I agree with that 100%, I believe TA was a far more enjoyable, moddable and superior game to Starcraft but at that time having such a solid multiplayer environment was what gave it it's massive popularity.

Just for kicks, I shall refer you to 40 reasons why Total Annihilation is better than Starcraft

I never mentionned SC, I was talking about gunz.

Blizzard obviously wanted to take another direction. Sc2 will probly be more"casual-friendly"  (see for example spells that auto-casts, possible to select multiple buildings, etc). Its a choice blizzard made, and we'll see if if SC2 will still work for "hardcore gamers". It probably will, it would be stupid for blizzard to "dumb-down" the game too much.

The way I see it, being safe is worth way more than the HP of a tower. In the end, its the demigods that will make a difference. Sacrifying a tower in order to keep your demigod safe sounds like a good compromise.

I'll try it if I ever get the game. I know tower-hugging is a viable strategy in Dota, at least. And the absence of last hittings only make this strategy more viable in DG. Staying safe near your tower is a huge advantage. You only need to balance your agressiveness (compared to the ennemy) so that the creeps stay really close to your tower, but you dont want it to get destroyed either. If the ennemy start to push too hard, of course you'll start attacking, but not too much, you dont want to push back too far.

DotA biggest flaws:

Last Hitter Gets The Gold -- Yea so you are stuck micro clicking ensuring you get that last hit. Its just not fun and annoying.

Best player destroys all oposition -- The best player simply cannot be defeated since he knows when to die, how to get that last hit better, what combination items to make to get the ultimate powerups for his unit.

Quitters -- If you quit, noone can take your place. Thats a b.net limitation.

Fixed Teams -- if you got good players great, if not well theres no changing it. Thats a b.net limitation.

Little Help -- There is little in-game help that really tells you what you are doing. You got to know the formula to get the cool items or you are screwed.

Creeps are just cannon fodder -- Later in the game, creeps (enemy and ally) become just cannon fodder that you would rather not spawn on your team if you are losing since it gives enemies more money.

Growth is limited -- Your heroes only get so strong. After that they don't really progress. It does not take too long to make your hero a top level and once you have that and all items, there is just mindless clicking.

Not balanced -- not all heroes are created equal. Some heroes are just too hard to kill, others are just too powerful, and some are just crappy!

Where are the visuals? -- nothing "cool" happens in DotA. Its all WC3 crap graphics, which were good 5 years ago, and not meant for the type of game DotA is.

Too long -- The game takes at least an hr, pro or not. Pro means you will probly win, but you got to level up, build your items, slowly push the enemy, etc... What would be good is if you are much stronger than the enemy, you will push through them quickly because they are not using all thier assets correctly. Game ends quickly, teams reshuffle and you get to keep having fun.

n0 n00b5 a10w3d EXCLAMATION MARK! -- if you are a noob, you cannot play DotA. Period. You mention "im new" you get kicked before game starts, after it starts at least one person will leave because they don't want to bother with a noob on their team giving enemies money and exp. Note that when one person leaves, either one person on other team leaves or game is over. "can you explain something to me?" "WTF? NOOB! <leaves>" (how often did that happen to you when you first started?)

So yea DotA had tons of flaws. I would like to see the idea of DotA get taken one step further, closing the weaknesses and improving on the strengths.

Sure DotA pros are aware of the little details of the game mechanics, however remove most of the things I stated above and it won't be a dummed down version of DotA, you will have a different game completely just based on DotA idea.

Also why would anyone re-create something that:

a ) Already exists

and

b ) Is Cheap (WC3 + free map, thats what 20 bucks?)

last hits and denies wouldn't work in this game. I think all of you arguing about it need to go play a skirmish right now and pick Torch Bearer for it.

Now put points into Ice Storm. Now use Ice Storm. See how it kills a full group of creeps? Ok maybe not at level one, but at 2 or 3.

