The Official Guide to Events

A detailed guide to everything you need to know about Dungeon Defenders Events by the Event Team!

What are Events?

Events are community made challenges designed to give defenders a break from the normal grind. Events offer a fun new challenge to test defenders building, strategy, and DPS. Event maps offer different gameplay than your typical Dungeon Defenders map.

When do Events take place?

Events will normally take place every 6–10 weeks. This can vary some but we try to have events as often as possible. Events will be announced a week prior to the event weekend on the Dungeon Defenders forum, Steam forum, and Steam groups.

What are the Rules for Events?

• Each person is only allowed to receive one set of rewards for each event. You are allowed to re-run the event again if there is a group that has space but you may not receive a second set of rewards. If there is someone waiting who still needs to run the event, than they will have first priority over someone who is looking to run the event again for fun.
  
  IMPORTANT NOTE: You are NOT allowed to re-run the event on an alt account to get a second set of rewards. If you are caught doing so, you will be banned from future events.

• Participants must be respectful to hosts as well as other participants. Event hosts reserve the right to kick anyone from the event who is disruptive, rude, or derogatory to them or other participants at any time without reward.

• While the event maps will be run on open, hacked and/or modded gear is not allowed except for specifically designated gear by the events team. We feel that participating in an event with game possible gear will give the most enjoyable challenge and experience for everyone.

How do I participate in Events?

During the scheduled event time, join the official event group chat room on Steam. Once you are in the chat room, simply state that you are ready to run the event, and an event host will ask you to join their game as soon as they are available.

It is recommended that you group up with friends ahead of time to practice the map and to run the event itself, but this is not required.

NOTE: Steam no longer allows users to be invited directly from chat, unless they are on your friends list. Hosts may ask you to join a public game on open, or they may add you on Steam to invite you to their game.

Do I need a public profile to play events?

Yes.

If your host doesn't already know who you are, they will need to see your profile, including your games. Steam recently made game libraries private by default, so you will need to change these settings to play the event. (Friends-only is okay if you have the host on your friends list.)

To make your profile visible, please go to your Steam Settings:

　　https://steamcommunity.com/my/edit/settings

Once the host has seen your profile, you can change the settings back.

Are Events played on Open or Ranked?

Events are played on Open Mode because each event takes place on a new custom map. After you play the event, you will be given the event item reward(s) on Ranked Mode.

What should I do to prepare for an Event?

Once an event is announced there are a few steps to get ready for the event.

• It is recommended that you form a group with friends ahead of time.

• Follow the link in the event announcement to the event map. Click on the subscribe button to download the map. Once you have downloaded the map, run the map to make sure that the map is properly downloaded.

• It is recommended that you practice the event map ahead of time with friends to make sure you are prepared for the challenges ahead.

• If the event map seems too hard with your current armor, you can subscribe to the Event Armory Shipment map in order to gear yourself up with some better equipment.

Can I participate with my friends?

Absolutely. It is highly recommended that you form a group with friends and practice the event map ahead of time to work on building a strategy to beat the unique challenge ahead of you.

What if I'm not able to play the event on the event weekend?

If you are unable to make the event during the scheduled time, please contact an event host to schedule an appointment to run it after the event weekend. Some good people to contact are:

• Thales
  
• Moose

What is an Event Host?

Event hosts are community members who volunteer their time to host groups for the event. The event host will organize groups in the event chat, record everyone who runs the event, run through the event with the group, and then hand out the rewards afterwards. All event hosts will have a star next to their name in the event group chat.

What is an Event Item?

Event items are all unique rewards. The item quality will vary some from each event, but the items are designed to be very useful items, but not so strong that it is impossible to farm a stronger item. On the rare occurance, special event items are made that are stronger than items you can farm in game. However, this is not a common occurance.

Items are given to players by the host in Ranked after the run is complete. When the host initiates the trade, hit "u" to bring up the trade menu and confirm the trade after the host confirms.

What is an Event Item Trace?

The idea behind a 'trace" is that you can trace an event item back to its original owner, who received it from an event host. If you can do this, then you know the event item is legitimate.

To trace an item back to the original owner, you will need a screen shot of each trade. The original owner will either be on the trace sheet themselves (in which case they don't need a screen shot), or they will have a screen shot of their trade with the event host who gave them the item.

NOTE: While the Events Team does post a list of the players who participated in each particular event, hosts are not responsible for keeping track of any traces. So please dont ask hosts for traces.

What is an Event Item Trace Sheet?

An event trace sheet is a document published by the Events Team that lists the Steam ID of every single player who received a reward during that particular event. We post this document after the event weekend in the original announcement thread of the event. You can give the link to your name on this sheet as a trace when trading. A link to the google doc where the most recent event traces are kept is below:

• Official Event Item Trace Sheet[docs.google.com]

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What if I don't have any characters on Open Mode?
A: You can export your ranked data to Open. Refer to the video below.

Q: My characters aren't good enough to play events. Can I play anyway?
A: Absolutely! Check out the Event Armory Shipment, where you can level your characters up to 100 and get end game gear. The Armory Shipment gear is more than good enough for event maps, even without accessories.

Q: How long does it take to play an event?
A: It usually takes about an hour or less, although you may have to wait for an event host before you actually play the map.

Q: Why do you not post event announcements on “X”?
A: If there are enough people who would like us to post event announcements on another website/social media site then we can. We attempt to spread the word the best that we can so no one misses out on the event.

Q: Do I have to beat the event in order to get the rewards?
A: Most event items are given out on a participation basis. As long as you play the event and try your best then you will get the rewards. About once per year we will have a bonus event item for those who are able to beat the event map or get past a certain wave of an event map.

Q: How do I get my reward after the event?
A: After your event run is over, restart Dungeon Defenders and go to ranked. Your event host will send you an invite and give you your rewards.

Q: I got a “Package Mismatch” error when trying to join someone's game. What should I do?
A: Restart Dungeon Defenders.

Q: I'm still getting a "Package Mismatch" error each time I try to play the map.
A: Have everyone restart DD. Make sure the host has a map like Lab Assault selected until everyone has joined. If they still have trouble joining, they may have created a lobby – tell them to join without making their own open lobby.

Q: How can I help with events?
A: Tell all the players you know about the event! We want as many people to play the events as possible.

[Psychonuts]

How do I get to know about the events, Is there a specific group?

[Celestial]

I've had a problem recently that when i was doing an open map for a giveaway, i had the package mismatch error and when i restarted, it didnt fix it. Another solution to this is to unsubscribe to all the maps you are subscribed to and verify integrity of files. From there it should work.

[Plane]

You're right, Snappy, it isn't always necessary to restart. But if everyone restarts then it reliably fixes the problem, so it saves us a lot of time if we just tell everyone to do so. (In my experience, usually when people try to resolve things on their own instead of following the instructions, it ends up taking a bunch of the hosts' time.)

[=Snappy=]

First of all, TY for events, to all who facilitate and participate!

Re: the "Package Mismatch" issue...

I'll agree that if you want a certain resolution to this issue, it's probably best to have everyone quit and restart DD. But, based on my experience getting around this issue several times during this weekend's event, I think there's a good possibility that, at least sometimes, only the person seeing the error needs to restart DD. So, you may want to try just restarting your own DD, before having everyone restart DD.

There were times when I restarted my own DD and I'm pretty sure no one else did -- or at least, not everyone else did -- and the issue resolved.

Especially in events, when everything is pretty chaotic and hosts already have their hands full, obviously it's advantageous to have individuals troubleshoot their own issues vs. having to bring the host and whole group into it.

GL & HF! :)

[Black Mambo № 5]

Much needed!