Hey guys.
I havent had the pleasure getting to play demigod yet, but when beta2 starts i will be all over it. Im just wondering how this game matches up to dota. How similar are they in fact and in your oppinion what is the best of them? One of my biggest conserns is that i heard you can only choose from 8 different demigods opposed to 93 in DOTA. Does the increased options of speccing your hero even this out a bit? This is comming from a guy who has played +5000 games in DOTA so im really worked up about this game.
Frogboy this game has a chance because you guys added more end of level skills. My suggestions seems to have taken effect so now my opinion is that the game is great.
Cool! And thanks!
We are reading the forums, taking notes on suggestions and adding them when possible.
Ke5trel, the funny thing is that although a number of us were in that clan X, we all came to our conclusions separately since we haven't talked much in months... I suppose its simply that we have similar game styles and preferences.
As Frogboy has said, things will still change alot still, so in that sense I am hopeful. I would love it if as you say, demigod achieves that "Easy to learn, hard to master"...Its just that I find that much more often it turns out to be "Easy to learn, easy to master".
Let me give an example: The Rook hero. I did one AI game to learn his skill changes/etc. I quickly came to the conclusion that the best build would include his smash, boulder stun, godly strength, the-stuff-on-his-head, and the stat-boosts... I don't think i'd ever change my skill-preference choices. Next I took a quick glance at the items, found out that the early ones tend to give me tons of "bang" for the buck...so decided to get those till I had all 5 slots filled. Extra gold would go towards citadel upgrades.
Further study of items, or item changes, would of course affect this plan but I feel that early first-glance impression got my rook to pretty darn good. Looking at the map, I saw what each flag did and made a quick 30 second priority-list of which ones I liked more. So I gave getting those flags preference during a game...
I now have a hero that can 1) smash, 2) hit normally 3) stun. Those are my options during any fight and as such the permutations are fairly simple and easy to choose from. From the few games I have played against humans in the latest beta with the rook, I figure I have that hero's gameplay optimized to like 95% or better. Meaning, I can't see myself EVER EVER (or anyone else using that hero) getting much better usage out of him that I did after a few simple attempts.
That hero for me thus becomes "Easy to learn, easy to master"... This example illustrates what has been one of my problems with Demigod, the affect of "skill" on gameplay quickly reaches a "top"...
I hope this kind of thing is one of the things that shall change in beta3 or later...We shall see .
-Drexion
Betas are not meant to be fun, they are meant to -test- and ensure a quality product. Seems a few too many open betas have warped the view on why beta testing exists. Fun is a byproduct of quality. The D2 Open beta was act 1 & warriors, not exactly fun or remotely the powerhouse it came to be.
I would also second a pushback again, if feasible. More test time, more balance time, and more marketing time...though still plenty of time to get the word out, a few months left...I know -alot- of MMO raiders & casual players alike that would love a non-fps sidebar that isnt a decade old, that have absolutely no idea what demigod is.
Odd too, not a big DotA fan...loved me tower defences till the end of time...
I doubt very very much they will push back Demigod, there are *monsters* coming out a bit later in the year and they don't want to release at the same time... Heck, if I was a game developer and had to launch at the same time as StarCraft2, i'd cry.
QFT. If only every game developer could have that Blizzard-sized budget...
yeah, I guess its because the demigod beta IS fun, just not as fun as it could be. So people forget that it isn't the finished game. As I said, I was expecting a huge ball of not-quite-fun, but I was very pleasently surprised
I wouldn't always say that fun is a byproduct of quality, I think it takes more than just puting a bunch of high quality things together into a single quality product. but I guess that depends on your definition of 'quality'. I feel that some of the resent sonicteam games are 'quality' but not very fun because it is the WRONG KIND of quality, or too much of something so it becomes boring quickly.
Drexion I would just like to point out that rook isn't just this easy hero like you think, there are a lot of different things that can be done with his towers. For example you could even go your build and just get one level of tower and put it up so your teammates can teleport right to where you are. There are a lot of strategical things you haven't considered yet. or even just massing light towers by your own towers then focusing on another flag. Eating your own tower to stay in a lane longer. There are a lot of different things you can do with rook and you will have to balance them all more as his skill tree becomes more complex. Just saying that it is easy to master him now because he isn't balanced yet isn't really an excuse. I get your point and I am sure that everyone is afraid it wil be easy to master but it is better at least from a sales point of view that it be fun at first and not so mind numbingly complicated that people can get into it.
I can certainly agree that a game should not have a high bar of entry if it wants to be popular.
