Dungeon Defenders II News

Greetings Defenders,

The next large update for Dungeon Defenders II is right around the corner. We’ve been hard at work trying to make this update something that everyone will enjoy. One thing players have requested for a while are new maps, new enemies, and new visuals in general. This Dev Log is focused on giving you all a sneak peek into what our team has been working on. Get your sea legs ready, let’s set sail!


Our next update has so much to show off, so we’re going to dive into some of the visuals you’ll be seeing. The artists have really outdone themselves on both the models, the maps, and the animations involved in both. We’ve been teasing some of our maps recently, and want to shake it up, showing off one of our new pets, only a couple (there’s so many more) of our enemies, and… well, keep reading, you’ll see.

There is a lot more coming, both visually and technically. It’s been an ARRRRduous amount of work, with the whole team really grinding away. We can’t wait to share the fruits of our labor, both for your enjoyment, and to prevent scurvy. Pirates.


August has been quite a month. Some of my favorite go-to games are releasing titles this month, so it’s been inspiring to see what advancements have been made in the industry.

Speaking of advancements, there’s quite a few changes coming to Dungeon Defenders II soon. We’re processing a lot of feedback from all types of players recently to make changes to many of our end-game systems and flows. There’s a number of changes coming to Onslaught and Ancient Power, and our goal is to make them both feel easier to progress in and more rewarding.

There’s a bit of new map content coming soon too, we’ll probably be talking more about that in the very near future, but for now I’ll just leave you with hints.

Ship just got real.


You know that feeling when you have, like, A TON of cool animations to show off, but the marketing department wants to “control the messaging and reveals”...?

No? Just me? Oh ok…

Well we do have a ton of cool stuff that we can’t show you all just yet. The last several weeks have been crazy, and I’m stupid excited for you to see. That’s right! I’m so excited it’s made me stupid…

In the meantime, here’s a few things to tide you over. Or, at least tide ME over…



We made him into a pet! Now you can blast enemies with the power of the Tinkerer’s greatest technological achievement; a barely competent bumbling mini-bot…



Yaaarrrr! We’ve reskinned a whole bunch of our devious little friends. Blast and pummel them to the tune of a catchy pirate chantey!

Like I said, there is sooo much more to come. Stay tuned, Defenders.


Hey all, it’s been awhile since we last spoke. I’ve got some awesome animations that I’ve been working on, but we’re not able to show all of them yet. I’ve been able to sneak in some new ones, hopefully Lawlta doesn’t see this (Lawlta spoiler: I did). Here’s what I’ve been up to:



Professor Proteus’s new assistant is quite a show off. Most of all, he enjoys showing off his (finger) guns and will have a lot of fun following you around to help you out in game. It was a ton of fun putting personality into this little guy, and I hope that he really shines on the battlefields of Etheria.



“One fish, two fish, red fish, gobu fish.”

I got to work on some super floppy fish among many other wonderful things this update that I can’t wait to see these in the live game. This animation in particular is something you’ll use to put your enemies in their place. I really cannot wait for you all to see what’s coming!



. . .- - - . . .To get myself into the pirate mindset I went and got myself shipwrecked while under the influence of scurvy. I currently only have the company of a chatty parrot who thinks he is funny and the ever present rum cache. I created a working computer from coconuts, bamboo, and spare life jackets and was able to make some cool stuff for the next patch. One of my favorites is the island war boar, just shove an apple into its mouth and you have mobile kalua pork just walking towards your defenses ready to be eaten! Just remember to use fire to seal in that BBQ war boar flavor! If you receive this message please send help, the parrot only knows dad jokes and puns . . .- - - . . .!




There’s so much more coming, and we’ll be having additional Dev Logs in the coming weeks leading to the update itself. Here’s an idea of what you can expect to see:

• Onslaught floors are always one map floors, and how that changes progression.
  
• Extra rewards as you climb through Onslaught.
  
