DoTa player seeking new game

I used to play dota and I love this game.  It's really fun and I don't have to do last hitting like in dota.

Don't buy it expecting dota though. It's a nice game but if you expect dota-like gameplay you'll be disappointed.

Think of it as Dota-lite.  The game's easy enough even my wife can play it.  It doesn't have any of the twitch elements from DotA like last hits, juking, creep denies, lane control, etc.  There's also less skill selection and item selection, giving it a much lower learning curve.  They did add some things like purchasable upgrades to your army/exp/gold-per-sec/etc and those are kinda nice.

A lot of people who say they play dota a lot don't even know what those terms mean.  If someone tells you they used to play a lot of Dota, first find out if they even know what those terms mean before you even listen to them.  Otherwise, they're coming from a shallow dota background.  I say this because a Lot of people say it's better than DoTA because Dota's imbalanced.  DoTA's not imbalanced - that's a common misconeption new players get after getting completely owned by someone who's good at the game.  It's never the players fault.  Must be the imbalance... yeah, that attitude is a pet-peeve of mine.

Overall, here's my feeling of the game compared to dota.

Dota

+more competitive

+takes a lot more skill than Demigod to become good

+huge, huge hero selection.  So many possible combinations make it have extremely high strategic value

+very very responsive controls.

+well balanced.  Yes it's pretty well balanced.  Usually it's the noobs who complain it's not.

-outdated graphics

Demigod:

+games are quicker

+less stressful to play than dota since most of the twitch stuff is removed

+easier to learn (takes maybe 30-60 minutes to learn every character and every item.  Of course, it'll take a little longer to get the nuances, but at least you'll know what you're up against)

+nice graphics

+purchasable army upgrades and flags give it more high-level strategic options.  Now you have to decide if you want to spend your money on items or buff your team.  Capturing flags also present you with an opportunity cost of not being in the battle to gain exp (unless the flag is in a lane).

+I can't speak of the balance as I haven't played enough to notice any glaring flaws.  It seems pretty well balanced, though.

-controls are sluggish.  Heros don't immediately respond.  Sometimes they don't respond at all (never happened to me, but my team mates complained about this before)

-pathfinding is really really bad.  REALLY bad.  To avoid getting stuck, you need to click a couple feet in front of him and spam those clicks.

-lack of a clickable minimap makes it a huge pain to quickly jump and look at another hero.  You have to zoom way out, edge scroll over to them, then zoom way in.

-most of the hero's abilities are taken straight out of DoTA.  There's very few new skills in Demigod that aren't already in DoTA.

For me, unless they beef it up with a lot more content soon, I'm not sure how much staying power this game has.  It doesn't feel like it's got long legs.  It's pretty fun though, and if you're looking for something new you may as well give it a try.  I don't think it justifies the $40 price tag though since it feels like half of a game.

I've played DotA sparsely, but I just wanted to point out a few things in JinxOfSin's negatives for Demigod.

I used to play DotA rarely, but enough to remember the controls. Demigods are a bit more sluggish, but not really much more so than DotA. Also, I've never had my DGs not respond (perhaps it's user error).

Pathfinding isn't that bad. Every once in a while a minion will get stuck, but for the most I've experienced no problems.

I'll agree that the minimap is a bit annoying, but you're doing it the difficult way. All you have to do is zoom out all the way, move your mouse to where you wanna zoom in, then zoom in. Again, it's a bit bothersome, but not that big a deal.

I can't speak for this, but honestly, I'm not sure what you were expecting. There's only so many kinds of abilities you can have in a game like this, and with each of the 8 demigods having 4+ abilities, there's not much room for variety.  Also, most of the abilities in both games are pretty generic; you can't blame Demigod for having an ability that freezes an opponent, for example.

That's already only 4/5 of the standard price of AAA title. Maybe it's because you play DotA a lot, but this hardly feels like half a game, especially with more demigods on the way. Obviously that's your opinion, but most people who purchased the game would disagree with you there.

I know this post is a little out of place, seeing as I barely played DotA, but I just thought I'd give an opinion of someone who enjoys the game.

This is really a key post.  I've been spoiled with DoTA and I have very high expectations when there's a new game of the same genre.  I have the same high expectations of LoL, whenever that game will get released.

It's actually a known bug.  See this post: http://forums.demigodthegame.com/348780

I've had many instances where my guy was in the healing area and I wanted him to go to battle.  I believe it was on Exile.  My demigod ran right up to the edge of the healing area and stopped just before the edge.  In otherwords, he tried to take a straight path through impassable terrain.  That's bad pathfinding in my book.