With regards to the light tower skill, as it stands right now i'd never get it unless it was a 4v4 or larger game, maybe not even then...And yes I did consider using it as a teleport base ... Eating tower/etc is fine, but once again, i'd never do it if I was going for an "optimal build". IMO, doing any of those actions, with things as they stand right now, would make your rook less efficient. While there are many "variations" with the rook you can do, I believe my point stands above that you can reach a VERY very high "rook usage optimization" right now with very little demigod experience... If the only difference is that tomorrow I may decide that getting 1pt into light tower is worthwhile for team "tp points"...Well, I don't think thats much of an improvement over my current build, lol...Specially considering mana usage costs.
The other question then becomes, if I am "given" a fully teched out rook with skills/items...How much can I improve my gameplay USAGE of the rook? I don't think I can improve that very much, unfortunately, as what I can do at any given time is fairly limited. This is in comparison with me using a Hero in dota for example where I feel I can almost always improve my usage of them...and I feel in DOTA for example that I will *never* get as good as some friends of mine... I just don't see that right now in my Rook demigod gameplay.
Who knows, maybe it'll change in beta3 .
Texas Holdem is a pretty fun card game. Add 2 more rounds after "the river" or take away the flop and it's a much less fun game.
Seemingly subtle things can have a very large impact on fun.
Very true, Frogboy...A man after my own heart, go poker! .
I guess my fear is that if enough "elements" are added to the gameplay so that I can go "Darn, if only I had paid more attention to my minimap and noticed that the enemy was ganging up on me!" or "Darn, if only I had kept to the left side of the line as my team pushed, it would have gone so much better!", it would then become much more complex and people would then complain its too hard and has a high "bar of entry".
Seems line a fine line to walk .
You call those subtle changes?
in terms of implementation, no.
in terms of gameplay, yes.
guess what the point being made was.
Yeah it's a card game, nothing is hard to implement. I get the point, I just think the example was poor.
Drexion, I agree that the skill ceiling has been there from day one. This was one of Jinx's big concerns as well. What the devs have been saying from day one as well is that the ceiling is deliberate, (much like the item ceiling we see in the current build - 80k for a set of useful items? "This game is broken!").
In this narrative the developers have been lacing the tough, stringy beta with just enough fun to keep (some of) us invested while controlling for certain elements to isolate problems. It's as clinical as you can get in an open game beta, afaik, and the fact that you notice those elements are missing doesn't mean the game is a disaster, necessarily.
The fact that most of the DGs have an optimum build and style is unsurprising at this point. What will ideally occur starting tomorrow is that multiple playstyles will emerge and be made viable.
What is surprising to me is that the isolation of gameplay elements is so easily perceived instead as epic dev fail, but that's just me. As you say, we'll have to see what Beta 3 involves, but it would be a shame if you guys had stopped contributing gameplay analysis before the beta, you know, about gameplay
you should also never forget that it is very well possible to add a bit more depth and skillful skills after the game has been released and the reviewers wrote their articles and everyone got used a bit to demigod already.
Ke5trel, as long as you agree that "skill ceiling" is there and believe that before release it needs to be changed, we are 100% in agreement. I am just not sure everyone sees it that way . Some might like the current "skill ceiling"...heh.
Dalzk, did you really experience those things already? I'm frankly surprised... I guess I am used to dota where if you don't pay attention to your minimap for 5 seconds you can suffer... In demigod if I check it once every 20+ seconds thats more than I need.
TheBigOne, things certainly can change after release...but generally those changes tend to be smaller in scope. So I wouldn't expect deep gameplay changes after release unless its an expansion...Balancing/etc, sure no problem.
Yeah drexion I think a lot of this has to do with smaller games so it is A LOT easier to keep track of the opposing heroes. Yeah but there are hugley varying opinions out there I mean on another thread Orlean said he was already overwhelmed with the things to do during gameplay so I guess I hope we can find a happy medium. I think if the skills or the characters are tweaked and their skill trees made more complex the game will grow a lot.
Frogboy, just to be clear, I don't think anyone is saying the game will be a disaster, etc, etc. Just because it's not a game for competitive players doesn't mean it'll fail. It will likely do even better, at least in the short term, if it's geared to the casual.
I for one, think the game will be a success - at least financially.
The main gripes 'our camp' complain about are more apparent at the competitive level. For me, my main concerns are
- the game's complexity/depth/variety and degree of strategic options
- skill/hero selection and diversity (too expensive to make more heroes, current skills are very run-of-the-mill)
- stiff and clunky controls. Targetting is also sometimes inaccruate. (This will very likely be fine tuned by release)
While it's true that some things are definately tweakable, such as adjusting speed, damage, fog of war, etc. Many other problems are in the foundations and overall design of the game. The low hero selection is hardly something that's "tweakable". Similarly, doing an overhaul of existing skills isn't "tweakable'. Obviously, doing something like that would require new animations, and possibly a redesign of some heroes. While you could get away with reusing some of the old animations, you'd be pigeon holeing the hero into a very similar role again.