• Improvements and changes to Ancient Power.
  
• Increased party control and functionality.
  
• NEW ENEMIES, WEAPONS, MAPS, AND MORE!

To get reliable updates on what’s to come, be sure to check out our social platforms for the latest juiciest beans to be spilled:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Discord
• Twitch

The entire team has had a blast making this content, we cannot wait for all of you to get your hands on our next update. Stay tuned for more info soon!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

Protean Shift Patch 3.2 is now live! We’ve been hard at work ever since Professor Proteus made his glorious arrival in Etheria! The feedback from all of you has been tremendous and we greatly appreciate it. We’re addressing requests that players have wanted both for a while now and recently with the Protean Shift expansion. Let’s get into it!


Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. Previously, when playing in multiplayer settings, enemies became stronger, but did not offer any additional rewards for the harder challenge. This is a pain point that you as a community have voiced to us for a long time, and with gear in a much better spot, we now have a way to reward the increased difficulty!

Previously, when playing in multiplayer sessions, enemies gained additional health without offering any increased rewards. Now when teaming up with fellow Defenders, you now gain additional Gear from Victory Chests. You may be asking, “how much?”, and the answer is A LOT. Here’s the breakdown you can expect to see when playing with multiple Defenders:

• One Defender: Remains the same.
  
• Two Defenders: +125% additional Gear drops!
  
• Three Defenders: +275% additional Gear drops!
  
• Four Defenders: +425% additional Gear drops!

When playing solo, the Escape/Options menu shows:


When in a group of two:


This pattern increases the more Defenders in your session. To have our bases covered, Gear is specifically armor, weapons, and relics. These additional pieces of gear offer players multiple opportunities on finding perfect stats and Mods while taking on stronger enemies. This means you have more gear to use or sell, boosting Defender strength and our player economy substantially. As a result, we’ve slightly tweaked sell prices to vendors. With the increased loot drops, you’ll be making on average the same amount of gold when selling to vendors. However, we maintained previous minimum Player Shop sell value of items to offset this. You’re now provided more opportunities to sell more gear between one another to obtain greater mountains of wealth than ever before!

We were able to get these changes out now to provide a feature the community highly requested thanks to the feedback we received via a survey many of you participated in. One concern that several Defenders brought up was in regard to party control and functionality. These will be coming in our next Update among a slew of new features not too far from now. We’ll touch on some additional changes later on in these notes!


In Protean Shift, we introduced a good chunk of crafting materials for Defenders to have more control over their gear. There’s a ton of new materials and one bit of feedback that we’ve received quite often, is about storing these spoils of combat.



Enter the Material Vault! It’s a new vault that will be available to players that want to be able to store extra crafting materials. This special vault allows you to hold 999 of every crafting material and access to materials saved in your Material Vault regardless of where you are. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, or move some Mods around, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly without pulling the materials out! When doing anything that requires crafting materials, Inventory Materials are used first before using crafting materials in your Materials Vault.



In our last Check-In post, we outlined some short, medium, and long term goals. In our next update, here’s a sneak peek as to what you can expect to see:

• Onslaught floors are always one map floors.
  
• Extra rewards as you climb through Onslaught.
  
• Improvements to Ancient Power
  
• Increased party control and functionality
  
• And…. A NEW BOSS, WEAPONS, MAPS, AND MUCH MUCH MORE!

As development continues, we’re going to be providing opportunities to test this content and earn “Tester Only” rewards, such as Betsy White, a true friend and confidant to any Defender.

• Improved enemy spawn and pathing logic so enemies getting stuck in spawns will now have a better chance of finding their way out of the spawner.
  
• Fixed additional cases where Berserker Orcs would get around blockades and walls.
  
• Fixed an issue in Player Shops that caused a visual duplication while moving items.
  
• Fixed an issue with Abyss Stone and Abyss Fountain giving an incorrect error message when there’s not enough mana available to use them.
  