I recall zooming all the way out, but the entire map was not viewable, making me need to do some edge tracking to get the spot I wanted to see on the screen. 

if DotA is so balanced, why is Icefrog kicking out updates mainly for fixing balance issues in the game? the next map coming out is 6.60, which will include many hero remakes and nerfs/improvements, because players asked him to change certain stuff that was imbalanced. of course you can blame the players (or n00bs - actually the most commonly used name for player on bnet, especially in DotA) for not knowing how to handle, let's say a troll perhaps with Black King Bar, Satanic, Heart of Tarrasque and 2 Bashers (in earlier, imbalanced versions of the game you could stack bashing abilities), because they lack teamplay or whatever, imho you start playing DotA how you're supposed to if:

1.)you have your teammates you play with every now and then (this includes you and your team being good enough to know how all or at least most mechanics, spells and items work and how to (re)act in critical situations)

2.)you steadily communicate with your team during the game (means Teamspeak) to time gangs or other certain actions

so, according to your opinion and regarding the requirements to really play DotA, pretty much 99.9% of all DotA Players are n00bs, Icefrog is wasting his time and you are the best DotA Player of all time

-.-

Well I decided to give it a try and so far I have to fully agree with you Jinx the game is fun but lacks the skill/competiveness that a good dota match has.  I believe it will hold me off till LoL though.

My biggest complaints are no last hitting/denying, no juking, and lack of lanes.

However I wouldnt mind seeing a map in LoL with a style like this with no lanes.  Kinda like a big brawl.

That's a little extreme.  If you've read the forums here, you'll see people posting things like "DoTA is so imbalanced.  Everyone always uses the same hero. LawL".  Or other things like "I was playing and I got totally killed by another player and everyone called me a noob.  DoTA is so imbalanced".

Of course there's MINOR balance issues.  Hell, Starcraft is also getting updates to this very day.  That game is probably the most balanced RTS ever and it's still getting balance patches. The 3 factions are considered very well balanced, but they're still polishing it and fixing the minor imbalances.

With constant heros always coming out, there's sure to be balance issues.  However, all things considered, it's quite well balanced.  There are rarely major balance problems and when they occur, they get fixed quickly.

Oh and yes, most of the pubbies are noobs and have no idea how to play DoTA.  At all.  Taking balance complaints from them is probably the worst thing you can do.

Demigod actually does have juking.

But it has some game breaking bugs that make it unplayable competitively.

The major one is that if you use a skill that is a single target clicking(most demigods have 2 of these.. like sedna's heal and her pounce) it often makes you stuck in place.  The skill doesn't go off, you can't attack, you just sit there.  To 'fix' this you have to give a move order.

You can somewhat compensate for this by right click spamming on the ground after you use a skill but 1/4th of a second is more than enough to make you die when you shouldn't have, or not get a kill on someone that was running away.

I didn't quite get what you meant... When I refer to juking I mean either using terrain (hills, trees, etc) to fake-out the player or do something that generally makes them miss a step when they're chasing you.  (see http://dota-allstars-blog.blogspot.com/2008/03/dota-allstars-juking-guide.html).

Juking from other games I've played means moving back and forth to disrupt enemy attacks while getting more attacks in.

Thars the best comparison in this board i read Thank You.

Nothing more to say.

The only thing you missed, is the use of the terrain (uphill and so on). In my oppinion this is also a nice strategic part of the game.

I've played over a thousand hours of dota and after playing demigod it's hard to go back.  It's the interface improvements that make the difference mostly - having an engine tailored to the game rather than the other way around.  Obviously the game isn't 100% yet so it'll be some time before we see if it develops a serious competitive scene, but after another couple patches I expect I won't be playing dota at all anymore.  Looking forward to LoL too.

League of legends looks awful. if your looking for the next dota, this is it

Main Pros of Demigod in comparison with DotA

- The better graphics obviously after so many years

- Base upgrades which is the best pros for me for this game as a new aspect. You can upgrade now except from your own demigod, your base defense, your army, etc which gives a very team friendly aspect in the game.

- Flags/command points which are around the map and give you team bonuses when they are in your control

- As a game itself has statistics, ranks, tournaments, etc that DotA as a mod cant give you

 

Main Cons of Demigod in comparison with DotA

- Maps! may be more than one but they dont have the complexity of DotA map. FoW here means little to nothing, only for you to dont know from which line and who demigod will come. They (maps) dont have blind spots around lines, they dont have short cuts or the visibility in comparison to ground levels, you cant team play gank a player for EX all of sudden, or hide somewhere near a path, many many other things that give DotA map a much more strategic, team play value in comparison with Demigod maps.

- Demigods! except their small number as which is little annoying (in the future there be more), they have more abilities. At least someone expect to be much different one from another and the same Demigod with different abilities. But I was disappointed. Almost all demigods have the same simple damage abilities of Direct Damage and Damage Over Time, two of them (demigods) with life steal and another one which is a healer... I mean if there are so few, there should be more support, more crowd control, more unique abilities than damage nukes. This could push players to team play their abilities with some more skill than focus damage nuke the enemy some more. Because yea there can be little different from player to player with the same Demigod, but each one will stick with his/her favorite ability tree anyway and get bored with so little choices anyway. At least there should be counter abilities(!) for each other demigod so if you had the "skill" to upgrade your demigod in a way so can beat other specific demigods as the battle evolves. Or at least specific abilities from each demigod that could be combined with other specific abilities from another demigod to make much difference.

