Dungeon Defenders II News

Greetings Defenders,

We’ve been hard at work since our latest update and we’re ready to share some of what you can expect to see in our next update! We wanted to take a step back and focus on some more player-centric changes, and we’ve got a pretty hefty list of things we’re accomplishing. There’s still a lot of work for us to do, and while we’re not ready to show anything off yet, it’s the perfect time to talk about some of the things you can expect to see coming to Dungeon Defenders II!


Shards are such an integral part to Dungeon Defenders II when it comes to empowering your towers with great strength to take out the waves of enemies constantly thrown at you. Currently there is a lot of RNG regarding which shards you get, and to help cut down the randomness, farming lower tiered content is the easiest way to go.

We don’t want that. We want you playing content you find engaging, while being able to acquire the Shards you want. The exact details cannot be spilled out here, but we’re working on concrete ways to get the specific Shards you want.


They’ve been gone for a while, and the game has changed quite a bit since they were removed. We have taken a pass at them so that they fit into the current game and are something you want to get. You’ll be able to get them after a certain point in Onslaught, similar to when you start receiving Chaos VIII Ampoules.


There’s a lot of epic weapons that we’re going to be making available, some that have been available previously, and some you've never seen before. Players love to make their characters look unique, and while costumes, flairs, and accessories help accomplish this, weapons also play a big part in making your heroes look awesome!


We know a lot of you really enjoyed harnessing the powers of the elements, and we promised to add to this system. In the next update, Poison Mods will be added. While we’re not talking interactions yet, we wanted to let you know that we’re expanding on the list of powers you can combo to break apart your enemies!


There’s still a decent amount to talk about, and we promise to get word out on things as soon as we can. This next month is going to be a crazy ride for all of our Defenders and we cannot wait to share with you what our 2019 is going to look like! We'll be doing at least one other update over the next month, and then go through our usual release of dev streams and previews. We’re wanting to really take our time with everything we're conjuring up and give attention to a lot of things that we believe you’ll enjoy.


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

The Heroes of Etheria have arrived at Drakenfrost Keep and explored its grounds. Throughout their exploration they unlocked a hidden chamber shrouded in runes around a mage who made the ultimate sacrifice to keep an ancient evil at bay. The seal has been broken, and the Drakenlord lives again! Held at bay for many years, kept alive only by fables, this menacing evil seeks to take back his keep, raise a dragon army, and set out to conquer the lands of Etheria. It is up to you, Defender, to send this juggernaut back to the underworld.

Greeting Defenders,

We unleashed a beast in Patch 4.3, which is now out on ALL platforms! The Drakenlord has come to terrorize the citizens of Etheria, we took a pass at some additional Mod Reroll quality of life, bug fixes, and more. Let’s get into it!


Soaring through the skies of Etheria, the Drakenlord is trying to take back his domain, Drakenfrost Keep. He’s a new boss type that will require you to create unique strategies to take him down, unlike any other boss you’ve fought so far! With his arrival, he may appear in other maps as well. He is now ready to fight you in Expeditions!

Drakenfrost Keep is also now a map that appears in Onslaught. Starting at Floor 39, Drakenfrost Keep appears every 10 floors as a capstone floor (similar to The Lost Temple). This means at Floors 34, 44, 54, 64, etc., you have to defend the Lost Temple, and on Floors 39, 49, 59, 69, etc., you conquer Drakenfrost Keep.

The Drakenlord provides new rewards every week! There are a slew of new weapons AND Mods for you to obtain by slaying him and protecting Etheria.

A costume for the Squire is now available on the Emporium, where you can BECOME the Drakenlord. We’re excited to see how you handle what he has in store for you, and the great rewards that await you.


We’ve been all about adding Mod quality of life changes, and here’s another one. Previously we doubled 10/10 drop chances, then last week we ensured that you run into a 10/10 after actively playing for ~10 hours, AND we added a new Mod Reroll material (that can be stored in the Material Vault).

A lot of people have enjoyed these adds, but we thought we’d take it a step further. Mod Rerolls allow you to target specific Mods into becoming 10/10. Some players target farm lower tiers to try and get better luck on a 10/10 dropping for a specific lower Mod (*cough* Tenacity *cough*). We want you all playing content you find engaging, so now Mod Rerolls after a while will guarantee a 10/10 roll. The amount of time is greatly impacted by the ability to buy this material from other players. This change means you can keep climbing or playing content you want, and are guaranteed to eventually get a 10/10 of the Mod you want.


There were a few issues with Diminishing Returns upon release. Most of these problems were related to towers/abilities that could apply a stun more than once a second (i.e. Weapon Manufacturer and Protons). These towers were causing a large spike in diminishing returns that was not intended. On top of that, because of the fast attack rate the drop off of diminishing returns was halted.

Three major issues caused this, Stuns reapplying themselves and adjusting their initial duration each time. This caused initial stuns to a lot last less than intended, which was fixed in today’s update. Second, all Crowd Controls (CC) were adding to the same tenacity pool instead of separated by type (for instance, stuns and slows). This was causing a much higher overall tenacity than expected, which was also fixed in today’s update. The final issue, which we are still working on, is related to how the tenacity fall off is calculated. This is causing some enemies that start at a higher base tenacity when playing with four players to have enemies be nearly immune to CC after their first stun. This is not intended and we are actively looking into a fix to allow players to use theirs stuns as intended.


