Dungeon Defenders Awakened: Early Access

The Basics

Dungeon Defenders Awakened is the next iteration of the Dungeon Defenders series and the newest creation of the re-branded Chromatic Games. Dungeon Defenders Awakened is a return to the beginning that was the first Dungeon Defenders game, while retaining some of the good that came from Dungeon Defenders 2. At its heart it is a niche third person tower defense game with a lot to offer but with a core flaw that keeps a lot of people away. Like Dungeon Defenders 1 and 2 Dungeon defenders suffers from repetitive and afk’ble game-play. I use the term suffer lightly though as the “issue” is more of a matter of a core game-play style that defines the game. Once you clear the initial campaign you will be playing the same maps over and over to try to push past your limit to get better gear and climb higher. There is of course a limit to the amount of content chromatic games can put out(they have to sleep sometimes) and so if you put in enough time you will find yourself repeating the same map trying to get a slightly better pair of boots. That is not to say it is not enjoyable, I have 92 hours on Awakened and 500+ hours on 1 and 2, so I can say for sure that the play-style appeals to some people. It is definitely limited though, steamspy puts the peak concurrent user(CCU) count for dungeon defenders 1 pulling between 300 and 500 while dungeons defenders 2 has a CCU of between 750 and 1000. Respectable numbers to be sure, and although the stats only show an approximation it’s clear that the dungeon defenders series isn’t drowning in users. At the end of the day most of the people who are going to enjoy Dungeon Defenders are probably already a member of the community, although we always welcome new faces.

Value Proposition

With Dungeon Defenders being in early access and with a 40 dollar barrier to entry the key question is “Is it worth it?”, and like most things the answer is “It depends”. I would love to be able to give a clear answer as the bigger the community the better. However for many new people the game might not be worth the money in its current state. This is perfectly natural for a game in early access. From the games store page, the current contents of the early access is:

  • 12 Campaign maps playable
  • Four base heroes playable
  • Easy, Medium, Hard, and Insane difficulties available.
  • Four player online co-op.
  • Survival Mode available.
  • Session browser available.
  • Gear, accessory, and pets available to earn.
  • Quickmatch to play with other Defenders.

I believe the campaign has the widest appeal as it has the most opportunity for overcoming challenges and avoids most of the repetitive game-play that comes in once you begin to grind the survival game-mode. It took me around 20 hours until I “beat” the campaign, I did an entire run through on hard then beat a few maps on insane including the final map. Most of the time came from trial and error trying out different approaches to clear each map. This was by no means the fastest time, in fact I would imagine it is one of the slower times. At that point I was looking at about $2 and hour, which some people would find reasonable I believe most are looking for $1 an hour for their games. This however was from skipping the easy and medium difficulties in their entirety and so a new player might spend more time on the campaign. It is hard to say how much mileage any given person might squeeze out of the campaign because going up the four difficulties doesn’t change anything about the campaign itself it just makes the numbers bigger. Most, if not all, of the players will spend the most time in survival. The initial stage of survival is just as fun if not more fun than the campaign. Pushing higher, trying to find that next awesome piece of gear that will let you push higher, or trying to get to the end of wave 14 and 25 to get a new pet to boost you even higher. Sensing a theme? Struggling through the initial stages of the survival mode might earn you another 10 hours or more, but after that is pure unfiltered grind. This is where most people find out if the series is truly for them. This is where you play the same maps trying to find that next small upgrade, and the longer you play the less likely you are to find each upgrade as you approach the peak of what the rng can generate. Sometimes you will play for 1-2 hours and be rewarded with nothing but gold. For those who find out they love it, it is an amazing game that you can find yourself sinking hundreds or even thousands of hours into. It is definitively not for everyone though. For those of you who are on the fence about purchasing I would recommend waiting a few more weeks as Chromatic Game’s roadmap has them releasing a bunch more content this march. It might just be enough to push you over the edge even if you don’t see yourself enjoying the endgame grind.

