Part 23: All Along the Watchtower

#21 - All Along the Watchtower



Hello everyone. We're back in Rivershire after that little detour to a world named for a specific need. We're still in the present, however. The next bits of gameplay were recorded yesterday - November 15th.

Terraria had an update yesterday. It introduced a new type of gameplay, a tower defense mode. You see, there's currently a crossover event between Terraria and Dungeon Defenders 2. DD2 got the Dryad as a playable hero. Terraria got a new NPC, new weapons, and a new gameplay mode.



To start the new content, we need to find the new NPC. I read the patch notes, so I know he's laying unconscious somewhere in the underground. Otherwise I suppose you're just supposed to stumble over him while you're out exploring.



This is actually the exact same place we found our goblin NPC.





Meet Ted, he's a tavernkeep NPC. Presumably he's the tavernkeep in DD2. You also want to be sure to click that Elder Crystal dialogue choice.



Ale - 1 silver coin - (Gives the tipsy debuff, which increases melee damage and lowers defense)
Eternia Crystal - 25 silver coins - (This is what you defend in the tower defense gameplay mode)
Eternia Crystal Stand - 1 gold coin - (Place this down on a long flat-ish stretch of land. The crystal goes on this.)
Defender's Forge - 75 defender medals - (A portable, personal storage item. This is similar to the piggybank or safe.)
Flameburst Rod - 5 defender medals - (Places a fireball-spewing turret down.)
Ballista Rod - 5 defender medals - (Places an arrow turret down. Pierces a lot of enemies.)
Explosive Trap Rod - 5 defender medals - (Places a landmine "turret" down.)
Lightning Aura Rod - 5 defender medals - (A "turret" that repeatedly shocks anything in its effective radius)

The tavernkeep also sells two upgraded versions of those turrets, but you need to be in the second half of the game for them to appear. Same with all of his cosmetic armor. Yapping Eevee has a correction on this. It's real armor!


Apparently the new armor sets are summoner sets, but they specifically affect sentry minions, like these turrets.

You may also notice that most of what he sells costs defender medals. They are why you should click on the Elder Crystal dialogue choice immediately. The tavernkeep will give you 6 free defender medals, which will allow you to buy a single turret rod. You earn more defender medals by actually participating in the tower defense mode.



So now we need to build Ted a dwelling. I think our base needs a bar, but where to put one?



How about under the tree?



Yeah, like this. But I think even deeper.



Yeah, like this.

So begins what I like to call the string of Blood Moons. While digging Ted's bar out, four different blood moons happened. I didn't even bother recording them until something dropped.







Just like it claims, it summons a flying piggy bank.



There's all the crap we keep in our piggy bank. We have everything from pieces of mega accessories to neat looking vanity sets. Also for some reason we have three live animals living in our piggy bank.



And while running around and murdering zombies, we find the other rare drop from blood moons.



With this equipped, all of our attacks now ignore 5 points of enemy armor. This makes our minishark even better than before!



At some point across the several blood moons, Sam found a top hat to wear. But here's Ted's bar. That's polished granite for the background wall.



I wanted to place the crystal stand down here at our colorful arena, but for some reason the game didn't like it. Probably for reasons relating to the two gigantic trees nearby.



Well, either the trees or the gravity defying brick and wood structure hanging over Sam's head.



Oddly enough this unassuming hill halfway between our tree fort and the desert works.



When you place the crystal in the holder, you get 10 Etherian Mana, which will let use power our turrets. Except right now we don't have any turrets. I was a dumbass and forgot to buy some. So we need to fight the goblin hordes on our own.





We even get an invasion notification and progress bar. Once the timer over the crystal reaches 0, the first wave starts.





There are two portals on either side of the crystal stand, and goblins will pour out of them until we kill enough. Fairly standard tower defense stuff, yeah?



Dead enemies will occasionally drop these little green crystals. Those are more Etherian Mana.



I should also mention that during this tower defense mode, we can't build or place down anything but turrets.



The first wave is pretty easy, but we are in pretty decent gear.



After you fill the progress bar to 100%, you have 30 seconds to mop up the remaining enemies before the next wave starts.



Even these basic goblins can fuck up your crystal if you're not careful.



Wave 2 adds bomb-tossing goblins into the mix, but is otherwise the same as wave 1. It's also pretty easy.



Well, easy if you're not a dumbass who forgot to buy turrets.



Bombers have a little more health and are a little bigger than their regular cousins.



Those bombs really fucking hurt.



Wave 3 adds javelin throwers into the mix.



There's no mistaking them. They hurt even more than the bombers do.



By the time wave 4 starts, we're in pretty rough shape. Sam has 28 HP out of 400 and the crystal is similarly hurting.



Wave 4 introduces wyverns.



These guys are assholes. They dive down to attack, and then they spend several seconds chilling under the ground before diving to attack again.



Show of hands, who saw this coming?



When the crystal is destroyed, things take on an apocalyptic purple shade. You know, to let you know just how much you fucked up.



Let's fast forward about 2 hours. I've now successfully defended the crystal a number of times. Enough that we now have all four types of turrets in our inventory.

Defending the Crystal

You can click the video link above to watch the defense in action.



Over to the right, we place down a ballista turret. Its arrows pierce through several goblins, and do a pretty good job of fucking them up.

Each turret takes 10 Etherian Mana. Each wave will drop either 20, 30, or 40 mana in my experience. So you're fairly limited with which turrets you can place down.



To help defend the crystal, I've enlisted the help of our imp buddy, as well as a flying cat to oversee operations.



Using the imp is almost, but not quite, cheating. He does an awesome job fucking up the goblins.



With the last of the mana from the first wave, we stick a land mine near the portal on the left. This will do an awesome job of softening the goblins up.



The goblins come out close enough together that the mine will hit multiple ones at a time.



We've had a containment breach over on the right. It's not an issue, we'll just need to shore up the defenses on this side when we have some spare mana.



Two ballista will do a pretty good job of containing the right side.



With the last of the mana from the second wave, the left side gets a fireball turret on top of the first hill overlooking the portal.



The goblins will make it past the turret, but between its explosive fireballs and the landmine, they'll be hurting when they make it to the ballista.



Over on the right side, as I predicted, the two ballistae have turned it into a killing field.



No reason we can't set an explosive trap to help matters along.



Wave 4 introduces wyverns, remember. So we'll put down a nasty surprise for them near the crystal. Fireballs, I've found, have an easier time tracking them than the ballistae do.



Goblins on the left side are being slaughtered pretty quickly now.



Heading into the final wave, it's an all hands on deck situation at the crystal. So I plop down a couple more fireball turrets.



In the first half of the game, we only go to wave 5. Once two dark mages have died, the event is over. As I understand it, there are two more tiers in the second half.



Speaking of dark mages, here's one. He summons skeleton minions to overwhelm your turrets, and he has a truckload of health. But thanks to all the firepower we have pouring in on him, he goes down anyway.



When he does, the crystal rises out of its stand and starts collecting energy.





Then we win! I'm sure there's more that I could have done to better protect the crystal, but this is new content and we're all learning as we go for now. I'll keep revisiting this throughout the LP and see how things feel as we progress.

EDIT: Something I forgot to mention is that you can use these turrets outside of the tower defense mode once you've successfully defended the crystal once. You can only place one down at a time unless you're wearing the armor that the tavernkeep sells. They only last for about a minute, however.

NEXT TIME: We actually do the roundup I promised last time.