This is a feature that we are testing on PC/Steam. There’s a lot of information that we’re going to be gathering with this specific feature, so we want to communicate that there may be times where it’s not working correctly, and it may require game restarts to get it functioning correctly, but will not affect your gameplay specifically.

Communities provide a way for you to gather with up to 30 like-minded Defenders and talk across games and lobbies, invite to party, and more! You can be in up to 5 communities at any time, and are able to create communities whenever you want. Here are some of the functionalities that Communities offer:

• Give them a unique name (don’t worry, the name filter is working)
  
• Give them a three or four letter acronym of your choice.
  
• By using “/c1”, “/c2”, “/c3”, “/c4”, and “/c5” you can quickly chat in each of your communities. (You can also use / to chat with them as well).
  
• Invite players to join your parties in the Town or Private Tavern.
  
• Use different ranks (Owner, Officer, and then regular members).
  
• Invite and recommend users to join a Community.

There’s a lot more functionality and we’re looking at ways to add more and improve the current setups. We’re looking forward to your constructive feedback and will be doing everything we can to make these Communities great.

Abyss Lord

• Towers
  
  • Skeletal Orc
    
    • The DU cost is now 30, was previously 35.

Dryad

• Towers
  
  • World Tree
    
    • The DU cost is now 20, was previously 25.

Lavamancer

• Towers
  
  • Fissure of Embermount
    
    • The overlap is now 35% of the max range, was previously 50% (for reference, flame aura overlap is 50%).

Squire

• Towers
  
  • Training Dummy
    
    • The DU cost is now 20, was previously 25.

• Fixed an issue where a small group of player’s pets had invalid stats tied to them.
  
• Fixed an issue where Boom chips were functioning incorrectly.
  
• Fixed an issue for PS4 users getting kicked to the main menu, and having to restart the game to continue.
  
• Fixed an issue with inspecting items on the ground while playing splitscreen for PS4 and Xbox.
  
• Fixed an issue when inspecting defenses, it showed the stats of other defenses.
  
• Adjusted billboard focus size to make them easier to read.
  
• Destructive Pylon and Destruction interaction match the Destructive Pylon tooltip and no longer stack.
  
• Fixed an issue when going through incursions and getting put against Malthius.
  
• Updated drenching strikes to be affected by electrocute for the correct duration
  
• Fixed an issue with pathing in lanes that had translucent objects.
  
• Fixed an issue where water chip was sometimes not drenching enemies.
  
• Adjusted Vampiric Empowerment to show the correct stat boost on the individual tower inspect screen in the inventory.
  
• Fixed an issue where restarting Drakenfrost Keep produced one less core alive.
  
• The Haunting Shard now shoots ghosts on secondary attacks.
  
• Fixed an issue with Ogres teleporting on the far east lane of The Lost Temple.
  
• Fixed an issue with non-leader members of a party get a bad error message when matchmaking.
  
• Changed the schedules on Drakenfrost Keep on Chaos VI and VII in Expeditions.
  
• Boom mods should now work on everything they’re equipped to.
  
• Fixed a framerate drop on Xbox when interacting with enemy schedule billboard.
  
• Fixed an issue on PS4 where the menu level music played during the video intro.
  
• Fixed an issue on comparing/inspecting items in the inventory if they are not equippable for the current selected hero.
  
• Removed an Auto Sort checkbox on the Tinkering UI.
  
• Tweaked the VFX for the Accumulator Servo to show the AoE effect.
  
• Fixed an issue on Sacrificial Warden adventure when using a controller/gamepad.
  
• Fixed an issue for a very small subset of users that caused an issue when coming back from a long break that had them temporarily stuck on Greystone Plaza.
  
• Adjusted how Diminishing Return buffs were calculated with different types of debuffs.
  
• Adjusted the difficulty of Forest Crossroads, Liferoot Forest, and Betsy during the campaign to be easier.
  
• Added elemental effects to weapons dropped during the New User Experience.
  
• Adjusted the pickup radius for Primary Reroll and Mod Reroll materials.
  
• Fixed an issue on gamepads/controllers with focus while rerolling Mods/Primary stats.

• Some sources of fire damage from Shards/Mods are not lighting torches correctly on Drakenfrost Keep.
  
• If you are not able to use Communities, restart the game to get back into them.
  
• Consecutive Win Bonus and Replay From Wave can fail, currently getting a fix ready.
  
• Replaying from Wave on Drakenfrost Keep and winning can result in not receiving the special Frost weapons.

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,

The cold winds from the west are here, bringing Dungeon Defenders II: Drakenfrost with them to Steam and PlayStation 4, with Xbox coming later today! We put out a Dev Log showcasing some of the work that’s gone into the update, as well as a Dev Stream debuting some of the goodness coming. In this patch preview, we’ll be talking about those systems a little more in-depth to hold you over until the Update Notes are released. Let’s get to it!

