Dungeon Defenders: Awakened News

DDA Pre-Episode 2 Patch 1 PTR Update

DEFENDERS,

We will be extending this PTR for one more week, as expected. We have made a handful of changes based on the data we have collected so far, and will be keeping a close eye on things as we move forward. We anticipate pushing the patch to the live game once we make any final changes and pass certification for consoles. If you are still looking to take part in the PTR to test these new changes, follow these instructions. We have also added a section to the bottom of the survey to reflect these new changes, so make sure to go back and edit your surveys.

[h2]Feature Update[/h2]
The new Smart Upgrade system now has a more defined priority list. Towers will now be upgraded in the order of their priority fully before going down to a lower priority tower. Two towers of the same priority will alternate between the lower upgrade level. The priority list is now:

Overclock Beam
DPS Towers / Traps / Auras
Blockades
Everything else
Reflect Field

Example 1: If you have a Harpoon Tower and a Spike Blockade, the Harpoon Turret will get upgraded fully before the Spike Blockade receives any upgrades.

Example 2: if you have 2 Harpoon towers and a Spike blockade, it will alternate upgrading the 2 Harpoon Towers to full before targeting the Spike Blockade.

[h2]Balance[/h2]

Harpoon Turret

Damage Increased from 66 to 73

Magic Missile Tower

Damage Scaling Increased from 1.6 to 1.75

Lightning Tower

Damage Increased from 20 to 22

Thunder Spike Trap

Can now be overlapped with other Thunder Spike Traps outside of a small radius.
Developer Note: This is something that people have suggested in their surveys and we wanted to experiment with this to see how players use this.

Siren

Increased Base Health from from 8000 to 8190
Increased Health Scalar from 200 to 225
Reduced range of projectile attack from 1500 to 800 units

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Fixed an issue where the client would occasionally crash when culling an item.
Fixed an issue where the session browser displays 9999 games found instead of 0 when no games found on initial open.
Fixed an issue where refreshing the Session Browser when there are no sessions will hide the X Games Found text instead of saying 0.
Fixed an issue where the Siren icon on the Tactical Map was too large.
Fixed an issue where a Siren hitting the core would say the incorrect enemy name.
Fixed an issue where traps didn’t show their effect range when activating tower view.
Fixed an issue where EV’s node-based defenses weren't showing as invalid for their placement decal.
Fixed an issue where the PTR session browser was region locked.
Fixed some additional backend issues with Session Browser with games not showing up in specific cases.

[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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

Pre-Episode 2 Patch 1 PTR

DEFENDERS,

The Pre-Episode 2 Patch 1 PTR is now live, and we need help from our Defenders to test out these upcoming changes! As mentioned in the Preview notes, this PTR will be focused on the implementation of a handful of new features, continuing to improve the overall quality of life in DDA, and fine tuning some of the balance on defenses!

[h2]How to Join[/h2]
Are you excited to check out these changes early? Do you like giving your opinion in a meaningful way? Do you want an exclusive Crystalline Corgi Pet Transmog? If any or all of these apply to you, we want you to join the PTR! If you own Dungeon Defenders: Awakened on PC/Steam, check out our forum post that shows you exactly how to join!

[h2]Reward[/h2]
Test with us and get a Crystalline Corgi! Make sure to play for at least 30 minutes and fill out the in-client survey to receive this cute new Corgi transmog to use for your first ever Pet transmog! This survey can be accessed via the pause menu.

[h2]Siren Rework [/h2]
The Siren has been a point of frustration for many of our players and will be receiving a rework. The reworked version will be targetable by towers and have two abilities:

Ability 1 - Mitigate damage to nearby enemies.
Ability 2 - Target players/defenses with a casted explosion that will cause damage if the player does not move away before the cast completes.

Note: Currently there is no difference between normal and Rifted and the Siren is still considered a Rifted enemy in both modes.

[h2]Changing Enemy Elemental Resistance[/h2]
Enemy Elemental Resistance is being lowered from 100% to 75%. This will not change how towers work. Elemental Towers will not target, Auras will not damage, and Traps will not trigger or damage elemental enemies.

[h2]Item Culling Changes[/h2]
This change makes it so that instead of drops always replacing the lowest IPWR item on the ground once the max drop limit has been reached, it will now instead keep 20 Armor, 10 Weapons and 10 Offhand drops on the ground and replace an item of the same category. Pets and Accessories are no longer culled and will stay on the ground.

[h2]New Fusion Pets[/h2]

We have added 4 new Fusion pets for you to collect!

Act 1: Steam Robot
Act 2: Little Wizard
Act 3: Dragon
Act 4: Angry Cloud

Players can obtain them by playing Rifted on any act map except for the encore maps. Bonus Waves will roll between the map's pet and the Fusion pet (50/50 currently). We expect to add more in future patches.

