Dungeon Defenders

[Segoris]

Mostly moving the camera.  Seemed like it was bound to ctrl, which is pretty weird for something that's been more or less a solved problem in PC games for years now.

I found that annoying until I re-bound my camera control to right mouse button and the alternate weapon use to a mouse thumb button as well as activating auto camera movement in options. The camera felt a whole lot less shitty in top-down view at that point as either moving the mouse to the edge of the screen or holding RMB and moving the mouse made it a lot smoother. I don't know why the camera didn't auto rotate when I hit for the camera to be automatic, but moving the mouse to the edge of the screen + RMB was good enough for me to not care anymore.

[Hayduke]

Just pretend the monk is sinead o'connor.


On a more serious note, I'm having issues soloing to 15 on pure strat or survival for pets :(

What's your set up?  I've found having proximity mines help a lot.  Towers just don't kill stuff fast enough.  You might need to farm levels or gear before tackling them solo though.

[kildorn]

Just pretend the monk is sinead o'connor.


On a more serious note, I'm having issues soloing to 15 on pure strat or survival for pets :(

What's your set up?  I've found having proximity mines help a lot.  Towers just don't kill stuff fast enough.  You might need to farm levels or gear before tackling them solo though.

Typically a base squire bottleneck at the main chokes, then proxy mines and lightning auras at the farther out chokes and just beyond the defensive line to stop sappers. My main issue is that when Necros show up, any of them getting past the proxy mines and auras = dead core. Just because I tend to get a wave of 4-5 of them in a pack chain healing each other. That and on pure strategy, your auras and traps run out before the wave is over, even with max tower health.

My last laugh pure strat attempt had 8 far chokes with lightning auras, 6 near chokes with proxy mines, and bouncer/harpoon final lines. Still died to the eventual 9,000hp necromancer zerg.

[Hayduke]

Oh thought you were talking more about survival.  I gave up on pure strategy once I learned you couldn't even repair your stuff.  Seems like traps and auras would be utterly useless in that game mode on later waves.

[kildorn]

There's a way to cheese that rule, but it's a little tedious.

You sell all your traps and auras every round, since you have so much mana and they cost nothing. Deploy them as level 1 and start the wave, then run around and upgrade them slowly during the wave. Every upgrade heals them to full, and you can upgrade mid-wave.

But in general, pure strategy mode has issues with trap and aura mechanics. An aura without upgrade cheesing will last about 600-700 monsters at 110 health rating. And the waves get into the 8-9k range.

[Paelos]

I managed to solo up two more maps because I finally realized where to put bumper barricades on my squire. Go figure!

There are some odd things on these maps with placement. The most obvious one is the pathing of the mobs isn't really consistent that I've seen. Sometimes I'll turn around and there will be a lone archer just standing there plunking my stone.

[Xanthippe]

Well, this is a fun little game.  I played a monk up to level 14 in multiplayer.  Not thrilled with a monk, but figured I'd start with my least favorite class (after playing them all to level 5 or so singleplayer).

It's way more fun with other people, even randoms.

[Soulflame]

The key to monk is realizing you need a physical or fire solution to mobs that are immune to electric, and that slow aura + electric aura is what people love about monks.

[Typhon]

Monk is my favorite.  When you get the aggro aura, lay down electric, slow and aggro at the spawn points where the most mobs spawn - this will thin them out nicely.

I haven't found a use for the heal aura yet.

[Hayduke]

With elec + ensnare aura plus magic missile towers behind them you don't even need barricades.

[Paelos]

I like the squire a lot. I've just hit level 25 and I'm on the Royal Gardens map after defeating the second boss. The game is certainly hard, but I've found that almost all your problems can be solved by better strategy rather than simple brute force.

Except on bosses, you just have to whack the shit out of them quickly and hope for the best.

[kildorn]

Monk is my favorite.  When you get the aggro aura, lay down electric, slow and aggro at the spawn points where the most mobs spawn - this will thin them out nicely.