Drakenfrost Keep has recently been re-discovered by members of the intrepid Etherian Explorer’s Guild. The Explorers were guided to its location by a tattered scroll discovered in the Mages Council Library. The scroll alluded to an ancient sealing ritual used by the early Council to seal away the powerful Generals, commanders of the armies of the Old Ones. The scroll detailed the Keep’s location with cryptic hints about “requiring the ultimate sacrifice” to seal away evil’s essence into “a vessel unlike the Eternia Crystals”.

This is the newest map to Dungeon Defenders II. Some old school Dungeon Defenders fans will notice a lot of similarities to the Royal Gardens map, but don’t get comfortable, as there is a lot more danger to this map to take on. We’ll touch on this map more overtime, we’re excited to see the different builds that arise to take on the challenges that wait.

Drakenfrost Keep is available in a new Adventure that includes Drakenfrost Resort (previously known as the Hotspring Map) AND in Expeditions.


Head to Town or your Private Tavern to take part in Winterfest! Visiting everyday gives the opportunity to take a present from the giant festive tree located next to the Scavenger in Town, and next to your vault in the Private Tavern. This tree contains one of three gifts:

• Epic Gift
  
  • Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire, Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
• Mythical Gift
  
  • Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire,
  • Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
    
  • One regular Defender Pack
    
  • One random Shard container (1 Shard)
• Legendary Gift
  
  • Contains one of four holiday themed weapons for the Squire, Apprentice, Monk, and Huntress.
    
  • One Mythical Defender Pack
    
  • One random Shard Pack (5 Shards)

In order to obtain the items, approach the tree and hit the appropriate button that appears to receive your wonderful gift! The weapons that come from these gifts ARE tradeable, and follow the same rules as any other tradeable item (they cannot be traded if they are upgraded in anyway). These items also scale to your champion score up until the Chaos VII 6/10 upgrade level.

For the season of Winterfest there’s also a pretty amazing sale going on. Inventory bags are going to be 50% off and the Material Vault is ~33% off. The Material Vault now holds 9,999 instead of 999 for each slot, and it also includes both new reroll materials, these changes are applied to currently owned Material Vaults as well. Supplies aren’t limited, but this sale isn’t going to last forever!

Winterfest is going to be on for quite a while, lasting past December. This gives you plenty of chances to get all four weapons and some nice Shards and Defender packs along the way! Oh, and of course, don’t eat the yellow snow.


Elemental Combos received a lot of attention in the Drakenfrost Update. We spent a lot of time making all the debuffs in the game more uniform so that they all applied the same effect. For instance, all oils now work the same, previously some slowed certain mobs, some didn’t. Oh also, ALL water damage now drenches, including water mods (both chips and servos)! This is our first phase on improving this system, something a lot of Defenders have asked for a very long time. We’re only able to add this system because of our Diminishing Returns system.


This is a new system that we’re adding to the game, something that is a staple in a lot of different types of RPGs. A lot of players really LOVED the Weapon Manufacturer’s Mod “Shocking Revelation”, it brought a really awesome stun and a good chunk of damage with it, and a lot of Defenders immediately set off to get it. Eventually we had to nerf it a little bit to bring it in line with other Mods, but we loved the allure it provided for players.

If we wanted to do anything further with Mods like this, we needed to implement a system that didn’t make stun crowd controls negate all future content and negate any future Mods/features that weren't a stun with a different color (because anything less would not be as good). Enter Diminishing Returns. This system allows you to crowd control enemies, but after using it back to back the effect loses its strength. After a short while of not being affected by crowd control effects, enemies are able to be crowd controlled again at 100% efficacy. We’re able to buff up blockades during this update as well, and potentially give them even further functionality in additional updates!

We’re going to be very responsive to feedback on this, but it allows us to do a lot of cool stuff in the future. That means new Mods, any new heroes, and MUCH more we can’t talk about just quite yet can now have a lot of epic moments and crazy amounts of power without worrying about it not being as cool as strong as a 100% stun up time or so strong that it disables every enemy that has existed, currently exists, or will ever exists. This opens up the doors for some amazing things!


Previously we talked about Mods receiving changes in phases. In Phase I we more than doubled the drop rate of 10/10 Mods, as well as buffing all 6/10, 7/10, 8/10, and 9/10 drop rates. This means that 1/10, 2/10, 3/10, 4/10, and 5/10 Mod drop rates were lowered.

We promised a Phase II with this update, and we are delivering! Perfect 10/10 Mod drops before the update on average appeared within about 4 hours of active gameplay. We’ve received a lot of great feedback from players enjoying this change. However, it really stinks to be an outlier and it take a very long time to get a 10/10. The first change of Phase II is that it now on average takes about 10 hours of average play to get a GUARANTEED 10/10 Mod. If you play with more players, because you’re seeing more Mods, the amount of time this take drops significantly, taking almost half of the listed times.

