Dungeon Defenders

[Der Helm]

Got 4 level 70s now, not sure which guy I should start to upgrade now, or how, or in which way. 

[apocrypha]

Well, what I did was decide that I wanted to be able to solo most stuff, mainly because there never seems to be more than 10-20 games visible on the ranked games list, most of which are shops, survival or Uber Monsterfest, and I wanted to do challenges etc.

So I worked out I'd probably want tower Apprentice and tower Squire and a decent DPS Huntress. After getting those 3 to 70 and trying some stuff out I also decided I wanted an aura Monk, so I levelled one of them up too. I used Ramparts on Hard mostly for powerlevelling and also for collecting gear for all 4 characters. Basically after each wave I'd load up each character in turn and pick up all the upgrades then sort them out later. Oh and I leveled up a trap Huntress too. Mostly for doing The Summit since I was struggling on the last wave cos the boss was blowing up all my defences and I read somewhere that he doesn't shoot at traps. Worked like a charm.

Few days of that and I had all 4 in at least matching sets of armour (i.e. all Plate or or Mail - you get a bonus to armour stats when in a complete set) and I spent all the mana I had on upgrading any armour pieces that were worth it, i.e. over 20 upgrades and with no major negative stats for that character. Then I started working on weapons and pets. Another few days doing challenges and specific levels (e.g. Summit for Guardian pets and some weapons) and I had a pretty decent set of gear for those characters.

I'm now at the point where I can solo The Summit on Insane, Halloween Spooktacular on Hard (*great* for item farming) and get to 20+ waves on Insane Survival runs solo - which is where superloot starts dropping!

This thread is a useful list of specific drops, although a bit out of date in terms of maximum stats possible. The wiki is also handy for checking out weapons and pets and where to get them.

One caveat though... I'm an inveterate min-maxer with far too much time on my hands, so YMMV with the kind of approach I've been doing 

[Xanthippe]

What does the "plate" or "leather" or "mail" designation mean, anyway? It all seems random to me.

Is it just a set for matching?

Does a "godly plate blahdeblahblah" match with a "legendary plate blippetybop" or must they both be "godly plate..." things?

[Typhon]

leather with leather, chain with chain, etc.

Godly/Epic/Legendary, etc are just an indication of how many starting buffs/point they get.  You don't have to match the stat adjective, just the type.

[Xanthippe]

Do you have to match the "Enchanted" or "Blessed" also, or just the material it's made from?

[Typhon]

just the material it's made from

[Soulflame]

I'm pretty sure if you match a set of "Pristine" etc it will also work.

[apocrypha]

Pristine is a material.

Leather, Mail, Chain, Plate, Pristine are the material types. Maximum potential stats increase in that order but there's overlap. Same with the prefixes which go from Torn to Godly.

Here's the relevant wiki page.

[Xanthippe]

That's very helpful, thanks.

There is a new "AFK shop" feature where players can sell items.

Here is a link to a website that compiles all of the items for sale into one database. The sellers may not be online when you want to buy something, however. I'm not sure how useful this is, but I'm assuming it will be more useful when Trendy updates this Thursday.

http://defendersstore.com/

[apocrypha]

Yeah I've browsed a few of these shops and every single one I've looked at has had ridiculous prices. Like 10 million for 40^ weapons. 100 million for 50^ pets.

A few people have suggested that there's widespread mana duping/glitching bugs so there's an excess of cash floating about in the system at the moment, hence the moronic pricing in the shops. 

[Soulflame]

I read a claim on the trendy forum that the mana tracking is done on the client side, so.... yeah.

[Furiously]

Well.... Mana is REALLY easy to get.

Just start a survival game.  Once the monster count gets above 2000, you can loot like a fiend, since the game only stores like 200 items before it starts deleting the ones on the ground to make room for more.

So you can just grab everything in the first part of a wave, let the last bit auto-sell, then sell all the unlocked stuff in your inventory and bammo. I make like 2-4 Mill in drops and 2-4 mill or so in auto-selling most waves above 10.

[Xanthippe]

I thought the things that disappear autosell.  No wonder I am slow collecting mana.

[Furiously]

Nope only the stuff at the end does.

