Help Deciding

[Noremac]

Hello all,

I can't decide on buying Awakened $15 or the Dungeon Defender 1 DLC which is $10 for all the non costume content I am missing.

Looking at the games it looks like Awakened has one major thing going for it. The "deck" system. Seems like this is a huge improvement from Dungeon Defenders 1. It seems like it would really enhance the gameplay for me.

In Dungeon Defenders 1 I remember having to level every one up seperately and making "combat characters". Not sure if it still is like that. Look slike Dungeon Defenders has a lot of extra content.

[Valthejean]

I really can't answer this question for you, which I know isn't too helpful. Normally I would have said go for it, because I was under the assumption that this was the game that was going to be developed and expanded on, but now that they're selling DLC for DD1, I have no idea what the future of this game looks like, and I'm terribly afraid it's DDE all over again.

The Deck, while easier to USE than DD1's system, is actually more of a hindrance. You can only have 6 in your deck, and while you can swap characters in and out of the deck, you only get experience for the 6, and if you play rifted (for the best gear) any character not in the deck will not benefit from fusion defenses.

You'll still want to make a dedicated combat character, it's a bit easier to make hybrids in this one, because the stats are divided in the gear categories. Level ups are not, however, so you still have to spend them as one or the other. The problem there, though, is that it uses up a deck slot.

I've long since had issues with the deck, where I think it should have more to it for players to customize with it to offset the limitation. So ultimately, the decision is up to you, I can't really make it for you. DDA looks like it's going to be another abandonware, so I don't want to recommend it to you under a false assumption that it will get more content later.

[dizzydiana]

It really depends how much value you will get out of 1 dlc vs another game. DD1 has way more content in total than DDA, but if you have completed all there was in DD1 before this most recent update and the new hero there might not be that much you will get out of the DLC. The devs recently announced they are more or less just finishing up DDA with adding the features missing from the Kickstarter promises and unless there is a reasonable increase in player engagement no new content will be added. With that being said its best to evaluate DDA as it stands currently if its worth the price.

There are many QOL differences that may or may not be useful to you - auto loot (no need to walk around looking at every item to see if its an upgrade), instanced loot (every player gets their own loot so no fighting over ground loot) no mana chests so mana is given to each player equally, hero deck able to level 6 heroes at a time, no timers in campaign maps without hardcore, simplified loot system no more 30 or so different qualities of gear like torn, cursed etc, no negative stats or different elemental resistances, etc it can feel over simplified coming form DD1 though. One of my favourite features over DD1 is being able to switch to any hero and keep all mana no more losing that 20 or so mana switching from a level 100 hero to a level 90 hero. The maximum amount of mana you can carry at any one time is 99999 so no need to be constantly filling mana as you upgrade a defence. Having ability mana separate is also quite nice no worrying about spamming abilities and not having enough mana to upgrade or repair a defence.

The new difficulty, rifted mode and having bosses in survival/mixed mode are double edged swords they do add more playtime, but becomes quite restrictive in playstyle. Rifted mode for example has specific sets which add fusion damage which is 2x other damage types to fusion enemies this means any sets that dont give fusion damage are basically pointless. The other main bug bear I personally have with Rifted mode is that it only really presents a challenge until you complete a few key sets then it becomes allot easier than running a map without the toggle.

They seem to of taken elements from both DD1 and DD2 and smashed them together to see if it works and sometimes it doesnt really. Some of the new features tend to upset both audiences those coming from DD1 and those from DD2. This also leaves DDA in an awkward place where its not quite unique enough to set it apart from the other titles, but also different enough to feel that its not quite what you expected going in. Its sometimes difficult to see what they were trying to achieve with the game and have earned allot of deserved backlash.

You can easily get well over 200hrs in DDA for for price per hour( i have way more hrs than on my profile as I also have it on Xbox and PS5+alts) its not too bad, but you have to go into it aware of its flaws as well. If you want something different then I would go with DDA, but if you are attached to DD1 as it is and would get enough extra hours out of the new hero for DD1 then get that. Both playerbases for DDA and DD1 have been pretty stable or a while a small but dedicated group who most of are at end game looking for the one or 2 pieces that will get them closer to max stats. Both communities are also pretty helpful with new players with info, carries or what have you. Although the new hero for DD1 might of brought back players who otherwise not of played so might be more active now than usual. I will not tell you which is objectively the better choice as there simply isnt one it is purely subjective. Hopefully the information I gave in regards to DDA will hep you have a better idea of it is the better buy for you.

[Noremac]

Thanks for the info, we did end up getting the game just to start fresh. Just playing coop. So far we have enjoyed. Thanks for all the info.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by dizzydiana:

The devs recently announced they are more or less just finishing up DDA with adding the features missing from the Kickstarter promises and unless there is a reasonable increase in player engagement no new content will be added. With that being said its best to evaluate DDA as it stands currently if its worth the price.