[h2]Pet Transmog[/h2]
Do you want your Corgi to shoot fireballs? Well now they can!

[h2]New Features[/h2]

Rifted Enemies now drop Fusion Gear

This is our most requested change from our surveys and will help players better farm the Fusion gear they need!

Shroomy Pit is now Shroomy Geyser

Use the new and improved Shroomy Geyser to yeet Shroomies to your heart's content!

Smart Upgrade and Repair

This will make repairs a little less pain-staking. This feature can be toggled in the gameplay settings, and is on by default.

[h2]Tower Balance[/h2]

Spiked Blockade

Health Increased from 1160 to 1392

Slice N Dice Blockade

Health Increased from 1225 to 1470
Damage Increased from 7 to 7.7

Harpoon Turret

Damage Increased from 60 to 72
Projectile is no longer destroyed by map geometry

Bouncer Blockade

Health Increased from 1087 to 1304
DU reduced from 2 to 1

Bowling Ball Turret

Damage Increased from 70 to 84

Explosive Trap

Damage increased from 375 to 412
Range Increased from 200 to 220
Rate Increased from 10 to 8

Inferno Trap

Damage Increased from 65 to 78
Effect Rate Increased from 0.65 to 0.5

Thunder Spike Trap

Damage Increased from 1500 to 1800
Rate Increased from 8.5 to 6.8

Elemental Barrier

Health Increased from 1160 to 1392

Blocking Field

Health Increased from 882 to 1058

Roots of Purity

Health Increased from 825 to 990

[h2]Quality of Life[/h2]

Warden's Sprout ground target changed to a projectile.
Updated Defense Range indicators to be more user-friendly.
The ‘Sell All’ hotkey returns.
Added ‘Force Ready Up’ on the Escape UI for consoles.
Transmog items that can no longer be obtained will now be hidden on the transmog UI.
Added a gameplay option to toggle the DDGR Centered Camera Perspective view.
Irradiate no longer procs on target dummies in order to help temper DPS expectations .
Entitlements no longer give items, but will now just unlock the transmog. Entitlements that were given as items are now sellable, but will not be tradable.
Updated item effect descriptions to say "Increases {stat name}" instead of giving the actual description of the stat.
Updated Stability's item effect description to say "Reduces Knockback from enemy attacks."
Added Social Button Bar to Main Menu.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Fixed a few issues to help with multiplayer disconnects.
Fixed an issue where the spawn door had some weird textures.
Fixed an issue where hackers can see non hacked games.
Fixed issues with item effects spawning projectiles at the wrong location.
Fixed an issue where defeated enemies on the Tactical Map would still display despite being defeated.
Fixed an issue where leaving a game that was lower difficulty than what your Tavern was previously set to would cause you to have difficulty scaling issues until hero swapping.
Fixed an issue where deleting your last transmog could result in a crash.

[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
Collecting feedback and testing, testing, testing! Make sure to fill out your survey in the PTR client and let us know what you think about the changes. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don’t like. We expect to have about 1-2 weeks of this PTR, where you can definitely expect changes and we continue to get more information. Thanks again to our Defenders for taking the time to participate and give us feedback!

[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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

The Session Browser is Back Patch

DEFENDERS,

Today we are putting out a small, but very impactful, update where we are happy to welcome back the Session Browser on Steam and PlayStation! (that feels reallllly good to finally type out btw) In addition to bringing back the browser, we are also enabling the DDGR hero costumes, changing the Dark Elf Warrior, and fixing some frustrating bugs!

[h2]Session Browser is back! [/h2]
This feature is back, you’re once again able to find other Defenders to play with. We’re sorry it was gone for a while, but it was out of our hands and took a lot of work to get back up and running. This is currently live for Steam and PlayStation, with Switch and Xbox coming at a later date

[h2]Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue Costumes![/h2]
As promised in our release of Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue, we’ve provided five free costumes that were released in DDGR for DDA! You should be able to select them through transmog once you have the update.

[h2]Misc.[/h2]

Removed the Rifted Dark Elf Warrior Cloaking mechanic
- This means that towers will be able to target and attack rifted warriors without needing to be a fusion tower.
Greatly increased the transparency of the Reflect Field’s texture to be less distracting.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Fixed a bug where Aim Assist was targeting defeated enemies
Fixed a bug where Inventory Stats points would mess up when you swap heroes on the stat page
Fixed a bug where XP/Radial Bars were not properly showing values
Fixed a bug where applying stat points changes in some cases would get rejected and return to the unspent pool
Fixed a bug where heroes would sometimes display -1 health
- Let us know if you see this in game. We believe we fixed this, but it’s hard to reproduce on our end.
Fixed a bug where the secret room stairs didn't have collision, causing you to fall through

[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]

We’re currently working on getting these patches for Xbox and Switch. Because of the changes we had to make to multiplayer, the Session Browser requires custom setup on each platform with their own requirements. We’ll keep you posted as to when those are coming out. We are continuing to work on DDA, using your feedback to greatly influence the things we work on, with more surveys on the way to get more of your feedback. We’re wanting to get more small patches out between now and Episode 2 that address some issues that have been outlined as we continue our work. There’s also more updates for DD2 and DDGR on the way, there’s so much we’re doing that we can’t wait to get out to all of you!