Mod Rerolls are available in the following areas:

• Expeditions
  
  • Drakenfrost Maps drop 2 Reroll Materials
• Onslaught
  
  • Drakenfrost Maps drop in the following amounts
    
    • Floors 28-35 drop 1 Reroll Material on Drakenfrost Resort
      
    • Floors 35-59 drop 1 Reroll Material on ALL maps, and 2 Reroll Materials on Drakenfrost Resort
      
    • Floors 60+ drop 2 Reroll Materials on ALL maps, and 3 Reroll Materials on Drakenfrost Resort.

We provided ways to farm them outright for the Defender who may want to take it easy in Chaos VII, or while progressing so even as you’re climbing Onslaught you’re able to take part in this new material and are even rewarded for taking on harder challenges.


These are things we’ve had in the works for a long time. This portion of the update has A LOT of quality of life improvements that get you out of your inventory faster and into the action. The changes include:

• Auto Sort
  
  • Auto sorting now sorts your bags by actually moving all the items, previously provided a visual update only.
    
  • The sorting goes by item type and Gear Score, but is a big update to the previous system.

• Shard Sorting
  
  • Shard sorting logic has been updated. It now prioritizes the following.
    
    • Sorts by Defense Shards first, and then by Hero shards
      
    • After sorting between the two types, Shards are sorted alphabetically.

• Mod Sorting
  
  • On the “Filter By” tab, the right most tab in the inventory, there is a new icon for Mods. This filters your best Mods first. This makes long play sessions easy and quick to check if there are any of those GLORIOUS 10/10’s just sitting in your bags.
    
  • Numbers on the bottom right correspond to what the highest Mod quality is on the item.
    
  • Numbers are white intentionally to make it easier for colorblind players to see what the number is.

• Mod Inspect
  
  • By holding down Shift, you can now see the highest Mod quality of an item in the bottom right.

Vicinity Targeting
This is a new way to interact with players. This allows you to target other players, keep them targeted, and choose to do a variety of things: invite them to party, inspect their shop, and more interactions when Communities are implemented.

Material Vault Changes
We received a bunch of feedback regarding the Material Vault. Previously it allowed you to store 999 of specific materials in each slot. Now you are able to store 9,999 IN EACH SLOT! That’s not all, the Material Vault now also has spots for the Primary Reroll Material and the Mod Reroll Material. So much space for activities!

Social Menus
There's been a social menu added next to your abilities and towers on the main HUD. This brings a bunch of quick functionality when interacting with others!

Enemy Spawning
We took additional passes at enemies getting stuck in spawn, but also fixed a big issue where enemies were going underground for a while and coming out of the ground later on in their path, bypassing blockades. We’re going to be keeping a vigilant eye on this, so please provide feedback on this if you see anything!

Console Voice Chat
We have now provided an option that allows you to disable voice chat in social hubs, Console player rejoice! You can now opt in to hear all the great music choices of your fellow Defenders. And by great, we mean potentially terrible. It’s usually terrible.

Victory Chests
Tired of waiting for your legendary loot to come out of that chest as you’re playing with other Defenders and getting so much more? Well that wait has been significantly reduced. When you open the Victory Chest, all your loot comes shooting out all at once. When playing with three other Defenders it looks like a legendary shotgun explosion.

Oh, and before we forget, if you don’t open your Victory Chest before moving on, all the items inside are sent to your inventory. If your inventory is full, then it goes to the Scavenger. Never miss out on Victory Chest loot again!


This is a feature that we’re also wanting a lot of feedback on. We’re releasing it initially on Steam, almost as a beta test of the feature. It’s a system that allows up to 30 people to be in a structured group, and you can be in 5 Communities at a time. These groups can talk to each other regardless of where you are using the chat system, invite one another to groups, and more. We’re wanting to build even more off this system, but it’s something you’ll have to get your hands on and see.

Communities are coming later in this patch after we've given it a little more polish.

Abyss Lord

• Towers
  
  • Colossus
    
    • Health scaling increased to 600, was previously 430.
      
    • Skeletal Orc
    • DU cost lowered to 35, was previously 40.

Apprentice

• Towers
  
  • Arcane Barrier
    
    • No longer allows enemies to pass through it while exploding.

• Shards
  
  • Frost Power
    
    • Defense Power scaling changed to (9 + 1 per level) from (10 + 2 per level). Max gilded is now 33%, previously was 58%

Dryad

• Towers
  
  • World Tree
    
    • DU Cost lowered to 25, was previously 30.

Lavamancer

• Towers
  
  • Maw of the Earthdrake
    
    • Defense Unit costs reduced to 50 DU, previously was 60 DU.
      
    • Defense Health Scaling increased to 300, previously was 200.
  • Fissure of Embermount
    
    • Adjusted overlap to match that of similar towers (Flame Aura, Weapon Manufacturer, etc.)

Mystic

• Towers
  
  • Viper’s Fang
    
    • Upgrading the Viper’s Fang now allows you to bubble up to 5 enemies.

Squire

• Towers
  
  • Training Dummy
    
    • DU Cost lowered to 25, was previously 30.

• Fixed an issue where the first bag in an inventory would visually not load.
  
• Fixed an issue when selling items that other items would be put in their place.
  
