Power of the Ancients Expansion is Live!

Greetings Defenders,

Dungeon Defenders II: Power of the Ancients is live for all platforms! This expansion is full of new progression, power, and challenges.

The content released in this expansion is massive. We’ve included the long awaited Onslaught game mode, our new largest map ever, The Lost Temple, and our new Ancient Power system. There’s tons of things to share in these patch notes, so let’s get right to it!

Onslaught

Onslaught introduces a new floor based progression, enemy mutators, and unique enemy schedule and lane selection. You gain better loot with every floor, see different enemies in every lane, and have to tailor your defense to each and every threat. The deeper you descend, the stronger your opponents become, unleashing familiar Trials enemies, as well as progressively difficult mutators and enemy schedules.

In addition to the new systems, we’ve added some new Onslaught rewards! For beating certain floors, you can unlock new Flair sets. You might even be able to find a new companion from Victory Chests…

Did I mention Victory Chests? Onslaught will feature a new Victory Chest that is exclusive to Onslaught and is a little more visually impactful. You’ll see what I mean when you beat your first floor!

Floor Progression

In each floor of Onslaught, there can be 1-3 maps on each floor. This will cycle between 1, 2, and 3 until you reach our end-game scaling around Floor 60.

For Example:

• Floor 1: 1 Map
• Floor 2: 2 Maps
• Floor 3: 3 Maps
• Floor 4: 1 Map
• Floor 5: 2 Maps

And so on and so forth. In our end-game, every floor will be three maps.

Each floor that you beat will have better and better loot up to our current maximum Chaos VII level.

Mutators

Mutators are a system that existed in the game previously, but now we’ve really cranked it up to eleven. There are over 20 different mutators that will unlock as you progress deeper into Onslaught. These mutators will be semi-randomly selected based on the enemies that they’re assigned to. Mutators will shift and change how you need to build each lane, so pay attention to the enemy billboards that appear over each enemy spawn, and check out the new corresponding Mutator icons that will show up when you target an enemy that has one. We’ve blacklisted certain combinations of Mutators from appearing together, but there are some crazy combinations that will definitely crank up the difficulty for players interested in strategizing.

Some Example Mutators:

• Berserker Mutator: Enemies start off weak, but become stronger the longer they are alive.
• Exhaustion Mutator: Enemies start off strong, but become weaker the longer they are alive.
• Detonator Mutator: When enemies die, they explode, causing damage to heroes and defenses around them.

New Enemy Schedules

Groups of enemies within our game are referred to as “schedules” in our studio. These schedules determine what types of enemies that spawn out of each enemy lane. In Onslaught, each lane will spawn a different enemy schedule and will require you to build a set of defenses that is effective against that group of enemies.

Example Enemy Schedules:

• Game Ogre Enemy Schedule: All enemies are Ogres.
• Timmy’s Revenge Enemy Schedule: Every type of Goblin in a lane. Gobu.
• Cy-hex Lava-zerker Wompers: Cyborks, Hex Throwers, Lava Orcs,
• Berserkers, and Melee Goblins… have fun!
• And many more!

New Gating and Unlock Progression

The choice is YOURS!... in regards to how you progress. As you unlock more floors through Onslaught, more tiers of Trials are unlocked, and on the flip side, the more Trials tiers you complete, the more floors you unlock. Current players that have completed certain difficulty levels of Trials will already have appropriate Onslaught floors unlocked. For example, players that completed Chaos VII have Onslaught Floor 55 available now. Here’s a list of where you’ll end up in this expansion when you first load in:

• Chaos I: Onslaught Floor 3
• Chaos II: Onslaught Floor 4
• Chaos III: Onslaught Floor 7
• Chaos IV: Onslaught Floor 10
• Chaos V: Onslaught Floor 16
• Chaos VI: Onslaught Floor 37
• Chaos VII: Onslaught Floor 55

Defenders can choose to progress through each Floor of Onslaught, or clear through our unlock progression via Trials and each Chaos difficulty. Check the Challenges UI for details about when these unlock or check out the next Chaos level of Trials at the War Table and it will show you the requirement needed to unlock the next level.

The Lost Temple

It’s HUGE, it’s crazy, and it changes every time you play! The Lost Temple is by far the largest and most interesting level we’ve ever made. During each visit to this humongous map, different lanes and cores will be selected and activated, providing a different experience upon each visit. As you are playing the map, keep an eye out for an additional lane opening up. When a new lane opens up, we’ll give you more mana and Defense Units to be able to properly defend it.

Another awesome addition to this map is the sheer number of enemies that will be able to be on the map. Combat may be a little more chaotic with the huge waves of enemies that will be spawning on this map. We cranked up the number of enemies on screen by almost 200%! Maybe even more? I don’t know, it’s insane… but also very fun. We hope you’ll enjoy it.

Ancient Power

Get far enough into Onslaught, and unlock the ability to gain Ancient Power, an additional character progression system. Each time you gain Ancient Power, you will receive a number of permanent account buffs, raise the maximum cap of points that you can put into each Ascension talent, and keep/increase your new Minimum Ascension Level.