I haven't found a use for the heal aura yet.

Heal aura is for hard/insane bosses. You can actually just stand there with the boss and swing if you like. Otherwise, meh. The idea is it takes hundreds of mana to heal, but I find you are swimming in mana at higher levels.

[Xanthippe]

I have 0 friends on Steam.  If anyone wants to play, I'm Xanthippe0.

I just made a second apprentice.  Trying an experiment.  This one is going to put all points in towers.

This is such a fun little game.  Lootastic!

[Typhon]

My apprentice is (nearly) all points in towers - he's a beast.

Tried a different experiment - all hero skills on the huntress.  Not working so well.

[Paelos]

I've found that pumping points into towers with some points in casting speed for quick repairs makes a beastly solo experience.

Plus my gear on my squire has a chainsaw sword!

[Xanthippe]

I read today that hero damage points on monk is a complete waste.

So what should I put points in?  I don't want to have to start over again on him.

[JRave]

You can respec your character's points.  However it requires a lot of mana to do so.  It is under the Services tab on the Bartender/Shopkeeper. 

[Paelos]

I'd invest in hero speed, personally. The ability to get quickly from point to point, especially if you are focusing on towers damage, is a great thing in the later stages of the game.

[Musashi]

My apprentice is (nearly) all points in towers - he's a beast.

Tried a different experiment - all hero skills on the huntress.  Not working so well.

Especially since the proximity bomb trap is so op it's not even funny.  It's usually the first thing the monsters hit, since you're expected to put them in front of defenses.  So you essentially are farming all the kills. Combine that with the fact that you can turn invisible and repair them without being targeted, and it's just silly.  Except for those stupid player targeting elves that see invis.  Cocksuckers.  :(

[Ghambit]

I was cruising along fine in this game until these blue flying ninja fucks showed up. 

[Xanthippe]

It looks like female characters are coming according to the teaser at the bottom of this post:

http://forums.trendyent.com/announcement.php?f=40&a=18

I misread this when I first posted.  These are silhouettes of new characters, not female skins for existing characters.  Still to come some time in the future.

[Xanthippe]

My tower apprentice is 54 now.  I still can't solo the Deeper Well to 15.  Best I've gotten is to 13, on Easy mode, using some monk fields (slow and shock) and fire towers.  Monk is 24 or something.

[Soulflame]

Don't start survival on Deeper Well.  It's actually one of the hardest.  I haven't tried in some time, but I wasn't able to get much further than you're saying, about 13 or so, and that on Easy.  I'm considering trying again, now that I can combine exactly what you're using, slow+electric aura and fireball towers.  Back those up with Deadly Strikers, and pray.

I'd recommend giving Forge or Alch Labs survival a try.  Forge gets you a robot that boots mobs away from you, and Alch gets you a robot which shoots lasers that pierce walls and mobs with great abandon.  I've upgraded damage on both types of robots, really I think the one from forge, with a high damage stat, may be the better choice.  Especially if you're still in gather mana -> upgrade tower mode.

Also, you might consider giving Deeper Well campaign insane a try.  It's not actually too bad, and if you do clear it, the shop sells some pretty good equipment.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I've been playing this a fair bit lately, and it's fun and all, but I can't really shake the feeling that while it's a fine game, it's not really a very good Tower Defense.

Like, the lack of pathing manipulation is obviously the big one. This was basically the foundation of tower defense in WC3, though obviously there were also lots of popular preset-creep-track TDs as well. But those of course had to bring in a lot of tower variety and upgrade paths to keep things interesting. Complexity-wise, Dungeon Defenders feels like an also-ran compared to custom maps designed by a single person back in the WC3 era.

Then again I am mostly just soloing my way through the campaign maps, and my dudes are only level 20ish. Survival mode seems more like what I'm after, except that again it doesn't feel like I am coming up with elegant solutions so much as stacking the same optimal tower configuration in the same place. Some of the later maps have a bit more opportunity for creativity, especially once you get like +30 extra range on Apprentice towers (lightning towers are kind of wildly OP though -- pretty much the main challenge on any map is 'what will I do about the lightning immune creeps' because everything else is going to be dead really fast.)