• Fixed an issue with Dryad’s Angry Nimbus that caused it to target enemies within the spawner.
  
• Fixed an issue with Dryad’s Hornet’s Nest not dealing elemental damage when using an elemental mod.
  
• Fixed a VFX issue when killing Betsy while she was breathing fire.
  
• Fixed an issue where Floor 40 Onslaught flairs were labeled with the wrong floor to attain them.
  
• Fixed an issue where Replay From Wave refunded Level 1 Tower mana if they were upgraded.
  
• Fixed an issue with gamepad focus moving when buying the last item from a shop.
  
• Fixed focus issues with Pet Stat reroll UI for gamepad.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Initiate, Gunwitch, and Huntress’s stat changes via various Ascension talents.
  
• Fixed an issue with Favorable Winds mod proccing off any kills, not just primary attack kills.
  
• Fixed an issue with the amount of XP given from Drakenfrost Resort in Expeditions.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Dark Arts Arcane Barrier not displaying properly.
  
• Adjusted tool tips for items on the ground when using 4K settings.
  
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where Defenders would get stuck on the main menu.
  
• Adjusted the Vanguard’s collision so that it better matches his shield.
  
• Fixed an issue in Assault on the Throne Room where destroyed subcores would not spawn enemies.
  
• Fixed an issue with Ancient Life Steal only healing for 5% when at 5+ points.
  
• Adjusted the difficulty of Forest Crossroads and Wyvern Den.
  
• Fixed an issue with UI layering issues when purchasing or creating a hero.
  
• Forest Ambush now has less amount of kobolds blowing up your lanes.’
  
• Fixed an issue with the My Deck button going gray after deleting a hero.
  
• Betsy’s overall damage reduced.
  
• All Adventures difficulty lowered across the board.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with the Harpy’s blinking animation
  
• Fixed an issue where EV2’s Buffer Chip worked on other heroes.

• If chat is gray, deleting your ini will fix it and give you colors.
  
• Keybindings were reset with this update because of Communities being added.
  
• On PlayStation 4, when in-game and quitting to the main menu, you may run into issues logging back in. Just restart the game and you should get back in.
  
• The following Elemental Effects' durations are not working the correct length: Onsen Bath, Maelstrom, Water Chip/Servo, Freezing Rain, and Drenching Strikes.

There’s a lot we’re experimenting with in this update to make the future of Dungeon Defenders II as great as possible. We’re welcoming all the feedback that you can provide on it, but of course make sure it’s constructive, it’s the best way to ensure we can make the best changes as fast as possible.


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,

There’s a ton of new features and content on the horizon, so it’s time to give a little inside peek as to what’s coming in the next update for Dungeon Defenders II! Mod improvements, elemental combos, blockade buffs, and even more (somethings we aren't even talking about just quite yet) await in this update. Let’s get into it!



What’s up everyone, you know what it do!

We’ve been working incredibly hard on getting this update out to you before the new year and really put in some serious time. While there is new content coming (the new map looks amazing, there’s some image down below), we did a really big push to make a lot of systems feel a ton better. A little while ago we improved Mod drops and promised that there was a Phase II for this system, and Mark will cover the changes coming down below. Players want Elemental Combos to be awesome, so we went through and did our Phase I pass on them, with more coming in future updates. There’s been a lot of feedback on Blockades being viable, and boy did we bring the heat with them.

There’s additional features that are coming, you’ll see most of them laid out in the patch notes that come with the update. We’re excited for you to get your hand on this update, we’re just polishing things up a little bit before we release it. There’s a Dev Stream tomorrow (December 7th) 3PM EST where we are going to show some of them off. Don’t miss it!

Smooches,
Lawlta



Hey Defenders!

It’s been a while since we’ve last spoken! I’ve been doing a ton of MOD-related work over the interim, but alas, I was threatened by Lawlta to keep it all under wraps. Luckily, tis finally the season of giving, and I’ve been given the okay to give you some major bean spillage on what I (and the other Trendy elves) have been up to in our workshop.

Recently, the Trendy elves had started seeing a huge amount of holiday wishes come our direction and all said the same thing. They said, “Santa Lawlta, all I want for Christmas is a perfect MOD.” Many of you felt that it took way too long to find those perfect Qualibean™ MODs and that waiting forever was just no fun! I knew I had to do something about it fast, lest I find myself on the naughty list in perpetuity. I grabbed a bottle of spiked eggnog, locked myself into a room, and set out to right this issue once and for all. Thanks to the copious amounts of eggnog I drank, my memory gets a bit fuzzy after that, but a few days later I woke up and Lawlta told me that the rates for higher quality MODs had significantly increased with our last hotfix. Apparently, I had more than doubled the rate of perfect MODs and had substantially increased the drop rates for MODs of quality 6 and above! Presents for everyone! On average, you should see a perfect MOD about every four hours of active gameplay. Gone are the days where the ground is cluttered with nothing but MODs as red as Rudolph's nose. You should now be seeing far more green MODs in the mix (a Christmas Miracle)!