This game isn't dota. Right off the bat you can build Torch Bearer to be able to spam ice storm every cooldown andwith a last hit mechanic, he would be reaping a dozen time the gold any other demigod would be able to. Especially the melee ones.

To introduce last hitting into this game they'd need to completely revise creep HP levels and spell damage, which means they'd also need to revise Demigod HP levels to go with lower spell damage. And then they'd have to massively increase the cost or cooldown of every demigod's big AoE nukes and then just keep on piling changes untill the game is exactly like DotA.

And while yes, last hitting is something that can separate the pros from the newbies, there's other things the demigod design team can put in game to takes its place. Instead of spending your early game last hitting and harassing, you could spend your early game... fightning for flags and harassing. or keeping your creeps alive and harassing.  Or anything else the dev team can come up with other than last hitting.

But that wouldn't be OK with some of you, because you want your dota skills to translate directly into Demigod skills. You don't want to learn new things, you don't want to be a newbie again. You want to be a pro right away, and that's why you want Demigod to be just like DotA.

A character doesn't need to be powerful in combat to have a high impact on the match. That's true even in DotA, where a hero built as a lane pusher and played by someone who knows how to avoid ganks can be a much bigger deciding factor than the beefiest of hero killers.

And the reverse can also be true, a well played hero killer can have more impact on the game than a lane pusher / team fighter if he knows where and when to pick off a member before a team push / gank, giving his team the advantage.

It comes down to player and team skill at the role picked. Intangible variables not linked to damage of X attack or effect of Y summoned monster, but to when and where and how the abilities, regardless of what they do, are used. And that's always what will decide the outcome of a fight between good players.

Yes, I can see how this might be a flaw.  The worst player should be the one that destroys all opposition.  Or maybe it should simply be random.  Who cares if that player spent time and energy to get good at a game.  God forbit he actually beat you.

I agree.

you can choose your side.  Unless you're suggesting that you want to be able to swap teams mid games.  In that case, that makes absolutely no sense.  DoTA is not a team deathmatch game like team fortress.

I agree, although they're limited to the amount of help they can actually provide.  Given the restrictions, I think they did a pretty good job.  The rest is up to you to experiment with.

Completely untrue.  This only applies in noob games or possibly on the short mode setting.  In competitive matches, creeps and creep awareness is completely vital.  Furthermore, once you kill an enemy rax and if you're able to protect yours, you will have a serious lane advantage.

There's a lot of growth.  After lvl 25, there's items to further boost your power.  Most of the time, in good matches, the game ends before everyone is lvl 25.  When i used to play, the game would be over in about an hour unless there was deadlock.  To get fully pimped out to lvl 25 with rapier and aegis, often takes a while if you're not fed.

Again, noob games differ.  In noob games, it's very common to get to 25, but that's because there's not as much denying going on.

The heroes are quite balanced actually.  From a beginner's point of view, some heroes seem significantly more powerful than others. In the hands of skilled players, who also understand critical elements like team synergies, heroes thought to be "underpowered" by beginners can be just as effective as others.  Of course it's not 100% balanced, but not as imbalanced as you claim.

Criticising this is like criticising SC for having shoddy graphics.  You need to consider the time it was made.  Yes, in this day and age, DoTA's graphics are sub par.

Yeah, the game is too long.  Would be nicer at 30-45 minutes tops imo.  However, if you are waay stronger than the enemy, you should be able to overrun them in 10-15 minutes or so.  This isn't always the case I admit.  The most annoying thing is when the other team is winning but they don't push and get it over with.

And this is why you actually hate dota.  I sense a little bitterness here.  Well, 'little' may have been an understatement.  Anyways, I agree that it's not noob friendly.  This is partly because the game's long and if a guy ruins it, it wastes everyone's time.  Still, it's no excuse to be so noob unfriendly.

Well gee, I guess when you put it that way, all those people who are making commercial tower defense games are sure stupid, even though they're making boat loads of cash.  They're basing their idea off something that already exists and is cheap!

