Demigod

I just started playing Demigod a couple of weeks ago and so far its a great game.

Great graphics. Fun gameplay. Interesting Maps. Getting Games is relatively fast and Lag is minimal if you just kick people with high Ping.

So what's up?

I go online and there are rarely more than 10 custom games up.

Also does anyone play skirmish or pantheon? They seem like they could be a lot of fun, but i don't see anyone ever playing them.

Thanks for replying.

http://www.demigodthegame.com/opengames.asp

The community is minute here because well... we have no replays. So we're sorta useless as a site compared to the main forums.

The main forums however are very active.

lack of replays is part of the issue.

The other issue is that is game is nothing more than a casual game at this point in time. Casual players generally wont go posting in forums. Competitors do. Competition is next to none at this point in time due to the absence of clan support.

I really don't think we will see these forums begin to boom until both replay and team support are added.

Games without team support are subject to failure. Call of Duty: World at War was a great game but leagues would not support it until it has a replay system. So these 2 factors kinda killed the game.

This game is a great game so i hope that this game booms once replays and team support are added because this truely is a solid game.

Exactly what he said

Imo, seeing as replays are coming soon, all we need is a clan ladder and an option to create a clan ingame. Also a premade team automatch would help alot.

cool. Thanks for all you thoughts.

Hopefully the devs will be releasing a replay patch and team support soon!

More people = more fun.

Heaps of reasons...

Demigod is just played far too casually, which neither the developer or any of the publishers have done anything to try and address.

Geocentricism doesn't help either.

I think its because this game doesn't draw back players to keep playing again. It doesn't have that addictive feel to it. Other games like Starcraft, WoW and Diablo 2 have players continuously playing the game for many years , because they like farming items and like the challenge/balance.

For me Demigod lacks balance and depth despite what majority of players say as perceptions of balance and strategic depth are very subjective.

A lot of players claim that this game is 97% or some made up number % that it is balanced.

This is false.

True game balance, is achieved when no one in the community complains at all and at all stages of the game each and every Demigods' strength is approximately equal. Skill determines the winner. When most of the Demigods were created by separate designers, they didn't even properly consider each respective Demigods' skills when synergised. e.g spiking snipe with regulus can be devastating game ending when team co-ordination is perfect.

The main reason why people don't consistenly play this game on a regular basis is because of depth.
I don't adapt my Demigod's build to counter other players build. There is such thing as a counter build.
There is incentive to stockpile skill points to counter enemy build, because there is any such thing in the first place.

there is little to no talk of high level strategy such as X beats this >> Z and such.

other egs. include already-defined-simplistic-meta-game. > generals are on a time limit to win based on their relative high siege damage at levels 8-11. At this stage the generals + minions(erebus + oak) must push strongly to enemy areas and succeed or die, due to poor scaling of minions and gg scaling of UB/reg with artifacts.
when late game is not balanced, game feels repetitive and boring.

+1 to kettens post.

+1 to nobody claiming the game is balance actually understanding the game.

Yeah, I'm not so sure kettens's post has much validity myself...

I'm not so sure you understand what balance means in the context of RTS/RTS-like games if that's what you're getting at.

i agree.

Guess i'll chime in here as this ties in to why I stepped down as a SS for this game.

As Ketten touched on, it's mainly depth of the game.

I can't with 100% certainty say I am/was a pro but can say I was above-average. Yet the game felt too rigid, at the start of any given custom game I could see how the game was going to go. Individual player skill felt rather limited in what it actually did, it seemed like the only thing that mattered was your end strategy.

Even then the strategy was predictable because in many cases you only had one option of winning or you had one far better then the other.

ie: Vs Erebus you could either try to beat him in demigod combat or beat him with creeps. The latter being such a better strategy that you'd be crazy not to do it. (Note: Erebus is assassin build and you aren't Erebus or Sedna for this scenario.)

The demigods themselves felt shallow with a few of them having garbage skills that guaranteed a loss if you picked them, and vice versa.