[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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue - Early Access

DEFENDERS,

Today we are surprising everyone with our newest game: Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue! This is the Chromatic Games take on the roguelite genre using your favorite Etherian Heroes. In Going Rogue you will battle through familiar dungeons, fight waves of enemies, and defeat reimagined bosses in your never-ending quest for loot.

To celebrate our expansion of the Dungeon Defenders Universe, we are now offering bundles with DDA and Going Rogue!

[h2]DDA and Going Rogue Bundles[/h2]

Since Going Rogue is built out of DDA, we wanted to make sure we provided not only a fair price to purchase the game, but also something that rewards people for already owning DDA. That’s where the Dungeon Defenders Bundle comes in! If you own DDA, you’ll be able to purchase Going Rogue for a reduced price, and even better saving during our release sale. However, we’re also releasing with a sale, so purchasing Going Rogue through the bundle will be even less!

For our new Defenders that purchase Going Rogue, but do not own Dungeon Defenders Awakened, you’ll be able to pick DDA up for a reduced price as well through the Dungeon Defenders Bundle as well (and again, even cheaper when there is a sale going on).

[h2]Dungeon Defenders Awakened Development[/h2]

We are still hard at work on Episode 2 and so far we have revealed:

New Map: The Bazaar
New Map: The Lost Metropolis
New Feature: Runes

As you’ll notice in Dungeon Defenders Going Rogue, there’s an overlap in features with runes being very core to the gameplay. These runes serve as an example of what you’ll be seeing in Dungeon Defenders Awakened as well. We’re still working diligently on Episode 2 and didn’t want to leave our brave DDA players hanging without spoiling some new content. So we’re going to talk about something you’ll be getting for free right now, and also giving a sneak peak at our next hero!

[h2]Free Going Rogue Cosmetics[/h2]

First, the thing that you’ll be getting right away. In Dungeon Defenders Awakened, we will be providing the Going Rogue versions of the base four characters FOR FREE. All you’ll need to do is update your game, and you will have them. That’s it. This is something we’re doing for ALL PLATFORMS. While Going Rogue won’t be on consoles right now, we want to make sure that all our Defenders are able to have fun with these new cosmetics! Getting the cosmetics onto consoles is going to be reliant on the certification process, so once they pass the individual platform certifications, we’ll have them out to you.

Second, we gave a very small tease on our next hero, which people had guessed, but we’ll announce it here as part of our Going Rogue celebration.

[h2]The Outcast[/h2]
An exiled general from the armies of the Old One after questioning if war was the answer, The Outcast uses his crystalline arm to call upon forces to aid him on the battlefield.

We’re not going into his kit just quite yet, but the Outcast will be the answer to what many fans have been asking for — a remake of The Summoner that fits within Dungeon Defenders Awakened. This is also another hero that we’ll be bringing into Going Rogue as well. We’re serious about making the most out of all the things we’re creating!

We are very excited about the future of DDA, DD2, and now DDGR. Thanks for all of your support, and we look forward to showing off even more in the near future!

[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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games

New Feature in Episode 2: Runes!

DEFENDERS,

It’s about that time that we drop some news on some of the stuff that we’ve been working on. We recently released an update to Dungeon Defenders II, and before that we were talking about our PlayStation development for Dungeon Defenders Awakened, and BEFORE THAT we showed the new maps The Bazaar and The Lost Metropolis. Go over a new map? No shot, we’re getting into a new feature and some other stuff. Let’s talk about RUNES!

[h2]NEW FEATURE - RUNES[/h2]
Runes are a new item that Defenders can find throughout their journeys in this cursed realm of Etheria, giving even greater power to take on the foes that appear before you. Starting off, players don’t have access to runes right away. As you level, your heroes unlock rune slots to place the runes acquired throughout your adventures. Rune slots are locked on a level basis, meaning if you have a specific hero type at max level, you’ll have access to all rune slots for that hero type.

Runes are broken down into two different categories and within those categories, two different types: General Runes and Class Runes, and they work in the following ways:

General Runes - Runes that can be applied to any hero. These are typically flat stat increasing runes, with some slight variations.
- Hero Runes - Runes that affect your hero’s stats, attacks, and abilities.
- Tower Runes - Runes that affect your tower stats and activation (whether that’s damage or utility).