People want to copy DoTA because it's incredibly popular and they know that if they can tap into the formula and gain the support of that community, they'll have a sure hit.

At first, I think Demigod was trying to do that.  However, from more recent interviews and responses from the devs, it seems they're trying to differentiate themselves more and not cater to the DoTA fans as much as gain support of mainstream players (and people who couldn't stomach dota)

One last thing: Everyone's a noob at some point.  When I first started playing, people swore at me all the time and that was like 4 or 5 years ago.  A lot of people would give up then, but I thought the gameplay of DoTA was fun and I was going to learn it despite the hostility.  Months later, you start getting lots of invites into clan wars and in houses.  Waiving the "i'm a victim, they called me noob" card is just pussying out.  Yeah, sorry that was harsh, but I'm sick of people making excuses.  Keep making new accounts to learn and just deal with it. Hostility is just another part of the internet. 

That's not what I was saying at all.  I'm talking about the skill level ceiling for characters.  Ideally, all characters should have a similar skill ceiling and when played at that skill ceiling, they should have equal effectiveness within their niche.

HOWEVER, all things go to hell if the skill caps are not equal.  The rammifications of that are as such:

suppose assassins have a lower skill ceiling than generals.  However, to keep the game mainstream friendly, they're both balanced around a similar medium level skill level.  What that would mean, is that at the highest skill levels, the general would be much more effective than the assasin.

Now suppose a similar scenario as before, but this time, assassins and generals are balanced at their ~max skill level.  This would mean that for average players, Assassins would be far more effective than generals, since generals are harder to play, and if you master them, are only as good as assassins.

Vice versa for the opposites.

All I'm trying to say is that generals will need micro.  There's no doubt about that.  Thus, that gives something pros can excel at.  Consequently, Assassins will also need some sort of skill requirement so the player can directly affect the demigod's effectiveness.

what about giving assassins minions as well (no special minion though and their skills aren't so much minion buffing as those of the generals (at least I hope so)?

Alternatively they could give the assassins something only they possess, something which is based around exact timing to get the full effect.

Based on what's said, Demigod will be great because it's:

Noob friendly (AT FIRST) - it seems that many people are trying to explain the game to others on the forums. This is GREAT! The community is willing to help each other out!

Not too graphic intensive, but still artistically sound.

Leavers won't "ruin" a game, as people can join midgame.

Hopefully balanced...



Why Demigod might not be so great:

Skill ceiling. The main argument that DotA players are making nowadays is the last hitting or the amount of heroes to play. Mastering these heroes, or the timing and mind game required to last hit is part of a higher skill ceiling. Noobs simply can't do it at first. With practice and a bit of open-mindedness, anything is possible. Any game community, however, becomes increasingly closed minded to new strategy. That's why a semi-last hit quick push strategy got squashed by the community. Everyone was too bent on thinking LAST HIT = PRO.

Aforementioned closed-mindedness of the community. I remember someone saying the only way to build TB was ice. Probably a joke, but it made me think, what if only one build was viable for any particular Demigod? It would make the game quite boring!

Limited endgame potential. Simply put, eventually someone's going to get the "final items" that will have the best possible stats that carry over from game to game. Either they'll dominate with their hard earned items, and nobody will want to play with them, or the items won't be effective enough to warrant putting the time in for getting them. It was mentioned that the permanent items could be turned off for skirmish gameplay, which seems to be a good idea, except when the gameplay on its own isn't deep enough. People are going to learn everything there is to know about this game, and fast. If there's anything to be learned about other games, it's that nothing will stay a secret forever.

This is a good point, and probably bears into why it's taken as long as it has to see generals.

Combos?   I kinda hate combos in non-fight games, but maybe DG will need them to keep the Assassin skill cap high.  What else could we give Assassins to make them deep in line with Generals?

So we sorta talked about this on your other thread, F-I, but persistents should look like COD4 or TF2, different and viable, but not any stronger than normal items.

