Demigod vs. DotA PAX Impressions

A Competitive Player's View

By Brentmeisterr on September 3, 2008 5:28:20 PM from

Hello as I can see there have been many posts about the PAX gameplay experience.

If you don't know Penny Arcade Expo(PAX) is a gaming expo similiar to the former E3. It is geared toward consumers where gamers can go and preview and play the latest games before they come out. I got to play Demigod there and it was a great experience I would like to share with Demigod and DotA fans alike.

For DotA fans you may read this first.

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

A few things to Keep in Mind

There is still at least half a year of development time left in demigods. Most of this will be spent on content.

The previous year and a half has most likely been spent on mostly under the hood things.

The build I played apparently wasn't supposed to be "fun" just a tech demo but I felt it was very entertaining.

The build I played was a display build. I started at level 15 with a ton of gold. The game lasted about 20 minutes from that point with AI opponents only(and the AI was not finished so they sucked and didn't use skills).

Well now that I am back home and have internet I'd like to share my experience from my own point of view. I am a competitive DotA player and was very interested in Demigod for two reasons. 1. I love Gas Powered Games 2. I love DotA. It seemed like a potentially potent combination and this game has been at the top of "my list" for quite a while now. So without further ado I'd like to talk about my experience (mostly to dota players but certaintly everyone can get something out of it) with the game.

First Impressions

I was skeptical at first because the word "inspired" was always used to describe the connection between the two games. DotA is a well designed/balanced game and fun to play, if Demigods didn't stray too far from it then obviously it could absorb its fun factor and even expand on it. I am happy to say that from first impressions the two games are well aligned. The game(or at least the map I played) follows the tried and true 3 lanes of non-player-controlled monsters(from here out called creeps). A difference is that creeps can change lanes. It appears that sometimes they will ignore the side lanes altogether and simply head for the middle about halfway across the stage. To see what I mean refer to this screenshot from the demigod website. Creeps tend to congregate to the middle of the map and then push down the center lane. However, during one of my games at PAX some creeps followed me and assisted me in killing the towers. The win condition of both games is the same in that you must destroy the opposing team's central building.

Graphics

The graphical quality of Demigods is simply amazing(especially for those used to DotA). It runs on the Supreme Commander engine and Demigods is made to run on even low end systems. Although having a high-end system will definitely help you get points in the graphics department. Also running on the SUPCOM engine means you will get to use tactical zoom!

Tactical Zoom

If you have not played supreme commander you will not understand how big a deal it is. Tactical zoom is in my opinion the single best innovation in RTS games since resources. I was skeptical and downright hostile to it at first but now WC3 is sometimes a pain to control. Tactical zoom means you do not scroll you view the battle field. You simply use your mouse to zoom out and point to a new area and zoom in to see it. This is very effective for getting a large view of the battle field. Zooming in all the way lets you see all the intricate graphical details and effects of your spells and I love to just sit there and watch the game play out.

Towers and Pushing Lanes

One dissimilarity of the two games is that in Demigods any spell can be cast on the towers and or buildings. Usually the affect on buildings is reduced/increased so that balance is preserved. For instance you may have a freeze spell that stuns enemies. The duration is different for each; creeps, other demigods and buidlings. It was hard to grasp if towers in demigods had the same significance at DotA. From first glance it seems so but during the beta you were starting at level 15 which seems to be a fairly high level because after about a 20 minute game the max level I achieved was in the low 20s. At level 15 I was able to solo the towers with a little effort and skillful use of my abilities. I am imagine that if I had been playing human players they could have easily come and dismantled me quickly because the towers were already taking out huge chunks of my life(but I could still kill them by myself at level 15). The devs told me that Demigods and DotA game lengths should be fairly similiar so I imagine you can think of level 15 as level 15 in DotA as well. Anyways, once you push a side lane there is a flag. If you stand on the flag for about 1 minute with 1 hero you will capture that flag and its corresponding portal and gold mine. Controlling gold mines in the game increases your gold income. Capturing a flag in their base also affectively stops creeps from spawning in that lane which seems to be a very significant advantage.

