes are meant to stand on their own and feel wholly unique from one another.

[h2]New Gear[/h2]
We’ll be providing a slew of new gear that continues to follow previous item progression. There’s also a ton of fun stuff we’ll be adding (that we’ll get into in the coming weeks), that we’ll continue to build off of. Stay tuned for more info!

[h2]New Features[/h2]
This is going to be super nebulous, but there’s a lot of stuff we’re looking to add that really makes your journeys in Etheria a lot more exciting. More to hunt, more to do, more to conquer, more more more more more!

[h2]Quality of Life, Overhauls, and Polish[/h2]
We’re going to be addressing a lot of systems in the game that were put into a “good enough” state for our release, and getting them into a “great enough” state, if that’s a thing. For our first episode, this means overhauling the inventory and item tooltips (which we’ll be showing off in the coming weeks).

[h2]Bug Fixes, Balance, Etc.[/h2]
This is the stuff you normally see in patches, but of course it’ll be included in our Episodes as well. We’ll continue to get out patches to address these things.

[h2]Supporter Packs[/h2]
With each episode, we will be offering a supporter pack that players can purchase. These things offer cosmetic only items that apply to weapons and accessory slots. Since the episodes are free, we’re offering this as players have asked us for additional ways to support our development, and we thought this would be the most fair way to do so.


We’re going to be showing off pieces of the episode over time, and what better time than right after explaining what’s in an episode?! How about a piece of the first episode? Sounds like a good idea to us, so without further ado, here is the first map of Episode 1: The Mill

[h2]The Mill[/h2]


The Mill is the first stop the heroes make upon leaving the castle to continue their journey. They enter a bright and vibrant forest that used to be used to provide lumber and materials for building the castle and nearby towns. Though it seems calm and peaceful, an army of enemies awaits to prevent our heroes from pushing onward with their journey.



If you squint REALLY hard you’ll notice that this map is a remake of a fan favorite, and highly requested map, Mistymire. We made a couple of changes to make building defenses feel better, as well as modified some lanes to make things play out more smoothly. During the last wave, this map will also introduce our new enemy for the Episode. We’re wanting to make sure that as you play through the maps of each episode, you’re introduced to a new enemy over time while taking on potentially new mechanics depending on your game mode.

[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
We’re going to continue to reveal more and more about Episode 1 over time, with the goal of revealing something new at the end of the week, every week. If we run into any issues, we’ll let you know, but everything is coming together, so it’s time to start showing off some of our hard work. We hope you enjoy it!

[h2]Social Defenders[/h2]
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

[h2]DEFENDERS,[/h2]
Last week we ran into a few more bugs and community reports that we needed to address since our last hotfix. Here’s a patch for defenders that brings back the Monkey King’s damage, mana on Alchemical Labs, and a few other improvements that will make sure your focus stays on defendin’ Etheria.
Let’s get to it:
[h2]Content[/h2]

• Corrected scaling for Baby Phoenix pet’s attack animation.
  
  • Kept being reborn and having to grow up quick. Now it’ll stay the same size.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where the Monkey King pet did not damage enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue where mana was not dropping on early waves in Alchemical Lab.
  
• Fixed an issue where color sliders were not appearing as a selection when editing costumes using gamepad.
  
• Fixed an issue where old nameplates were appearing in game.
  
• Fixed an issue where clients’ enemy nameplates were falling through the terrain.
  
• Fixed an issue where skeletons' elemental immunities weren’t applied after resurrection.
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck when trying to find a path to defenses below them.
  
• Fixed an issue where pings on certain surfaces did not appear where intended.
  
• Fixed an issue where previously focused entries were still selected when navigating up the hero list.

[h2]Social Defenders[/h2]
To stay up-to-date on the latest news from Chromatic Games and the Dungeon Defenders franchise, follow us on all our social channels:

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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

[h2]DEFENDERS,[/h2]
Things are getting exciting here at Chromatic Games! With the official launch of Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, we’re celebrating with even more good news—a Day 1 Update with LOTS of exciting changes coming to PC. Last week we teased some of the additions, revisions, and fixes included in this latest update in our Update 1.3 Preview post. Now that it’s here, let’s break down what you can expect to see in Etheria after you’re all updated.
[h2]Content[/h2]
[h3]Tutorial[/h3]


We’ve updated the tutorial! With the addition of new tasks and tooltips, any player can enter the Deeper Well to brush up on their defending skills. Even the most experienced defenders can reap the benefits of a new tutorial, too. Everyone who makes it to the end of the new tutorial is rewarded with the exclusive Summoner’s Hood mask to show off their mastery of the basics!



You’ll also notice there’s a new objective tracker part of the tutorial. Expect to see this throughout the entire game in future updates!
[h3]Massacre Additions[/h3]After completing the tutorial, defenders can now test their skills in the new Massacre levels within Pure Strategy and Mix Mode. These new difficulties introduce immunity-granting Siren enemies to the game modes, and defenders are handily rewarded for their successes. Here are the new loot details:

• Quality of item drops was adjusted in Pure Strategy to be equal to Survival mode.
  