Class Runes - Runes that are applied to a specific hero, or specific list of heroes.
- These are also split into Hero and Tower Runes.

These types of runes also mimic the types of rune slots that are available. Once you unlock all rune slots, you’ll have access to two hero slots and four tower slots. These runes, when equipped, will apply to all versions of the hero that you create. This means when you set up your Squire runes, they apply to both your max level Squire, as well as a level 1 Squire that you may have created as well. (Note: runes do not affect characters within Boss Tests)

[h2]Rune Unlocks[/h2]
We’ve talked about types of runes, unlocking runes lots, and a little bit about how they’re applied to your hero, but how the heck do you get these things? Easy, you fight for them! Runes will drop on specific maps, with various tiers dropping in different difficulties. The higher the difficulty, the better the rune, pretty simple. The rune available is always your highest unlock, so if you have unlocked the hero rune Vitality IX, you will only be able to equip that rune to one of your hero slots, and you’ll need to equip a different rune in the second hero rune slot. No duplications here.

This also means that playing a map on the hardest boss wave of the hardest difficulty will net you the best version of the rune that drops. As we continue to release additional episodes and bosses, this will continue to scale as well, giving you more and more powerful runes to hunt as the challenge increases. This doesn’t mean that all runes drop across the entire game, some just start dropping a lot sooner than others.

But how do you unlock runes? There’s two requirements to unlock a rune, and that’s hero class level and gold. For General Runes, there are level requirements, but they require you to have any hero at or above their required level; for Hero Runes, it requires one of the applicable classes to be at or above the required level. The stronger the rune, the higher the level and more gold that needs to be spent. Let’s say you get a Rune of Vitality III and you haven’t unlocked Rune of Vitality II. You can still unlock it by paying the cost and having the proper level. You aren’t gated by the previous runes, so whichever highest rune you acquire, if you have the gold to spend and meet the level requirement, you’re able to unlock that rune. Once you unlock a rune, it’s unlocked for all applicable classes. This means you don’t have to unlock a Rune of Vitality IX for each individual hero - once it’s unlocked on one, all classes that could use it, can use it.

[h2]EXAMPLES OF A RUNE, HELLO?[/h2]
Oh yeah, you might want to know some examples of actual runes. Well first, there’s hundreds of these things across every tier, with a rune for pretty much every stat for both heroes and towers. Then on top of that, there are runes similar to some of the item effects that you see on items now (mana regen, projectiles, sunder armor, etc.) And even on top of that, there are runes for pretty much every tower and ability in the game. We’ll go over one for each of the base four heroes:

Squire
- Explosive Shield - Your Shield Throw now explodes for X damage per enemy hit.

Huntress
- Focus Fire - Repeated attacks against the same enemy increase damage dealt against that enemy by X. Stacks Y times.

Apprentice
- Pulsator - When Lightning Tower fires off, it also deals X damage to all enemies within its range.

Monk
- Iron Fists - Enrage Aura now increases the damage enraged enemies deal by X.

Now that was fun to finally talk about even just a little bit. Let’s keep the fun going, we’ve even got some fun general runes, so that you don’t think all the fun is had on just the class runes:

Death From Above - While in the air, deal X% increased damage.
Bouncy - Gain X extra jumps.
BURN, BURN, BURN - Fire damage dealing towers also increase damage enemies take by X% for 6 seconds after being hit.
Napalm - Enemies killed by fire damage dealing towers apply a Burn to nearby enemies for X damage over 6 seconds.

Did we list those to show specific combos that might interact with each other? Who knows, probably, or it could have just been random runes chosen. Believe what you will!

[h2]Anything Else?[/h2]
Oh yeah. If we get everything up and running proper (we ran into some multiplayer hurdles as we’ve outlined here), some (if not all) runes will be tradeable. So we guess that means trading as well if all our work with these new systems pans out. You’ll still need to meet the requirements to unlock them (gold and level requirements).

[h2]Summary[/h2]
Runes. There’s a lot of info. There’s general runes, class runes, ones for heroes, ones for towers, different tiers of runes. We’re still spending a lot of time on these, so pretty much anything here is up to be changed in some way, shape, or form as we continue to develop these. Also if we’re able to get trading in, it’ll be in with this update, and you’ll be able to even trade some runes!

[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
We’re still in our PlayStation certification process and are hoping to have a release date real soon as we squash any of the issues that Sony finds. We’re also working on another DD2 update that is going to be pretty bonkers. Maybe the next thing we talk about has to do with a hero? There’s no telling, but maybe? Probably.

Did somebody drop this?

[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:

For Etheria!
Chromatic Games