A lot of these problems also stem from the SupCom engine. SupCom was a great game for macro rts. People referred to it as battle of the dots for a reason. However, doing micro in that game (gets the fire hose ready) didn't have the degree of control as in other rts games. This is not necessarily a bad thing - supcom was designed with the large scale in mind. However, when carried over to a game that is about precision and finess, those negative points come with it.
I wouldn't have come in with any preconceived notions of the game had I not read some of those interviews you did - like this one http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=995. Those interviews, and your statements about Demigod being the counterstrike of rts, sure made it sound like the game would be tailored for hardcore, competitive gamers who are also big dota fans. After playing the beta initially, it looked like that was not quite the case. I was also not judging the beta on the initial gameplay alone, but also on the design direction the game was taking.
Now you're saying that Dota players not enjoying this game is a good thing. This is after the PR making it sound like this game was designed for those players. It seems a little bit like bait and switch if you ask me...
Anyways, those are the reason I, and a number of other people, feel very let down by this game. Some just quietly leave and try to forget about the game. Others make a lot of noise and complain, trying to bring the game in line with what they thought it would be - the way the initial PR seemed to indicate.
Either way, I hardly think this game is an "epic fail". I know I just criticised the game quite harshly, but I really do think it's a great game and offers some great gameplay for a certain demographic.
Long time no chat, Jinx . Your comments about the SupCom engine hit the nail on the head for me, that was actually one of the main reasons I never liked SupCom. I believe that the main culprit was the enforced 500ms latency in SupCom though...and I know for a fact that this "enforced" latency is much reduced in Demigod... So I am not sure how much of a problem that will be.
On the other hand, other limitations such as not actually having any true 3d, etc will definitely restrict Demigod. Heck, I kind of miss WC3's two-level maps =P At least I could climb a ramp...hehe...
Anyhow, I do feel that your last post was very well thought out... It does express what some of the people in "our camp" have felt about Demigod so far.... I think maybe this is partly our fault though for expecting Demigod to fit our "mold" from a few comments made a long time ago. Its very easy to read a lot into one sentence, seeing what we wish to see .
Overall though, I have to agree with your last comment that I believe Demigod will turn out to be quite a good game by the time it is done, and that certain demographics will love it . Whether I will depends much on beta 3 and onwards...
what i see here a bunch of dota amateurs(noobs, some of them think axe and bara are OP) who could not became a pro-player in advanced leagues(only pubbers) and migrate here for a "new start"
good luck guys !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
but dont forget...don't even try to bring dota down with your stupid remarks(quality vs quant.) just because some of you was uncapable to understand the mechanics behind it and to play it well
dota is a MAP
demigod is a GAME
for those who compare a game With a map = TOTALY FAIL
enforced is the wrong word in I think, you can easily change it via console and most good players do so, and with netlag 100 or 150 you can micro just as well as in Starcraft. (Same goes for Demigod you can even further reduce the default 200ms, but in Demigod everyone has to do it via console so its a bit tedious but at least we don't need 3rd party tools to do it.
what drexion said about how he never felt he could get as good as some of his friends on dota... thats like purely bull. you have to play against other human players to be able to make that deciscion. its like playing starcraft 1v1 against computer and say its easy because you never tried playing with human opponents... then go say you optimized your build... (the computer never drop ships your drones for instance, nor does it hoarde up 15 carriers before attacking you, so your "optimized" build against the comp might not work that well against human players)
Docd87, i'm quite confused by your post... Who ever mentioned anything about playing against the computer with dota? lol... and yes, I have some friends who play dota who are absolutely incredible at it (A ton from the old ggclient - less lag than bnet - who do leagues, tournaments, etc). While I did quite well at dota, even in the team tournaments I joined (not for cash, I was working with a Peruvian team for awhile...), when I played against some of these friends of mine I learned quite quickly just how much room for improvement I had...
Regular pubs are easy in dota, pub-stomps are cute but are really a totally different game experience than when you play with/against a team of good players. With a good matchup, getting xp/gold in a lane can be hard . If your lane opponents are significantly better than you at last hitting/denying/harassing, you will be completely crushed in the lane... So much so that you may not get almost any gold, and much less xp than they are...thats if you can even STAY in the lane and aren't forced back to the fountain. Of course this depends on what the hero-choice matchups are in the lane, as well as skill-level...
Yudah, your post seems very inflamatory...Even if you did have some valid points, the way your saying it makes me totally disregard what your trying to convey.
TheBigOne, do people really change the "enforced latency" now in Demigod? When I was playing long long ago (when it was released), they didn't... and of course, everyone must change it for it to have any effect in the game... Glad to hear the "community" has evolved to fix that issue. At the same time, the fact that the DEFAULT is 500 is totally insane... So if you play a random matchup, how often will you find yourself stuck in that 500ms non-responsive hell? Made me feel like I was driving a ship the size of a titanic instead of a speed-boat .
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