• Quality of item drops was increased in Mix Mode at Massacre difficulty.

[h2]Performance[/h2]
[h3]Enemy Counts[/h3]
To improve performance for all defenders across all platforms, we felt reducing the number of enemies on all maps in Survival, Mix Mode, and Pure Strategy would do the job. We specifically focused on lowering the amount of our weakest enemies first—goblins, archers, and wyverns—because they were jamming up the lanes and unnecessarily dragging out the time it took to complete waves. After we were happy with the improved performance from those changes, we moved on to lowering the enemy counts in Survival Mode. With fewer enemies, we also adjusted wave schedules, which should result in dramatically faster wave times. Here’s a breakdown of what you can expect to see in the improved Etheria:

• 70% reduction in enemy counts for Wyverns, Archers, and Goblins on all maps.
  
• 50% reduction in enemy counts for Orcs, Mages, Warriors, Kobolds, and Spiders on all maps.
  
• Adjusted wave schedules to decrease wave lengths.

Did you think you were going to get away with fewer enemies without any catches?? Of course you didn’t. We wanted to make sure the difficulty levels remained relatively the same even with the reduction in enemy counts, so active enemies are now beefier, meaning each enemy’s HP has been increased to compensate for the smaller crowds. With such a big change, we’re going to monitor the community feedback to make sure players are happy with the new balance.
[h3]Nameplates[/h3]
Nameplates are looking nifty now. We added missing nameplates above some enemies, heroes, and crystals, as well as cleaned up the general display of nameplates in game. Players should see a significant difference in the quality of the displays with this change and have a much easier time keeping track of enemy HP, a necessary feature to accompany the increased HP of enemies. Cleaning these had some nice performance gains for all platforms, so on top of looking great, they are also helping make the game run better!



[h3]Damage Numbers[/h3]
Get ready for some new and improved damage numbers during combat! Last week we showed you what changes were to come in this area, and now they’re finally here. Players should notice clearer and more consistent displays of damage numbers when attacking, and fusion hits on Rifted enemies will stand out with larger number displays. Like nameplates, we hit some optimizations here as well, so your performance is better while it’s also easier to read damage numbers than before.

[h2]Limited Login Event - St. Patrick’s Day Reward![/h2]
While today is already a super special day for us at Chromatic, we haven’t forgotten it’s also St. Patrick’s Day. To celebrate, we’re giving out a special green-themed goody to players who download Update 1.3 and log in to DDA by Monday, March 22. This special gift will be available for PC players today through Monday.



[h2]Steam Trading Cards[/h2]
You read that right - we’ve got Steam trading cards for Dungeon Defenders: Awakened now. Because we’re feeling generous today, here’s a sneak peak of a couple of the cards you’ll be able to collect:



[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]
Along with all of the exciting changes mentioned already, we also fixed a whole bunch of bugs that were bothering players (or helping them a little too much…). Here’s are the fixes defenders can see in the game.
[h3]General[/h3]

• Adjusted mask positions to better fit heroes.
  
• Fixed an issue where Steam Family Share accounts could play Online.
  
• Fixed an issue where “WASD” keys still functioned as movement inputs even when replaced.
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple players simultaneously swapping in heroes with Gem boosts allowed them to stack.
  
• Fixed an issue where accessories didn’t fade out when cameras switched to first person while players were backed up against a wall.

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck in Magus Quarters.
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies were stuck in Endless Spires.
  
• Fixed an issue where enemies were getting stuck in the Throne Room.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sirens would not attack heroes.
  
• Fixed an issue where Skeletons would not show they had full health when resurrected by themselves.

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where defenses were able to be placed above the spawn door in Glitterhelm Caverns.
  
• Fixed an issue where defenses were able to be placed near the bottom of Lava Mines.
  
• Fixed an issue where some tooltips would not appear after cancelling the placement of multiple defenses.
  
• Fixed an issue where the inferno trap was not affecting enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue where leaving and rejoining a match to let players place multiple Fusion defenses wasn’t working properly.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Gem pet boost flickered on and off periodically.
  
• Fixed an issue where traps with Use Scale after swapping would have a very small scale.

[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
While we’ll be monitoring this release and update, addressing any issues that may arise, we’re currently hard at work on getting our other ports for Nintendo Switch and PlayStation out the door to many eager Defenders. That’s not all, as we’re also getting a ton of work done on brand new content, including heroes, maps, enemies, and so much more! We’ll be getting word out soon to give all Defenders insight into what’s coming for DDA, and maybe a tease or two along the way.

[h2]Social Defenders[/h2]
To get reliable updates on all things DDA, make sure to follow us on all our social platforms:

• Discord
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For Etheria!
Chromatic Games