I agree with this, but I'm pretty sure they're going to be incrementally powerful.  Since, AFAIK, you start with no items and get items later on, they won't be like you described unless they all come with a large weakness (high attack but lose significant health/defense, etc)

I kind of agree with what jinx and kestrel were both saying in that maybe there needs to be something to give the assassins a little more depth.  It does seems like comtrolling more units will make generals hard to play so there must be some reward.   Maybe that will be where you have to build up skill to really get good at using them but I just wish there was something like this for assassins.

What's the point of discussing the skill ceilling of a game no one's played yet? After BETA2 comes out and a few hundred games are played and the OP combos start showing up over and over, then you can realistically discuss skill ceiling. Hell who knows, the generals might have a lower skill ceiling because their pets control themselves, are powerful and don't give much gold when killed. Or they might not. Or they might give just enough. Who knows? Who cares? We'll see tomorrow.

I agree we have yet to see general in actions they could be not as hard to use as we expect. Although, people here have played beta 1 which gives them experience enough to post about skill ceilings about assassins and there opinions on what they can be expected to come out in beta 2 for generals and such. Fact generals control there own specific units and units they buy. So lets see what is to come tomorrow on generals and reworked assassins! I'm very excitied how about everyone else!

I'm not trying to say in anyway that Demigod has a skill ceiling - we'll find that out in Beta2.  I'm just discussing it for discussiong purposes and speculations.  I hope no one's drawing concrete conclusions of the game's quality from any of these threads. 

That was me, it was a joke, and fire or mixed builds are perfectly viable.

I just don't like 'em. I'm closed-minded, not the whole community.

What he said is basically true.

As a Dota player myself, I agree with just about everything Jinx is saying.  To get good at Dota took time.  In order to play, I went to the forums at dota-allstars.com and read every hero build in the strategy forum.  Its not a game for people who want to be spoon fed.  I sucked at first.  But as long as I kept in mind that I wasn't "godlike," I kept myself out of most ganks and learned how to play.  I've been playing Dota for about 2 years now, and it wasn't until recently that I could play almost every hero effectively.  Its this type of depth that keeps Dota alive.  I am so glad that Beta 2 comes out Thursday, so I don't have to read this argument for awhile.

This is true. Hopefully the depth will keep players playing for a long time to come.

Just wanted to add my 2 cents. I have played Dota in the past, I do not currently... I basically agree with Jinx 100%... But then again, I usually do. How ya been Jinx? .

I was very hopeful for Demigod when I pre-ordered it...The beta so far has been dissapointing to me in that I feel the game so far has been incredibly shallow... But then again, its only beta 1.

I am hopeful that beta2 will introduce depth to the game. This is not dota, I don't require them to introduce mechanics such as Last hitting, creep denying, etc...However, unless they add depth (ie: skill depth impacting gameplay significantly, me not feeling like I have "mastered" the game after 10 matches, etc) I don't think it will be a big hit. I have long been a stardock fan (Total annihilation fan too) and so I will hold out hope .

-Drexion

As many others have said don't discriminate demigod because its not like Dota but the real reason for all the hate for DG is that we have only played an engine test and people act like its the game. When the engine test was not meant to be fun but just so people could start finding problems and things need balanced or fixed. I deeply suggest before saying DG is prob going to be bad wait until after winter break for people to have a look at the new beta. Beta 2.

Last hitting is not a flaw, I don't get this whole "I hate last hitting" thing. What would the alternative be?

Demigod needs to be its own game. It needs to establish itself as its own game. I'm not saying it can't take ideas from AoS games on Warcraft 3, but the whole point of Demigod running on its own engine and being developed by professionals is that it should be able to do what it wants to do.

Now, I don't care whether you like DotA or not. DotA is DotA. Demigod should not act as a replacement or sequel to DotA. It should not even be considered an alternative to DotA. We have a DotA already. If you want to play it, go play it.

DotA is great, but there are too many elitist bastards filling up the games that think you are the stupidest person in the world if you die once as the Drow.