Anyways, definitely still enjoying it (the loot is fun at least -- good loot goes a long way!) and hoping that the TD parts get more engaging as I open up more options.

Do the maps scale up in difficulty on multiplayer, or is the assumption that you'll just up the difficulty or try harder modes if you have more people?

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Also, you might consider giving Deeper Well campaign insane a try.  It's not actually too bad, and if you do clear it, the shop sells some pretty good equipment.

Is shop selection related to what map you just did or something, then? Every time I look in the shop the dude is selling insane overlevel gold shit for like 150k (while I have like 15k saved up, max) -- at least for the weapons. The armour seems to be more affordable.

[Xanthippe]

Do the maps scale up in difficulty on multiplayer, or is the assumption that you'll just up the difficulty or try harder modes if you have more people?

There are more mobs (depending on how many people are playing), and harder modes are easier with more people (assuming a basic level of competence).

Multiplayer is more fun too, barring the occasional miscreant.

[trias_e]

Can't beat the second level with huntress for the life of me.  Makes me feel really stupid that I can't beat the second level on medium ><

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Huntress-only seems like it would be fairly difficult, starting out, given that you have no ability to block the creeps. Even a level 1 squire to swap in and put up a few barriers will make your life a lot easier.

[Soulflame]

My impression of "Veteran" for Huntress and "Master" for Monk is more "willing to swap in characters to cover holes in turrets" than any actual skill requirement to play the classes.

That, and the ogre will mess you up if you aren't expecting it regardless.

Also, yes, the shop contents seem to change based on what you most recently completed.

[Xanthippe]

Also, you might consider giving Deeper Well campaign insane a try.  It's not actually too bad, and if you do clear it, the shop sells some pretty good equipment.

Excellent advice, thanks - I soloed the first 3 levels on insane and got from 68 to 70 doing so on apprentice.

Monk is now about 35.  Going to fool with squire too.

I have no idea how to play huntress - pew pew damage with tower health for more traps?

[Musashi]

Get your area of effect and frequency of explosions high enough so that the creeps can't get across your trap before it blows up again.  Beware of gargoyles.  And basically run around fixing traps.  If you're soloing, leave enough defense points to drop a gas trap in ogres' paths.

[Lantyssa]

It looks like female characters are coming according to the teaser at the bottom of this post:

More female types.  Yay!

Get your area of effect and frequency of explosions high enough so that the creeps can't get across your trap before it blows up again.  Beware of gargoyles.  And basically run around fixing traps.  If you're soloing, leave enough defense points to drop a gas trap in ogres' paths.

I put a gas trap on the far side of an inferno trap.  Then an explosive beyond those two for anything that survives.

Can't beat the second level with huntress for the life of me.  Makes me feel really stupid that I can't beat the second level on medium ><

Huntress is quite difficult starting out.  My life would probably be a lot easier if I swapped things out, but I play Huntress-only.

You have to use your traps to slow them down and thin them out enough you can run around and kill them yourself.  It's not really possible for a newbie huntress alone.  They absolutely need their higher traps to do this.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

The way loot works in this game is kind of nuts, level-scaling wise. I noticed that I can clear the Royal Gardens on Hard (after playing most of the campaign on Medium) and suddenly everything that drops is a level-unrestricted upgrade. It's a power-leveller's dream.

[Xanthippe]

The way loot works in this game is kind of nuts, level-scaling wise. I noticed that I can clear the Royal Gardens on Hard (after playing most of the campaign on Medium) and suddenly everything that drops is a level-unrestricted upgrade. It's a power-leveller's dream.

Are you sure about that?  Gear requirements don't show up if you meet them, only if you don't.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Oh, hmm, that may be it.