MISBITS – Early Access

I got a free key for Misbits at PAX this year, and honestly, I’m not sure if the game is very good. At the time of writing this, I’ve played about 38 minutes. Before I publish this, I’ll try to play another 20 or so minutes so I can say I played it for at least an hour, but I really doubt the next 20 minutes are gonna change my opinion, because I’m simply not having fun at the moment with it.

I first went over to Misbits because it looked neat. It has a sorta nice toy box aesthetic, which makes sense given the game is based around the idea that you’re a toy head, and that the biggest game play element is that you can go around jumping onto different bodies, with different special attacks. You also have health on your bodies, so if you get hurt, you can jump to a different one. I think I’ve seen about 5 different bodies so far, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more.

So why am I not having fun? Well, simply put, everything feels really floaty and it feels really hard to actually connect with hits or attacks. It doesn’t help that everything is either a melee attack or a thrown weapon, the only ranged weapons I’ve seen are turrets. Also, it can be surprisingly difficult to figure out what to pay attention to. New bodies are constantly dropping down from the sky, as are items. Enemy players are marked sometimes with a sorta line, but it can still be hard to quickly and easily spot them.

There are two big features that are supposed to be added later to the game, a workshop for building your own levels and sharing them, and the creation tools for said levels. Right now they’re not just present.

For the moment, I wouldn’t recommend it.

You can find the Misbits website here, and you can find the game on steam.

MIT League Challenge 3/7/20

So, whenever I have good and bad news. I usually ask for the bad news first. So I’m gonna start with that.

I did not do well at the League Challenge. In fact, I came in second to last.

However, there is some good news to this, and it is as follows.

Yeah, I somehow managed to come in 4th. As you might have guessed, this would have been more impressive if it hadn’t been 5 people competing.

So what happened, and what went wrong? That’s what I’ll be covering in the rest of this writeup.

DECKLIST

Pokemon – 20
4 Jirachi TEU 99
3 Mewtwo & Mew-GX UNM 71
3 Dedenne-GX UNB 57
1 Charizard-GX HIF 9
1 Reshiram & Charizard-GX UNB 20
1 Magcargo-GX LOT 44
1 Latios-GX UNM 78
1 Naganadel-GX FLI 56
1 Naganadel-GX UNM 160
1 Solgaleo-GX PR-SM 104
1 Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff-GX CEC 165
1 Victini V SSH 25
1 Blacephalon CEC 104
Trainer – 28
4 Welder UNB 189
1 Professor’s Research SSH 178
4 Quick Ball SSH 179
4 Cherish Ball UNM 191
4 Switch SSH 183
2 Great Catcher CEC 192
2 Reset Stamp UNM 206
2 Escape Board UPR 122
2 Stealthy Hood UNB 186
3 Giant Hearth UNM 197
Energy – 12
8 Fire Energy 2
2 Psychic Energy 5
2 Weakness Guard Energy UNM 213

If this list looks familar, that might be because it’s an exact copy of Nico Alabas’s ( @LimitlessNico ) list from the Melbourne International a few weeks back. You can see more of the standings, and decks used here.

GAME 1 – LOSS TO PIKAROM
Game 1 was against a an electric deck, that appeared to be a variant of Pikarom using the Morpeko V and Morpeko V MAX. However, instead of using the V Max’s attack, it primarily used memory energy with it to allow it to blast with Electro Wheel, and then retreat and swap in a Lillies Pokedoll. Overall, I wasn’t able to hit hard enough, and simply got beaten down and outplayed.

GAME 2 – WIN VS PIKAROM

Game 2 was a win, but was a much closer match up. Despite playing vs Pikarom, I was able to hold on, and after two of my Dedennes got sniped, my opponent misplayed, and tried to use Tapu Koko’s V’s Thunderous Bolt twice in a row. Unfortunately, that’s not how that attack works. The game went to time, and with both of us having two prizes left, he retreated his Tapu Koko V on turn two, meaning I needed to either knock out both of his basics in play, or the Koko on the bench. I was just barely able to get the 200 damage from Mega Lopunny & Jigglypuff GX with Puffy Smashers GX, and take the game on turn 3 of time.