[apocrypha]

So new DLC has hit. Looks like a total ripoff to my eyes. £2.99 for one map? Have to buy all of the separate parts to unlock Nightmare mode hosting?

Aimed solely at the hardest of the hardcore from what I can tell. 100^ weapon drops that cost upwards of 500 million to upgrade and a Nightmare mode that nerfs all hero resists to buggery... but supposedly makes towers useful again, as long as you can protect them from the spiders.

Suddenly this game feels like World of Tanks to me - fun until you get to "endgame" when it's just a brick wall driving off all but the most obsessive.

[Hawkbit]

Maybe, but I've bought the PS3 version to play co-op with my kid, and I've bought the Steam version and all DLC and I think it has been worth it overall.  Minecraft is about the only game I've played this year that has come close to taking as much of my time. 

Thing is, I haven't even really scratched the surface of DD, but I waste so much money on other completely shitty games that this one I don't mind spending so much. 

[Soulflame]

Towers are worth fuckall with spiders in play.  Spiders can disable towers pretty much at will, and since towers are almost all directional, you have to either use other towers to protect their back, or just use traps/auras.

One of the trendy representatives said on the forums that they expect maybe 15% of the playerbase to complete nightmare.  At this point, I'm pretty sure they're way overly optimistic on that.  It'll probably be closer to 5% or less.

At this point, I'd say it's a fun game to buy for $15 or less, but ignore the end game or DLC.  The endgame is squarely pointed at hardcore grinder gamers (or hackers).

[Typhon]

[...]
At this point, I'd say it's a fun game to buy for $15 or less, but ignore the end game or DLC.  The endgame is squarely pointed at hardcore grinder gamers (or hackers).

Very well said.

[Xanthippe]

[...]
At this point, I'd say it's a fun game to buy for $15 or less, but ignore the end game or DLC.  The endgame is squarely pointed at hardcore grinder gamers (or hackers).

Very well said.

I found it a lot more fun when I played with random people and was leveling up. Playing solo to powerlevel my other characters is not so much fun.

[Soulflame]

Xan, that pretty much falls into what I was saying.  Play the game through the campaign, maybe try some of the challenges, but ignore survival mode, Uber Monster Fest, and Nightmare mode.  Those parts of the game are distinctly unfriendly to any sort of casual play.

[Soulflame]

If you're still playing this, and completed the campaign (I think that's right) you'll get 20 million mana.  It's contained in presents by your tree in your tavern.

Also, be sure to start a private game.  Apparently anyone can duck in and grab it.   

[Xanthippe]

I only play private games anymore. Maybe that's why I play one or two games and then I'm done. Not nearly as much fun now.

[tazelbain]

I hate tower building interface.

So I have just have repeat the second mapl over and over until I can do real damage to the ogre?

[Hawkbit]

Yes, the ogre was a pain in the ass when I was playing co-op with my kid for the first time.  I almost rage quit because we were wiping maps easily, then the ogre would come through and about 6-shot our defenses.  Once I got to level 12-14 it was no longer an issue.  That early grinding is jarring, but once done we've breezed through every map so far. 

Then, once my squire got the slice n dice tower, we bowl over everything.  They seem a little overpowered for our level combination. 

[Kail]

I hate tower building interface.

So I have just have repeat the second mapl over and over until I can do real damage to the ogre?

Ran into this problem yesterday in co-op.  What we ended up doing was having one person with a ranged attack kite the ogre around while the other took care of all the other monsters that broke through the defenses.  I was a monk, so I ended up kiting him back and forth through a snare/electric aura, chipping away at his health with my projectiles.  Took forever, but we got him down.

[Mrbloodworth]

Recently picked this up. This game is fantastic!

[Hawkbit]

I bought it on PC and PS3, and we gravitated to the PS3 play so I could co-op with my kid.  Oddly, once they announced they were discontinuing console development, we stopped playing it.  I understand their reasoning behind it, but I'm a bit miffed that I dumped well over $50 into their company and they pulled the rug on the version we liked.  It is a really good game, but it's just a shame that they left me feeling salty about my purchase.

[Soulflame]

Recently picked this up. This game is fantastic!