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Mark! The increase to drop rates sounds fine and dandy, but you see, I have a problem. That problem is bad luck. It’s a condition that I’ve had since birth and RNG has picked on me for it my entire life. Even though you’ve increased the drop rates, Mark, I still don’t think I’ll ever see anything good. I’m just too darn unlucky!” Well, dear player, I have a revelation to make. I too am afflicted with this most heinous condition, and I feel your pain. Playing 50 hours and still not seeing a perfect MOD feels worse than getting a lump of coal in your stocking! I knew that if I truly wanted this update to bring good tidings to all (especially myself), I would have to be sensitive to those in the community who share this affliction. Well, fear not! This new update brings with it a solution for even the unluckiest players. We have built a system that GUARANTEES that you will get a perfect MOD if you go an extended period of time without seeing one. If you haven’t seen a perfect MOD in about ten hours of active gameplay, then we will guarantee that a perfect will drop for you! That’s right! At worst, you’ll see one perfect MOD in less than 10 hours (as long as you are actively playing). And do you wanna know a secret? If you play in multiplayer and get the legendary loot bonus, the amount of time it takes to guarantee this perfect MOD gets drastically reduced. Don’t tell Lawlta I told you, or back onto the naughty list I go.

So now we’ve increased the perfect MOD drop rate, and guaranteed that even the unluckiest defenders will see them. But this still doesn’t fulfill the other biggie on people’s holiday wish list. Sure, seeing A perfect MOD is great, but ultimately what you are looking for is THE perfect MOD. There’s always something specific you have in mind that you KNOW will make your build perfect, and that’s the thing you really want a chance at getting (I’m looking at you, perfect tenacity). It is with great excitement that I announce the introduction of a brand new material, MOD rerolling! MOD rerolling lets you improve your chances of getting the specific quality MODs you want in more of a targeted way. Playing maps in our new region will guarantee you a drop of these awesome little guys, and the potential that they possess is amazing. You’ll be able to invest in your favorite MODs and guarantee yourself a risk-free chance at making it better each time you complete a map. This is a game-changer, guys. This reroll material makes the time it takes to get THE perfect MOD you are looking for in a fraction of the time that it takes right now. This is big.

So to recap:

• Perfect MODs drop rates were more than doubled in our last hotfix. Six to Nine MOD drop rates were increased too.
  
• This update brings with it a new system that guarantees unlucky players a perfect MOD drop in less than 10 hours of active gameplay.
  
• MOD Rerolling is being introduced and this gives you a targeted way to invest in your favorite MODs. It lets you get a favorite MOD to perfect in a FRACTION of the time it would take to see it dropped.

Now all of that is super exciting, but I still have more in my bag of gifts, Defenders. We’ve heard you when you’ve said that you want to spend less time in menus and more time whacking gobus in their very punchable faces. It is with great excitement that I can announce MOD quality filtering in the inventory. In our new update, the “Filter By” tab (the last tab in your Inventory) now includes an option to filter by MOD quality. Selecting this option groups equipment by the highest quality MOD on it, highest to lowest, and then displays that number on the icon of the equipment itself. That means that you can visually scan your equipment with ease and find high quality MODs in a jiffy. Tune into the Dev Stream tomorrow at 3pm EST to see for yourself.

We’ve also adjusted the way Shard sorting works too. In the new update, Shards are sorted together by type and then alphabetically. For example: all defense (green) Shards are grouped together when sorted, and will be listed in alphabetical order. This makes it way easier to find the Shard you are looking for and should cut down the amount of time spent in menus substantially. We’re open to any feedback after this goes live, but we’re excited to get these changes to you!

The elves at Trendy are looking forward to the release of this update and can’t wait to see you play it. We’re far from finished when it comes to improving MODs in the game, so your continued feedback is always appreciated. Happy Defending and Happy Holidays!

Love,
Mark



Hey all, I’m just going to get right into it! The focus for me this update was allowing players to have more choice and agency in what they use while feeling powerful based on their setups. I’m going to go over our first step in expanding two different systems that happened to work very well together. The first one is the Elemental Combo system. We think it’s a great way for players to expand on making builds they truly feel are their own. The problem with the elemental combo systems in the past were either they were the ONLY way to build, or they were completely useless. The reason for this was not the Elemental Combo system itself but more the ability for players to stack Crowd Controls over and over again to increase damage output beyond expected values, completely stunlocking enemies.

Allowing players to pick what kind of towers they enjoy using and use those in nearly every circumstance (as long as they put the time and effort in to get the mods/shards for those towers) is a cool and interesting aspect a RPG Tower Defense can have. For instance, having your Cannonball towers oil enemies so your flame aura begins an ignite, or allowing your Skyguard to stun enemies knocked up from geyser. Those are cool and interesting interactions that we want players to feel good finding and discovering for their first time, but not have them make all content trivial.

This is not the final stage of our combo system, but rather a first step. We’re hard at work on back end systems that need to be altered in order to future proof additions we create, and of course give our amazing artists enough time to go forward and make awesome visual effects (so awesome you may shed a tear) to show off new and amazing combos.