• Updated Shard Dust description to explain how it’s acquired.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Jackpot shard increases gold reward upon wave completion.
  
• Fixed an issue with comparison tooltips remaining when closing the Vault UI.
  
• Fixed the text size of “LIST IT!” on 4k resolutions.
  
• Fixed an issue with Gilded Colossal Fissure Shards receiving a negative increase.
  
• Fixed an issue with Campaign Boot tinkering requiring an Iron Hammer.
  
• Fixed an issue with Chaos V Boot upgrades requiring weapon crafting materials.
  
• Fixed an issue with buy back items going to the wrong location in the inventory.
  
• Fixed an issue where items claimed at the Scavenger while the inventory is full would look like it had been claimed but was still in the Scavenger.

Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Discord
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

We’ve been hard at work ever since Professor Proteus made his glorious arrival in Etheria! The feedback from all of you has been tremendous and we greatly appreciate it. There’s more coming in our next update, but there’s also more coming next week with Protean Shift Patch 3.2!

There are some nice quality of life features that are coming with next week’s patch, let’s get into it!


Defenders love playing together, there is strength in numbers after all. When playing together, enemies get stronger, but there’s not any increased reward for that increased risk. Well not anymore! We have been testing and looking for ways to reward players without trivializing content. With this patch, when grouping with other Defenders, you will receive additional loot from the victory chest. This scales per player added to the session, meaning the more Defenders you play with, the more loot you receive. The more loot you receive, the higher the chance at getting perfect mods!


In Protean Shift, we introduced a good chunk of crafting materials for Defenders to have more control over their gear. There’s a ton of new materials and one bit of feedback that we’ve received quite often, is about storing these spoils of combat.

Enter the Material Vault! The Material Vault is a new vault that will be available to players that want to be able to store extra crafting materials. This special vault allows you to hold 999 of every crafting material, and you will be able to automatically use them when interacting with items. Want to pump up the strength of your gear, but you put the materials in your Material Vault? You can now do it on the fly!


There’s a giant “wave” of stuff coming to Etheria in our next update that is sure to knock your socks off. Related to multiplayer incentives, we’re going to be providing Defenders greater control over the parties they start, something many of you have asked for is on it’s way. We can’t get into a ton of the stuff coming just yet, but give Elandrian’s Check-In a visit to get an idea for what’s coming!


As always, we’re going to be squishing a lot of bugs, increasing performance, and increasing stability. Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Discord
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Greetings Defenders,

Patch 3.1 is now live on Steam! This is our first Protean Shift patch that brings some nice quality of life changes, balance changes, and a slew of bug fixes. Let’s get into it!

• Shocking Revelation Mod
  
  • Stun duration reduced from 5 seconds to 1 second.
    
    • Stun was lasting way longer than the intended power of this Mod.

Buyback has been added! It is shown as the last tab in your inventory and items are removed from buyback if you leave the session you're in.



Added the option to not show a warning when selling a Mythical or Legendary quality item.

• Fixed an issue where Ancient lifesteal was not healing players.
  
• Fixed an issue where Tenacity was not reducing by the amount listed.
  
• Fixed an issue where listing an item did not warn the player they will need to pay a tax to remove the item.
  
• Fixed it so all anti-orc Mods now apply to Berserker Orcs.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard and Shielding Guard Shard showing as Campaign Shards and awarding Campaign Dust.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Withering Bubble Shard was not dropping in Campaign.
  
• Fixed an issue so the Initiate can use the Drain Aura Mod now.
  
• Fixed an issue where Shatterquake was showing fire VFX.
  
• Fixed a typo on the Lifeburn Armor Mod.
  
• Fixed an issue where Seismic Flame was lasting longer than intended and updated its description for clarity.
  
• Updated the Buried bastille description.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Seismic Launch Chip allowed the Squire to complete the Smack Up Monk challenge.
  
• Adjusted the Terrablade weapons to have full descriptions.
  
