https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5JpuYILu0s
One week until Open Alpha. One week until you can run around and tell your friends about that cool game you’ve been playing. And once you stop telling them about Rocket League, could you maybe throw in the good word about Dungeon Defenders II being available for anyone to download for free, yeah? That’d be awesome.
All jokes aside, until that beautiful moment comes next week on October 13th, here’s an update full of delicious new features and balance! There are some things in this update that are experimental. You can find these things with our super-subtle EXPERIMENTAL marking. There’s also some things in this update that are AWESOME. We didn’t tag those, but we should have.
Also remember, this patch comes in two parts! Part II [AWESOME] will be releasing October 27th and launch with two new Spooky maps, Incursions, new minibosses, new build items and other awesomeness.
Features
New Stat Points System!
- This is an early-game system to improve investment, choice and progression for early-game players. We’ll be looking into ways of improving the system for endgame players in a future update.
- When you level up, you’ll get points to invest into stats! The stat screen opens up whenever you level up. Clicking the plus button next to a stat adds 1 point, shift-click adds 5 points and ctrl-click adds 50 points!
- Clicking feels good, right?
- Added Defense Speed and Defense Range as stats you can invest in when you level up.
- You can respec your stats for a flat gold cost.
- You can close the window and choose to invest your stat points at a later time.
EXPERIMENTAL: Larger Blockades, Ranged Towers and Auras
- Blockades and Towers take up more space. Size increased by about 30-40%. Collision increases vary between 10-20%.
- The defense footprint was increased by about 3x what it used to be, cutting the amount of defenses you can place alongside one another by about half in a 2-3 blockade lane. Damage was increased as a result (you can find these changes in the Balance section).
- Adding a note to make sure you saw that damage was increased with those changes. #keepcalm
- Auras are just visually bigger. Kappa.
- Traps were not affected by these changes (trap changes were reverted based on playtest feedback).
Melee Weapon Modifications for Squire & Monk
- Newly dropped melee weapons can now roll as 3 stances - light, medium, and heavy. Some weapons can roll as an either/or (ex. Light or Medium)
- Each stance has a different ground attack pattern. The monk still has his same Chi shot, though. He’s been studying kung fu films -- not ninja anime about becoming a hokage or anything.
- There are now random rolls for attack speed on most melee weapons in the game. Two medium swords may not have the same attack rate. Two heavy polearms may have wildly different attack rates.
- Air attacks are unaffected by stance.
- New tooltip added to compare melee weapons.
Ranged Weapon Modifications for Apprentice & Huntress
- Newly dropped ranged weapons now have vastly different behaviors!
- Burst Fire - multiple shots per click, straight line.
- For those sweet MLG noscopez.
- Spread Fire - multiple shots per click, spread fire.
- Can vary wildly.
- Landing the entire spread will deal higher damage than normal, but harder to headshot.
- Shotgun Fire - a LOT of shots in a click, low distance, low accuracy.
- We don’t need to tell you how to use this. Go look up Evil Dead clips or something.
- Homing Fire - Will gravitate towards your crosshair. Never miss a flying kobold suiciding on your core again!
- Arc Fire - Rains death over an arc. Some may have Area of Effect impacts.
- Not new, but slow firing single shot weapons now deal a LOT of damage...
- Burst Fire - multiple shots per click, straight line.
- Certain legendary weapons have unique behaviors. Find them!
- Fixed attack rates will now roll on new weapons. We’ve balanced it such that you can find the weapon you want and succeed more than likely. So take that 40 projectiles a second weapon and go have fun, or the 1 projectile rifle and be precise for big damage.
New Passives and Skill Spheres
- PDT Health (Passive): X% extra Poison Dart Tower health based on your Defense Health stat
- PDT Speed (Passive): X% of your Defense Health is converted to Defense Attack Rate on the Poison Dart Tower
- PDT Explode (Passive): When a target affected by the Poison Dart Tower’s poison dies, it explodes, dealing X% of your Defense Health as damage in an area around it. Also adds a stack of the PDT poison to targets hit by the explosion.
- PDT Range (Sphere): Poison Dart Tower’s range is increased by X%.
- PDT Stack Increase (Sphere): The Poison Dart Tower’s poison can stack X more times on a target.
Partial Controller Support
- Partial Controller (Gamepad) support is in!
- Use Controller must be manually enabled with the new checkbox at the Options -> Controls screen (scroll down and look right).
- For the time being, enabling Use Controller will reset your keybinds. There’s a warning for this, and a future update will remove this limitation.
- Note that many screens still do not support the Controller (yet). You’ll still have to keep your mouse handy for the cursor!
- Future updates will allow for alternate control schemes and changing of stick sensitivity.
Daily Mission Changes
- Daily Missions are now introduced after Dragonfall Sewers in the campaign. Some new, introduction-type missions accompany this earlier introduction, at least until you have a hero high enough to tackle the core daily mission set.
- Added a new quest where the Knight Commander introduces missions between Dragonfall Sewers and Forgotten Ruins.
- Monthly missions are still introduced in their old place after players complete the campaign.