And didn't even bother telling us here on steam? smh....

I shouldn't be surprised that this is happening, but nonetheless I'm angry. So much for all those promises of new features and more frequent updates. DDE all over again...I don't know why anyone supports this god awful company. I can't think of any title in gaming that has more raw potential so utterly squandered by a dev team. But at this point I"m just going to be ranting and I've done enough of that.

Devs: you should have done better. This game deserved better. I regret every hour I spent on this game, let alone every dollar. I'm never again going to trust you on your words or promises of what a game *will* be. Your words are worthless.

[Hayaji]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by dizzydiana:

The devs recently announced they are more or less just finishing up DDA with adding the features missing from the Kickstarter promises and unless there is a reasonable increase in player engagement no new content will be added. With that being said its best to evaluate DDA as it stands currently if its worth the price.

And didn't even bother telling us here on steam? smh....

I shouldn't be surprised that this is happening, but nonetheless I'm angry. So much for all those promises of new features and more frequent updates. DDE all over again...I don't know why anyone supports this god awful company. I can't think of any title in gaming that has more raw potential so utterly squandered by a dev team. But at this point I"m just going to be ranting and I've done enough of that.

Devs: you should have done better. This game deserved better. I regret every hour I spent on this game, let alone every dollar. I'm never again going to trust you on your words or promises of what a game *will* be. Your words are worthless.

I don't think they specifically said they are abandoning it, they are just going to focus on delivering kickstarter features now instead of new content. I agree they should have said it somewhere on Steam, but they did an hour long stream yesterday about their plans etc so it would be hard to write all that down. Watch it on twitch.

Also, why should you regret playing this game? You had your fun with it (or you at least spent time playing it, you didn't "hate-play" it), and honestly price/playtime ratio should be better than a lot of "AAA" games today which cost 80$ and take 20 hours to finish, so I'd say this game was a good deal. I of course can't speak for you, but since you reached the Keep on massacre you must have spent at least 100h on this, which would give you less than 0.5$ per hour.

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Hayaji:

Also, why should you regret playing this game? You had your fun with it (or you at least spent time playing it, you didn't "hate-play" it), and honestly price/playtime ratio should be better than a lot of "AAA" games today which cost 80$ and take 20 hours to finish, so I'd say this game was a good deal. I of course can't speak for you, but since you reached the Keep on massacre you must have spent at least 100h on this, which would give you less than 0.5$ per hour.

Can you honestly say every hour spent during that is fun? Because I certainly can't. I stuck by it for a multitude of reasons, one of the larger ones being that there was an expectation that this game was going to be supported into the future. There are very long, very grindy periods of this game, and those are the worst parts of it (it also happens to be like, 90% of the actual game itself.)

Now, if you were saying I was stupid to expect that it would get better, then I'm inclined to agree with you, because this company has been given ample amounts of good will based on how charming DD1 was, to the point where this isn't even the first time they have "remade" DD1 with the promise of it being a more "definitive" game.

I strongly dislike the hours played as a metric for "quality" in a game. I've only spent about 3 hours playing Bad End Theater. But you know what? That game was utterly delightful for every minute. I feel far more satisfied with that brief amount of time spent than I do the multitude of hours in DDA. In many cases, it's just a sunk cost fallacy "well I've played for this long, maybe if I just get X milestone the game will get better."

My best attempt to explain the regret, was that a lot of the time I spent was specifically with the interest of trying to support it. I didn't *want* it to be another DDE, and I'm going to be frank: it was extremely difficult to force myself to play more. I would stop playing for long periods of time because of just how exhausting it was, but I always tried to come back for new patches because it at least *seemed* like there was a genuine effort to make this game the gem it should be. I think we can all at least agree on that, this game absolutely had the potential to be a banger. We may disagree on where they fell flat on that, but I don't think anyone here came here thinking that the game was just doomed from the get go (unless they're obvious trolls.)

And maybe that is where my problem was, maybe I *should* have ducked out a long time ago. I'm at least willing to admit I was wrong to try and keep it going. I know there were quite a lot of players who basically dropped it day 1, so I guess they were the smart ones all along. Perhaps I just fooled myself into believing that the game would (or could) win back people. I still believe it can, I really do. There's a certain magic to DD1 that makes me remember it fondly, even though if I tried to play it today I just wouldn't be able to stomach it. All I know is, whenever Dungeon Defenders "Re-reawakend" or "Super mega Chronicles" or "We really mean it this time" comes out, I'm just not going to bother next time. I'm just going to have to accept the fact there really isn't a DunDef game for me. DD1 is too old with some really frustrating end-game designs, I just can't go back to it. DD2 is more appealing, but f2p micro-transactions ruin it for me. And now I'm all depressed...