• Fixed an issue where Hard Mode Campaign items could not transfer Mods to Normal Mode Campaign items.
  
• Fixed an issue where some pets had way higher Crit Damage than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue that occasionally when gaining Ancient Power players would not receive an Ancient Power weapon.
  
• Fixed an issue with item stacking in inventories and not being able to re-stack them.
  
• Fixed an issue with Chaos V glove Tinkering using a shiny chest material instead of a shiny glove material.
  
• Fixed an issue with Private Tavern and Town vendors not updating their stock correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Lash Out Ascension talent was not functioning for the poison damage.
  
• Fixed an issue with consecutive win bonuses applying to special Play Shop purchases.
  
• Fixed an issue with Flame Aura hitting players when the owner leaves town.
  
• Fixed an issue with X-splosion Mods killing players.
  
• Fixed an issue with Drain Aura damaging players.
  
• Fixed an issue with Incursion Weapon Mods being replacable via Tinkering.
  
• Fixed an issue with Lunar Portal and Ghastly Halberds spawning more than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue with Onslaught and Ancient Power challenges not unlocking correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue where Autumeow’s tail would change colors incorrectly.
  
• Fixed an issue with tooltips overlapping in splitscreen shops.
  
• Updated the attack speed icon on Axes.
  
• Removed the Death Override icon on the Protean Shield.
  
• Items with zero Mods are hidden in the Reforging Quick Picker window when selecting an item to pull Mods from.
  
• Fixed an issue when creating a hero that offered “select hero” instead of the option to “back”.
  
• Fixed an issue with dropped equipment showing gamepad context that doesn’t work on PC.
  
• Fixed an issue with the cursor going behind Mods on Wayfarer weapons.
  
• Changed the description of Vial of Dragon Sweat to not say “Open to Unlock”.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s Skeletal Ramsters and Skeletal Archer towers not showing their base when an elemental Mod was equipped.
  
• Fixed an issue where oil traps on Ramparts slowed Berserker Orcs.
  
• Fixed an issue with overlapping UIs when splitscreen players join while a fullscreen window is open.
  
• Fixed an issue with protective Downgrade Servo not updating its stats when inspecting it after it gets downgraded.
  
• Fixed an issue where Feed x10 was consuming 10 pieces of food even if 10 was not needed to cap the pet.
  
• Fixed an issue with Flamethrower tower VFX not getting bigger with Defense Range.
  
• Fixed an issue with “Create Hero” appearing unlocked if you tried to purchase a hero and did not have enough currency.
  
• Fixed an issue with tower abilities not stopping when the tower is stunned.
  
• Fixed an issue with Defender Packs where rerolling would leave the previous contents on the ground.
  
• Fixed an issue with The Defender of Etheria achievements not unlocking on Xbox.
  
• Fixed an issue where the inventory would lose navigation input on controllers.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Quake Shard’s VFX appearing in the middle of players instead of at their feet.
  
• Fixed an issue with Automation Shard not working on Snaking Sands, Slime Pits, Geyser Traps, and Angry Nimbus towers.
  
• Fixed an issue with the falling leaf VFX on Forest Biome not triggering correctly.
  
• Changed two shards to now be named “Betsy’s Zapper” and “Betsy’s Beam” to better fit the UI.
  
• Implemented a sound for un-equipping gear.
  
• Implemented a sound for equipping shards via Right Mouse Button.
  
• Fixed an issue with placing Mods into the third slot of a Legendary/Epic that was advanced, that caused them to not function properly.
  
• Adjusted Abyss Stones hit SFX location to emit from the correct position.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s book landing correctly when he dies.
  
• Updated the bag icons with Blue Gem Icons.
  
• Fixed an issue connecting to an event server that could result in a crash.
  
• Fixed the VFX for EV2 canisters.

Remember, if you run into any bugs, please let us know at our bug site. Also, check us out on social media for additional updates and game discussions with our awesome community:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Discord
• Twitch

We have much more on the way and will be spilling some beans in the coming weeks!