Take UB for example:

Bestial wrath vs Spit - It took me one game vs ai to realize just how bad bestial wrath is and how good Spit is. Once that was figured out that was it. There was no situation where I needed to think about it, it was simply I pick spit or I lose.

The game is very absolute in everything so much so I truly believe a game is decided before it even begins. Now player skill can play a role but in a lot of cases just knowing what you need to do is enough. Such as rook using his towers, he can significantly slow down players several times better then him. He will most likely lose because the better player already took into account rook's towers but with only a small amount of skill the rook player puts up a decent fight due to how absolute the game is.

The only truly good thing i've found is the game is great when you have semi-competent people. Which as anyone who's played a team game before big or small WoW or TF2 you realize that pre-made is the only way that's going to happen often. Honestly i've been spoiled with a game like TF2 or WoW where teamwork is either not needed to have fun or it's flat out required to do anything.

For me demigod doesn't have that pick-up and play potential where single mistakes, not even by you can cost you 30 mins of your time. Although I can better understand why the DOTA community is so terrible since they suffer from some of the same problems and their games are normally an hour.

I just wish more demigod's had GOOD alternate options, not enough of them do.

That's what makes it a good team game.

If you are playing right, then your strategy should matter from start to finish. What citadel upgrade do you need, do you need mana or HP at this point, what skill do you need at this point, such as early shield to help teammates get away if need be.

i've seen several good strategies that work very well. A matter a fact i've come across atleast 3-5 that made me feel like me and my team might lose, and i feel like we have a solid strategy.

I'll agree to an extent, some do feel like garbage skills, perhaps we have not thought deep enough to develop a use for them that the devs have?




Spit is really good early game, i can agree that spit is good in that aspect. after early game though, spit is really no longer a threat. The only unclean beast that ever give me trouble are the ones who use the ooze build.




I think you have a poor misconception here. I believe if this game had team support, you would retract such a statement. A team vs randoms will almost always win. a team vs team, the game is up in the air. When i have fought teams in the bast, it ussually takes about 30 minutes to really tell who is taking the lead. Also, these games ussually last about 50 minutes.




This is comparing apples and oranges. WoW = MMORPG. TF2 = FPS.

I believe this goes back to the fact that this game does not have team support. I own both games you have mentioned.

If you think a bunch of randoms are going to do well in arena or raids, then you are sorely mistaken. I know some servers have pugs farm raid content but the whole raid has a high skill level.

If you play TF2 in league play, prepare to get spanked if you go into it with randoms.




There isn't team support right now to seperate casual/beginers from more advanced players. You can create your own team though and and play in customs. Your example of "i have a noob on my team so i may lose because of him or her" can be applied to any games, not just Demigod.




http://forums.demigodthegame.com/349958/

This post has been edited by aitdcalvin: Aug 17 2009, 15:10 PM

Think you mis-understand.

The games themselves are apples to oranges but when you compare them based on multi-player aspect alone they become quite similar.

WoW is the opposite to pick-up and play but you know that when you play.

TF2 is pick-up and play with-out a harsh consequence for doing so.

Demigod is sort of in the middle, playing a pre-made everything is easy unless you face another pre-made and even still it's not guaranteed you will get a good fight. Conversely pugging demigod you're not even guaranteed a good game. So it's pre-made = maybe a good game and pugging still = maybe a good game.

I realize that's not different from the other two games, but the small community means you could only find competition with one or two teams. Same goes with individual players in pugs. Seemed like when I wanted competition it wasn't there and when I wanted to just play a quick fun game, it wasn't there either.

Maybe it's due to lack of good team-support but it just felt like this game was neither a good pug game or a good comp game.

As for those alternate builds I know most if not all of them and especially the UB ones they were quite similar. I think we need more skills based on taking two skills to get an added benefit. ie army of the night. Most generals break down into:

Assassin build and Minion build. Exception being sedna has a slightly different assassin build instead of weak general build, QoT has maybe one extra GOOD build then the other two.