Report back after you hit nightmare difficulty.   

[Dren]

I bought it on PC and PS3, and we gravitated to the PS3 play so I could co-op with my kid.  Oddly, once they announced they were discontinuing console development, we stopped playing it.  I understand their reasoning behind it, but I'm a bit miffed that I dumped well over $50 into their company and they pulled the rug on the version we liked.  It is a really good game, but it's just a shame that they left me feeling salty about my purchase.

I do PC coop with my sons from time to time.  It is a lot of fun.  Sucks they dumped the route you went though.

I'm still working on the wife for a 3rd PC.  2 just isn't enough anymore even with the PS3 to boot.  I'm going to have to build onto my house for a LAN room at some point. *dreams*

[Mrbloodworth]

Recently picked this up. This game is fantastic!

Report back after you hit nightmare difficulty.   

Eh, there is so much content and challenges and map packs, I'm not sure ill hit that button before being done with it.

[Soulflame]

If you have any trouble with anything, let me know.  I'll blow it up real good for you.   

[Mrbloodworth]

7.33
(Unversioned Hotfix)
* Eliminated error when attempting to load "Lifestream Hollow Monster Fest"
(Unversioned Hotfix)
* Fixed PvP maps not loading
* Fixed Oasis MonsterFest forcing Nightmare difficulty

* Buffed all Apprentice staffs Max-Charge Damage by 20%
* Remote-Crystal-Activation (Default 'G' key) now works on MonsterFests and any maps without a Crystal to advance past the Build Phase
* Moraggo and Aquanos area-specific loot drops increased in stat potential to be equivalent to Forest area-specific items
* Character-View (Default 'Q' key) now supports zooming in/out with mousewheel to help get those perfect screenshots -- AND you can now do full movement/input when in Character-View for a more action poses!
* Spectator camera doesn't do collision traces anymore, because they were annoying.
* Added new Freelook Spectator camera that allows you to fly around the world and view anything you want. Press Jump button after dying or when in spectator mode to toggle it. Did you know: you can use the TOGGLESPECTATE command to permanently force yourself into spectator mode, useful for capturing epic screenshots or video of your team. You can also hold Control while in Freelook Spectator mode to move the camera extra slowly.
* Fixed stuck Summit Ogres
* Fixed remaining cases where some enemies (mostly Djinn and Sharken) would lag the rest of the map spawns and straggle-out late in the wave -- now they'll come through more evenly during the bulk of the Wave, keeping the pressure on.
* Moving PlayerShop items into Folders with Gamepad no longer loses Focus on the next listed item (behaves as the Item Box does now)
* Fixed Config Tool Secondary Key bindings / Controller bindings application
* Reduced Chase Camera tilt sensitivity to compensate for the increased tilt range
* Melee-Hidden Targeting Cursor now is always drawn when Blocking (so that you can aim your Block)
* Fixed bug that was preventing constructing Defenses in Deathmatch PvP
* Respective Current / Max stored Item counts are now listed on Item Box and Player Shop
* Added 15 DU to 'City in the Cliffs', for a total of 140
* Sharken base Kill XP value increased from 1 to 12
* Adept Purity Bomb now deals its extra damage to all Dark Elf-type Units (DE Mages, Warriors, and Archers)
* Removed Djinn from Insane Mistymire Boss Fight
* Nightmare-difficulty Wave completion XP globally increased by 25%
* Barbarian 25% Weapon Damage Increase, & Hawk Stance 25% damage increase
* Current Item Box Capacity now dynamically indicated on Item Overlay (so you can see how many Item Box slots you have free when deciding to grab an item off the ground)
* Fixed bug where Proto Beams (and other kinds of Beams) wouldn't work in some areas of certain levels

[Threash]

This fucking game downloads shit every single day, what the hell is it doing?

[Paelos]

This fucking game downloads shit every single day, what the hell is it doing?

I'm wondering the same thing. At times I suspect foul play!

[Kageru]

I guess they're adding stuff to keep the community active and buying DLC content.

I should delete it. I found this game ended up like many of the cute / x-box live style games that look a lot more fun than they actually are and get really repetitive very quickly.