Minimum Ascension Level

The Minimum Ascension Level is based on your Highest Achieved Ascension Level, your Highest Achieved Floor of Onslaught, and will increase each time that you push your limits. You will gain +3 to your Minimum Ascension Level for each additional Floor of Onslaught that you beat over Floor 65 and for every 50 Ascension Levels that you have when you finally hit “Gain Ancient Power”. When you gain Ancient Power, your new Ascension Level after the reset will be whatever your Minimum Ascension Level is.

For example:
On your first playthrough, you hit the minimum requirements to gain Ancient Power and have beaten Floor 65 and have 250 Ascension Levels. Your Minimum Ascension Level will be 15. You got +0 for beating Floor 65 since you didn’t push above it, and you gained +15 for your 250 Ascension Levels.

On your second playthrough, you also only do the minimum requirements to gain Ancient Power. You will gain +0 to your Minimum Ascension Level because you did not push any additional Floors past 65, and you didn’t gain any additional Ascension Levels that would have raised your “Highest Achieved Ascension” number.

At this point you need to push Onslaught Floors or Ascension Levels over 250 to gain more Minimum Ascension Level.

Permanent Buffs

Each time you gain Ancient Power you will also yield permanent buffs:

• +5% Permanent Experience Bonus
• +5% Permanent Gold Gain Bonus
• Ascension Talent Cap raised by an amount that corresponds with your
• progression.
• Increase or Keep your new Minimum Ascension Level

Ancient Powers

In addition to the permanent buffs, you will also receive one point that you can allocate into a number of additional unique Powers! These are the ones that stack with other party members. Some of these include:

• Increased Tower Health %.
• Increased Tower Damage %.
• Lifesteal based of x% of Hero Damage dealt.
• Reduced resurrection timer.
• Increased resistances %.
• And more!

All the buffs can be used in every game mode!

Limited Progression Reset

When you gain Ancient Power, your progression will be reset back to Onslaught Floor 1 and Chaos I with your gear and shards reset to that appropriate level. Using your new Powers, you’ll be able to reprogress back through our end-game at a quicker pace and push into deeper floors of Onslaught with your newfound strength!

Leaderboards

We are adding leaderboards to see who have progressed the furthest through Onslaught. There are two new boards that track different things. The first, our Onslaught Leaderboard, will track the furthest floor progressed similar to Mastery’s leaderboard (i.e. players completing the highest floor at the same are both listed as first).

The second, our Ancient Power Leaderboard, will track which players have acquired the most Ancient Power. There is more info regarding these leaderboards down the road, but are currently used to see who is the best of the best!

Defender Packs

We’re introducing a new system, Defender Packs, to acquire flairs, costumes, pets, and accessories. We weren’t a fan of our old lock box system because it had limited accessories you could unlock, and required keys to open them. Defender Packs were made to always feel rewarding whenever you received one. There are various ways to acquire them, a couple include completing the campaign or progressing through Onslaught. They have a chance to drop from the highest floor you've completed, even when farming your highest floor. If you’ve already completed the campaign, you automatically receive the Defender Packs you would have earned.

Defender Packs include a giant inventory of different skins and flairs, some being extremely rare and prestigious. If you happen to receive a flair, costume, or accessory you already own, you’ll be rewarded handsomely with gold instead!

Maps

Forest Biome

• Updated to give 1250 mana from 1000 mana.
• Now matches the maps Defense Unit cap.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a button display issue with Ev-2 when placing a defense with a controller.
• Frostbite Tower can now target training dummies.
• Fixed a spelling error with The Dawn of the Blood Moon Incursion.
• Fixed an issue where the “G-Up” sound was not playing correctly.
• Fixed a pet unequip issue at the Petrinarian.
• Fixed an issue where the town hub music was tied to the SFX slider.
• Thunderbolts and Lightning can only be equipped to magic staves now.
• Fixed Lavamancer Harden/Inflame VFX.
• Fixed an issue with Start Campaign appearing after completing it.
• Escape can now cancel pet rerolls.
• Water spout trap now named properly.
• Orbs should no longer drop during Campaign.
• Less words are caught by the profanity filter now.
• Glaive of Storms attack animation ends correctly now.
• Fixed an issue where controller inputs could provide an extra daily mission.
• Fixed an issue where Automation was healing more than intended.

Known Issues

• We are investigating an issue where Harpy’s Perch currently does not gain the pierce buff while corrupted.
• We are investigating an issue where Angry Nimbus does not gain storm damage or change material while in Corrupt form.
• Frosty Beams Shard affected enemies are not kept frozen through the entire duration.
• Vampiric Empowerment Shard’s current stat boost is being displayed incorrectly.
• Automation does not work on Snaking Sands, Slime Pits, Geyser Trap, and
• Angry Nimbus towers.
• Tuskar is currently using Witherbeast's icon.
• Assault on Throne Room with mini-Ogres has a chance to spawn at the core.

This is just the start for what’s to come in Dungeon Defenders II! We poured a lot of love into Power of the Ancients and know you’ll enjoy Onslaught. We have a lot of planned for Dungeon Defenders II in 2018, and are grateful for the support you show us to make the game the best it can be.

For Etheria!

The Dungeon Defenders II Team