For Etheria,

The Dungeon Defenders II Team

Defenders Assemble! Sound the horns of Dragonfall! I come bearing beans!

Well, I have some beans, but I also wanted to talk about the recent launch of Protean Shift. It’s been a busy past two weeks for us here at Trendy and it’s great to finally get the expansion into everyone's hands. We’ve been scouring the forums and our various social platforms for comments and feedback, and it’s tremendously valuable for helping us shape what’s coming soon in upcoming patches. I also want to give you guys a glimpse at the future of the game as well, so read everything for all the juicy details.

In response to feedback (and just our planning in general), we have a bundle of changes, new content, and bug fixes coming soon. I’m not going to give any real time-frames… our goal is to get new changes and content out as quick as possible for everyone, but we’re a tiny team and we’re working as fast as we can! Here’s a quick list of some of our targets:

• Bug Fixes (duh.)
  
• Buyback Functionality
  
  • This is currently in testing/iteration and we want to get it out soon. We really want to make sure there’s a way to get back items you’ve sold by accident. It will most likely just save some of the items you’ve been selling until you leave the Town or Tavern.

• Better Sorting/Filtering of the Inventory
  
  • One thing we want to improve is your ability to find your good items in an easier way. This will take a little more work, but we’re going to try to give you better sorting of item types, as well as possible sorting by your strong MOD rolls… or should I say “those big 5/5 Qualibeans.”
    
  • This also might include some changes to help find Shards and manage them better, but that might require additional time as well.

• Materials Vault Tabs?
  
  • This is something we’re investigating too. We saw some players talking about this so we’re looking at making a section of the vault be able to support bigger stacks of materials and connect to all the places you want to spend them. We’re aiming for this to be a “short term” add… but it might end up taking a little longer.

• Onslaught Changes
  
  • I’m not going to go into TOO many details, as it’s still being discussed among the Design team… but I will say we have some goals for these changes.
    We want to make it easier for players to play and progress together.
    We want to make the floors more significant to progress between.
    We want to make it easier to make meaningful progression and less punishing. (Aka. Three map floors might go the way of Skill Spheres.)

• Ancient Power Changes
  
  • These are going to be some changes to make it fit more in line with the Onslaught changes.
    
  • We’re also looking at making the resets more forgiving as you gain Ancient Power too. Again, not going to go into specifics as this is still an active discussion… but we ARE reading/discussing all the various opinions from the community and our testing teams.

• Better party functionality.
  
  • We’re trying to add more social functionality here… Things like better party leader knowledge in matchmaking, inviting/kicking from parties, a friends list? There’s a lot on the schedule to add here, we’re going to get to as much as possible.

• Increased Multiplayer Incentive
  
  • We want people to be enjoying Dungeon Defenders together, but we know there’s not a lot of reasons to do so at the moment. We’re aiming at changing this, while still keeping solo-play viable.

• Better Matchmaking.
  
  • This is another laundry list of changes, but we want it to be easier for people to play together and stay together. We also want to make the flow to get into gameplay much easier and with less interruptions and disconnects.

• Guilds
  
  • Secrets...

Now all these updates and changes are well and good, but we’ve also seen a certain desire from one or two community members. It’s been spoken of only occasionally… and by so few that we weren’t sure if it was important or not to everyone...
/endsarcasm

Our heroes will be receiving some calls to action to various regions of Etheria very soon. The first region our heroes will be heading to will be a somewhat familiar location. The distress call will come from a certain coastal region...



Just for some extra beanage at the end here: There will be a new region to go to, new things to get, and possibly some new threats to face…

We appreciate all our players sticking with us as we continue to evolve and release our vision for Year Two of Dungeon Defenders II. We couldn’t have done any of this without all of your help.

Thank you from all of us here at Trendy Entertainment.

Sincerely,

Colin “Elandrian” Fisher