- 4 cons that are not so main by themselves but you see them from the start and all the time, so take one slot are these. Demigod’s path finding and lack of response. They can stack quite sometimes if you order them to move from far distance and not so far some times. They (demigods) take damage from range but if you dont order them to attack their enemies and they are not just next to them (if they are melee ofc) they stay there taking dmg, doing nothing. Mini map un-interactivity issue as also non unit cohesion which end game cocludes to chaos on targeting pulling the game little more down.

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There also are minor pros/cons like better Demigod community than DotA (pros) or lack of runes/buffs that could change a battle for a moment or item combinations that DotA has (cons) but these are not something that make you decide on one or another for having fun in the game.

So as a conclusion for me if you were playing Demigod instead of DotA all these years, you should already be bored of it in much less time than you getting bored of DotA this time around. This because (in general) Demigod's lack of skill (fast learning process) which requires, so many players will become generally good/"skilled" more often, more fast, and with the simplicity and lack of characteristics/difference among many things as demigods and maps make this game has much less longerlivity than DotA. It is not wrong to compare the already well balanced etc DotA with so many years in improvement with a game that just released, because this is the meaning not only in games but in everything. To get something that already is good (DotA game play) and pushes it further. And this game tried to do just that. If there wasnt DotA with all its ideas and elements, there would not be Demigod nether by now.

My advice is to stay little more on DotA till they fix, upgrade, improve some things that need improvement and I think they are able to from the experience on their past games. And then make the step from DotA to Demigod.

Demigod is first of all buggy, Game start takes up to 10 minutes, WTF!? The game requires ALL PLAYERS TO HAVE ACTIVE CONNECTION WTF!? If i'm regular internet used with no personal IP, i can go home, no game for me.

Demigod has tried to take best of DOTA and enhance it, yes, they stole almost every good ability from dota. Unclean beast is Pudge (rot, dismember) + old Naix (slow,poison,buff-self-ms+as), Regulus is Techies+Sniper with Assasination working like Enchantress' spears and headshot being sucky ulty etc. But they didnt do nothing about LEAVERS.

Moreover, when player leaves, you cannot sell him, AI takes control of him, and that AI SUCKS! It just goes recklessly to save flags and gets owned, not having any clue on how to play the heroes, he only knows how to use scroll of TP but thats not enough, he feeds and feeds badly.

The game is highly imbalanced. Ever see QoT picked? Its never. Torch bearer and Sedna are also seldom picked. But you will see armies of Unclean beasts and that vampire imba character picked, every game.

The itemisation is poor as well.

Overall, this game is potentially good, but it should have beed developed further, not "ok we want money so we send it to shops now"... Its a BETA, not a game...

Cant agree with this. Usually see a pretty healthy mix of all 8 demigods personally. Don't see as many Sedna's, true, but i have seen some absolute badass Torchbearer and Queen of thorns. QoT in the right hands is nasty. In fact, any demigod in the right hands can be extremely powerful.

I think that comparing the 2 (Demigod and DOTA) at this stage isn't a very fair.  Not only has Dota had years of development time but tbh its a different game from Demigod in most aspects but the basics.  Mainly what I mean from the above statement is that Demigod is quite a bit more complex than many people give the game credit for.  Every game I play of Demigod I learn a little bit more.  I think in a few months when most of the player base isn't "learning the basics" and are more focused on Item builds, skill selection, base upgrades, simliar to where the Dota community is now.  Then you might be able to make comparisons.

Just because Demigod doesn't have creep denying, jungling and gank spots doens't mean its a simple game.  I think there is a large amount of untapped complexity in the game that hasn't been found yet becuase of the infancy of the game.

I have played Dota for many years and I have countless hours logged into that game.  I can tell you that Dota is not as balanced as some may think.  Log into several Dota games and you might see roughly the same heros picked (ES, KOTL, CM, Tide Hunter, Nerubian Assasin, SA) just to name a few.  Now these heros are not OP by themselves per say.  But the benefit that they add to their team is why they are picked so often.  There is a reason why the same (Probably 10 - 15 Heros) are picked every game.  Its becuase they win games.  Thats not balance.  Many times games are decided before the first creep wave is spawned.

I believe one of the reasons for 6.60 and all of the changes that are being made is to try and make more heros "competative".

The whole reason for CM mode was to create diversity in the Dota game.  How much more diverse do you need when a game has 90+ heros.  The real answer is because some heros are inherently more powerful than others and those same heros would be constantly picked.  I understand that balancing 90+ heros is a nightmare. 

In the end they are both different games.  While I have loved Dota for many years after playing Demigod for a while I see some of the shortcomings of Dota.  Dota adds so many heros to the game becuase frankly, thats all it has.  Demigod has so much more potential mainly becuase its not limited.  Demigod and LoL (hopefully) are the next generation Dota style games.  While I will always have fond memories of Dota and there can be no question the impact that it has had in computer gaming I feel that Demigod and LoL are where the genre will shift to.  I applaud Icefrog, Guinsoo and Eul for what they have done, but its just 1 person working on a map inbetween college classes.  Stardock/GPG and Riot have full teams doing it.