You have to understand from my perspective when I play a game i'm picky as hell. You or someone else may see a fun game but after extensively tinkering with all the demigods i've seen all the good builds all the synergies and it's just boring now. It sort of hit me one night when I joined a custom game and broke down every build that would be useful vs my opponent, (a Regulus) I thought to myself. "Really that's what this game is about? Deciding who to choose from the start then play 30 mins of a decided outcome?"

In a game like this I enjoy trying to figure out different builds I can win with then trying to out in different situations. Yet without constant 5v5 games, those builds are limited and then the game itself becomes stale. Maybe when new demigods are added i'll find the game fun again for a time but until then i've seen everything this game offers, and it's not enough.

If I haven't made myself clear enough I can always explain why I enjoy TF2 and used to enjoy WoW.

never have high expectations of pugs in any game. If you mean comp as in AI, i don't care who made the game, fighting AI in any strategy game is going to be boring.



1) You mean taking 2 skills as in the torch bearer maxing fireball and deep freeze to get Fire and Ice?
2) QoT bramble shield and ground spikes to get goddess of thorns?
3) Lord Erubus improved conversion aura and covan to get army of the night?

3 of the 8 demigods have this. I agree this is a nice feature but i wouldn't want every demigod to have the same concept in their ability tree. I like the variety.



Back to teams. If this game supported teams, you are not going to be able to come up with a single unit that is going to counter everyone on the opposing team. Unless they are all TB, in that case, i would suggest all UB against that. But most teams i see vary.



TF2
You run around shooting people, while there can be strategy, it most likely wont happen in a pug. FPS games can get away with pugs having some sort of balance to them. Demigod requires a good deal of strategy.

I don't know why anyone would say this game is to basic. You must clearly be playing none stop noobs. You have to think about your demigods ability build, armor build, items to get such as TP scrolls and locks, what flags are more important, map strat, team synergy.

WoW
Sure, i can see a little bit of relevence here. both have 1 charactor you level and gain abilites and armor. Demigod is ment to be a short match.
Dont expect the complexity of WoW in a game that lasts around 30 minutes.

I cant wait that they put replay in.
I hope they give the option to see what is the equipement of everybody for learning purpose.

This post has been edited by Wagnard: Aug 18 2009, 02:10 AM

No meant competitive should've been more clear. Although it has been a month or so since i've tried to find some competition or actually play some.



Well idea I had would be say getting two points in spit and two points in bestial wrath opens up another skill that say, reduces the cast time of both. Something small but helps encourage more builds. Just seems far to often you can max pretty much all the good skills with one build. Wish there was more a decision for each style.



True but let me clarify the full situation with the regulus scenario.

It was myself, Oak, and Sedna, vs Regulus, (assumed mine) Rook, (assumed towers) and QoT. (assumed bramble shield) I choose a minion build Erebus as oaks minions wouldn't be great at countering Regulus but Erebus would be good at stopping both Reg and Rook. I ended up being right and it turned into 20 mins of us winning because I guessed correctly.



Reason I like it despite fps being probably my 3rd least favorite genre of game is the pick-up ability. I can at any time of day (which is a huge plus with my erratic sleep habits) I can find a server with a map I want. Adding to that if I decide to just fool around it won't effect my team much. Yet at the same time I can try to coordinate with my team more for better success. Losing and winning can be just as intense and fun and each match can be short or long.



Guess this really isn't a fair comparison now that I think about it. Realize it has a lot of grind but the reason it kept me interested is the grind had a purpose or a noticeable reward. Required loads of coordination but when it happened it was extremely fun. It's the yang to TF2's yin, long term gratification vs short term.

Demigod to me falls in between the both and ends up not feeling satisfying at all. Pantheon rank is temporary, single matches provide less significance later on.

I can see it's a good game but for me personally it's jack of all trades, master of none. Kinda got off-topic but this ties in with my reason which is maybe people feel like I do and just see the game as being too simple. Especially anyone from dota, sure you have more maps but you have basically 1/10th of the heros you normally do.