Another quick thing I want to talk about is Blockades. Blockades have decreased in use ever since we added shards, and even more so with Mods, because Crowd Control effects are too powerful on our enemies. The reason for this is the many instances of Crowd Control available at any point and time without any kind of cooldown on using them. Enter Diminishing Returns. Diminishing Returns allow certain passives and shards to increase their base values everytime any Crowd Control is applied to an enemy future CC’s will have less effect. There’s more to talk about on Diminishing Returns being added, but by adding them in we’re able to make Elemental Combos a lot more interesting, create even MORE Elemental Combos in our future patches/updates, AND buff Blockades so that they are part of your builds. All of these changes are because of feedback we received from so many of you, and we’ve done a lot to make them feel good.

Activating my trap card,
Petire



Hey everyone! I’m Daniel Diaz, and I want to share with you some of the work we’ve put into the next map coming to you all very soon.



Our main inspiration for this level came from Game of thrones (specifically Night's Watch, Castle Black) and some awesome concepts by artists at Trendy.

We had lot of fun working on it. I remember I started working on the front of the castle, if you wonder about the workflow just take a look at the pic below.



Finally, one of the biggest challenges for this level on the world building side was to create the ice cavern and backgrounds for the level (we had no concepts for them) so we had to explore and use our imagination.



We can’t wait to see you all conquer this frozen castle and reap the rewards for doing so!

Thanks everyone,
Daniel


Our Dev Stream is December 7th, @3 PM EST. Be sure to come join us, check out all the epic snow covered goodness, system changes, and hard work poured into this update. Oh, also, you know, maybe win some prizes coming with this update!

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

Ahoy Defenders!

Patch 4.1 has docked in Etherian ports and is now live on all platforms. This patch is focused on providing some nice change to perfect Mod drop rates, improving the visibility of Mod quality, polishing Mob pathing, and more. Get your eye patch and parrot ready, let’s set sail into some notes!


This is something that we received a lot of feedback on and are working on in multiple phases. The first phase is in this patch allowed us to do calculations on changing the drop rates specifically. Previously we expected players to see a perfect Mod of any kind within less than nine hours of active gameplay (active gameplay being time spent efficiently and quickly completing maps, not just with the game open). After hearing feedback, we sent out a survey that gave a lot of good information. Our testing and simulations validated the feedback and our feeling was that there was more to add to this system. This first phase looks to increase the drop rate so on average you see a perfect Mod in less than four hours of active gameplay on average (which matches up with 31% of people surveyed asking for 1-5 hours, and 40% asking for 5-10 hours). This average is based around solo play, so multiplayer sessions may much shorter averages. When talking about averages there are going to be outliers, but for the short term this is the best fix we felt comfortable putting out.

The second phase of this is a lot more complex and requires a lot of work and discovery on our end, and it should be coming with our next update. We are working diligently to get rid of any outliers that cause players to feel as if they haven’t seen one in over 50 hours of active gameplay. Alongside that we also hear the desire to target farm Mods, and while it’s not something we’re going to provide outright, we are looking into way(s) to ease this quite a bit. We’re going to touch more on this as we get closer to our next big update (which isn’t too far away)!


Players have requested that we make it easier to understand where your Mod quality ranges on a scale of 1 to 10, especially if you’re colorblind. Now there will be a number that reflects the quality nestled gently on top of the “Qualibean™.”



We’ve heard additional feedback on Mods regarding sorting and distinguishing perfect quality and are currently looking into ways to make this better.


We’re continuously finding ways to make our game experience as smooth as possible. Stuck enemies and those that go off their intended path are no fun to deal with, and they certainly are a challenge for us to ensure they work correctly. We changed A LOT of their behaviors and fixed a lot of stuck/pathing issues in this patch with some new logic. We’re going to keep a close eye on these changes to make sure they work correctly, and if there’s more work to be done we promise we’ll be hammering away it.


This was a feature added in with Isle of Dread that a lot of players have enjoyed. We ran into an initial technical challenge that did not allow this feature to work well on Lost Temple. Replay From Wave was released and since we set to work on getting it to work on Lost Temple. After testing it, we’re now able to get Replay From Wave to work on this map — including Omega Waves.


When Isle of Dread was released, players had the opportunity to earn a Prestigious weapon every 10 floor of Onslaught before floor 100, and every 20 floors after floor 100. With how the update was applied, it required people to overcome previous highest floors to receive these rewards. It didn’t feel great to have players reclimb to take part in this new system.

With this patch, we were able to get this working. As a bonus, all players as of this patch are able to go complete every floor a Prestigious Weapon drops and receive one. For example, if yesterday you completed Floor 60 and received a Prestigious Weapon, you are now able to not only complete Floor 60 to receive another one, floor 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 can be completed again and you’ll receive another Prestigious Weapon for each!

• Fixed an issue with the Abyss Lord’s Colossus not consistently attacking enemies in lane.
  
• Fixed an issue with Earthshatter Tower not attacking Vanguard Gorbstock, Vanguards (shield goblins), Ranged Ogres, and Cannon Ogres.
  
• Fixed an issue with Anti-melee Servo not working with Angry Nimbus.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Harpy Tower functioning without a World Tree.
  