GAME 3 – LOSS TO MILL

Game 3 was against mill, and was one of roughest openings I’ve ever had piloting the deck. My opening hand had no draw, and my starting Pokemon was Dedenne GX. Despite this, of the match-ups, this felt like the most winnable one. However, I utterly botched first. Of my three answers to a mill deck, my Blacephalon got milled turn one. Then, I rather foolish put both my Nagandel GX, and my Magcargo GX into the discard at the same time. From then on, I just got locked out and milled down with Pal Pad, Lt. Surge, and Bellelba & Brycen-Man.

For me, this game felt the worst because it was a match-up I could have won if I had played differently.

SO WHAT WENT WRONG?

Of the three games, I feel like I definitely should have been able to win at least 2 of them. However, in game 3, I critically failed to understand how the control combo worked, and made what I’d consider to be several major misplays. They were as follows

  1. Knocking out his pokemon, allowing him to use Lt. Surge
  2. Discarding both my Magcargo GX and Nagandel GX at the same time, allowing him to remove them with Girafarig.

I think that if I had gone for one at a time at a maximum, I would have possibly been able to reset the prize card status, or go for a mill win with Magcargo GX mill 5. But I let my win conditions get removed, while helping him set up his prizes.

For game 1, I think I would have won if I had teched slightly differently. One of the biggest issues I had piloting the deck overall was having a very hard time grabbing psychic energy when I needed it. The deck only runs two, and venom shock is a really good tool for dealing with benched mons, and stuff like Morpeko. If I was to run the list again, I might try adding a Viridian Forest.

I want to stress I don’t think this would generally improve the deck for a larger event. It did, after all, win an international. However, I think that the deck most likely shines against ADP and Zacian V decks. At a smaller event, however, a Viridian Forest would help the toolbox nature of the deck set up a bit faster.

Finally, I also mispredicted the sorts of decks I expected to see. I was expecting to see a lot more goons, and maybe a few weird grass decks. But there wasn’t actually a single one.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading, and hopefully I can report better progress next time.

PAX EAST 2020 – Part 1

Another year, another PAX East, another massive hole in my wallet due to purchasing way too many incredibly wonderful DND related objects I don’t need. But yeah, you’re not here to read about my wallet being eviscerated, you’re here because I’ve linked you to this page.

VIDEO GAMES

LUCIFER WITHIN US – As much as I’d love to just copy paste the games description of itself, I can’t do that, because 1. It wouldn’t be fair, this game looks really cool, and 2. I only have their handout for it.

So, here is the website for it instead. I’ll do a longer write up on this one a bit later, and hopefully, more once I’ve actually gotten to play it. But yeah, really neat aesthetic in which you’re a sort of tech-priest, comparing the testimony of witnesses to a crime to try to find out who dun did it. Thing I’m most excited to see how it turns out.

KNUCKLE SANDWICH – I didn’t actually play this one. I just looked at it. It looks sorta like a combo of Earthbound and Warioware? Weird shit. Looked neat enough for me to care about it though. More info here.

GIGABASH – I did play this one. I did not win. One trend I’ve noticed over the last few years is games that are really fun to play at Cons, but actually kinda suck once you play them elsewhere, because they’re intended for couch co-op, and I don’t have friends. But yeah, GigaBash is a monster brawler where you try to beat the shit out of each other while not being murdered. You play as a bunch of Giant Kaiju things. It looks really nice, I just can’t say whether I liked it because of the convention atmosphere or the game is just good. GigaBash can be found here.

GENSHIN IMPACT – It’s some anime thing. Gameplay looked kinda like a brawler? I didn’t get a chance to play it, didn’t want to wait in line. Looked pretty though. Click that link to get to it’s website.

TURNIP BOY COMMITS TAX EVASION – Yeah, that’s the name of the game. Seriously though. I didn’t play it, did watch for a bit. Catchy title if nothing else. Kinda hard to tell if it’s YouTube bait, or legit good gameplay. I’m gonna be keeping an eye on it if nothing else. Here is the steam wishlist page.

That’s all for part one. In the next several parts, I’ll work my way through the rest of the video and board games I saw, and then maybe finish with a few brief posts about how amazing Sento Figher is. Like seriously, I need to own it.