• Fixed an issue with some towers where their Inspect DPS was not calculating Crit Damage and Crit Chance.
  
• Fixed an issue with Angry Nimbus shocking enemies without the Dryad in Corrupt Form.
  
• Fixed an issue with parties being disbanded upon transitioning.
  
• Fixed an issue with towers affected by Boost Aura losing their yellow VFX when upgraded.
  
• Multiplayer bonuses now work properly in Incursions and Onslaught.
  
• Fixed an issue with EV2 getting stuck in the Proton Charge firing animation while moving.
  
• Pet eggs can no longer rot in player shops.
  
• Fixed an issue with Power Transfer showing a negative value.
  
• A hard gold cap has been set at ~2,300,000,000 gold.
  
• Made adjustments to the Mastery tab on the World Map to improve Mastery
  
• Ranged Ogres no longer shoot into the sky when hit by Starfall. As a result the Ranged Ogre Space Association has been disbanded.
  
• Chaos VI Jacked Sparrow and Plunderer’s Paradise now correctly drop C6 shards.
  
• Now able to quick match for any region in the Expeditions tab of the World Map.
  
• Lavamancer’s submerge travel SFX now play correctly.
  
• Adjusted how jumps are handled slightly for smoother gameplay.
  
• Fixed an issue on Xbox where players attempted to join maps that no longer existed.
  
• Fixed an issue where Defender Pack pets and redeem code pets were starting with 5/10 affection. You gotta earn their love!
  
• Adjusted the Game Browser UI elements on controller that appeared out of place.
  
• Fixed an issue with Replay From Wave where Dryad Defenses would still work without the World Tree.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Rain of Oil shard stopped functioning if you swapped to another hero then back to the Abyss Lord.
  
• Fixed Vanguard Gorbstock’s minimap icon. It was too tiny.
  
• Fixed an issue with Replay From Wave where Weapon manufacture weapons could not be set.
  
• The Shackled Mod no longer applies to Lady Orcs, only triggers on Dark Assassins now.
  
• Fixed a Gem Well timing issue.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to back out of the War Table if they expanded regions on the World Map.
  
• Adjusted the Floor 30 and 38 Onslaught Flair rewards listing.
  
• Fixed some War Table issues showing Chaos 4 and 5 enemies incorrectly.
  
• Updated the Lightning Grenade Pet Ability description.
  
• Made it so Player 2 in splitscreen is not able to be kicked while in a party where the leader isn’t Player 1 or 2 of the splitscreen group.
  
• Fixed an issue where loading into hard versions of the campaign was causing 5001 errors.
  
• The Forbidden Worshipper’s Mask was too small. We made it bigger. What’s the Forbidden Worshipper’s Mask? Secrets.
  
• Changed the title screen to have “Play Now” only for new, returning, and freshly installed players to reduce confusion.
  
• Fixed an issue with consecutive win bonuses were not carrying over correctly between games.
  
• Fixed a couple issues with splitscreen players not able to be invited to parties.
  
• Have adjusted Dryad Towers targeting AI slightly. Continuing to investigate this.
  
• Fixed an issue with Tenacity not preventing EMP Kobold tower stuns on certain towers.
  
• Added a potential fix for Green Mana not being properly distributed if the Warm Up phase is skipped before all players load in.
  
• Added a lock icon for locked War Table regions.
  
• Fixed an issue with hitting “Yes” on Replay From Wave breaking if done while a Core destruction cutscene played.
  
• Fixed an issue with towers refreshing properly when a play who disconnects rejoins.
  
• Fixed an issue for players who play at 4k resolution with the Option Menu going off-screen.
  
• Fixed a visual issue when rerolling Defender Packs without enough medals.
  
• The Favorable Wind Mod now correctly shows the stacks icon.
  
• Added Mastery Star info to the Region and Difficulty drop downs.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Player Shop UI wasn’t closing automatically when build phase starts.
  
• Mastery stars were removed from filtering in the Advanced View.
  
• Fixed an issue with items updating properly for returning players.
  
• Changed a the Tinkering load screen to correctly show the Gobsplosion Mod info.
  
• Fixed an issue with SFX not playing properly for buyback.

A lot of you submit bug reports constantly, and we make sure to squash as many of them as we can. As with any expansion, there are a lot of fixes coming your way. Please continue to submit them to our bug site, your help is invaluable to knocking out some of the pesky issues that appear.

• Tabbing when matchmaking on world map before the UI updates can matchmake into an unintended game mode.
  
• On splitscreen some NPC shops some UI elements come through the window. The shop is still the focus and works correctly, just visually not perfect.
  
• Replay from Wave on Lost Temple sometimes keeps a broken core model.
  
• Replay from Wave on Lost Temple is not maintaining the correct lanes/mutators.

There’s a lot of people playing Dungeon Defenders II, and a lot of them gather on our social hubs. When it comes to finding other players, figuring out how to conquer a specific challenge, or just wanting to get to know others in the community, or getting the latest DD2 news, you can’t go wrong with our social platforms:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Discord
• Twitch

We’re getting the finishing touches on this patch and cannot wait to share it with you all.

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team