Maps

There are several different maps to play in Demigods. There will be 8 on release. These map vary from 1v1 duels to 5v5 DotA like team games. The 1v1 map I played at PAX was basically a 1 lane DotA game. It was very firey and set inside a volcano or something. The map I played most was a 3v3. It also happens the be the beautiful waterfall level shown in the screenshot section of the game's website. As you can tell there will be a myriad of maps, each one beautiful and each one leading to unique strategies due to both the layout and number of players.

Demigods

This is a sticky point for me. I am to say it lightly disgruntled about it. At PAX all the devs were saying that Demigods "is commited to have 8 demigods at release". You can draw all the inferences you like out of that but I'd like to think it means at least 8 and maybe we will be saying as many as a dozen or so. It certaintly seems paltry in the face of DotA's impressive repertoire of 91 heroes. However I will say in its defence that the Demigod's are much deeper characters than their DotA counterparts. The demigods each seem to have about 8 unique skills. None of the skills were duplicates in name or ability. This means a demigod is equivalent to almost 3 DotA heroes(they get points for their awesome models and depth as well) meaning there are more like 24 than 8. Anyways lets stop with the numbers game there. Like in DotA you can spend one skill point per level. You can use it to learn a new skill, enhance an already obtained skill or use it to boost your stats(the stats icon is even practically the same as in DotA). Also as you level your Demigod simply gets stronger passively. You get gold and kill streaks similiar as in DotA. Each kill you accumulate you get a more and more impressive title until you reach godly(that was the highest I could reach at PAX). Its also fair to note that when you kill a demigod his death with spawn a health potion or mana potion on his corpse for immediate consumption. It doesn't seem like you will be going back to the "fountain" much to heal in Demigods.

Skills and Items

The skills seem to be pretty standard DotA fair. You have active skills like disables and AoE damage spells. You also have passive skills like increased range and a skill that slows your enemy if you shoot him. I don't want to go into detail, if you'd like to see all the skills mOoeEyThecOw wrote as good as I could of a summary of them in a post on the demigod forums here. As far as items go they seem to be fairly standard as well. According to mooCow there are a reported 150 items designed/developed but they hope to narrow it to 50 for the game. At pax there were no recipes or item combinations but thats not to say they won't be in the final game. Items give things like Hp regen, attack speed, damage. There seemed to be about 6 slots for permanent equipment type items. There are also consumables which did not seem take up these slots.

Other General Things

The flow of the games seems very different. Most of the action in Demigods seems to be focused around one concentrated point which, in my opinion, will be insanely crowded with 6 hero controlled Demigods. Of course, one must keep in mind that this was a very very early beta and I am sure it will be changed (especially on larger maps mine was 3v3 size). Also I couldn't tell whether last hitting mattered or not so thats one question you don't need to ask(I know I should have tested it and I'm sorry but there were other cool games and things to do at PAX too!).

Ranking

Obviously there was no ranking at PAX. Anything under this category is pure speculation / rumor but some has been talked about from devs so nothing here is concrete(I will start with the most concrete and work to least). I think its fair to say its almost 100% that there will be built in ranking and a ladder of some kind. It has been discussed that you might get status symbols for your achievements. These will have no affect on gameplay but they may "pimp out" your demigod during matches to let others know that you are one tough cookie. Another talked about seperate method was to actually allow your Demigod to become stronger as you play better. Apparently an experienced player may be put in a match against 4 newbies and be able to fight on an even player with them in this method. The apparent goal of the ranking system is to prevent smurfing, where experienced players will create new low-ranked accounts to dominate new players. There will be enough of a reward system in place that keeps experienced players playing opponents of similiar skill level.

Single Player

Almost nothing is known about this. The developers say they can't tell us but its going to be awesome. I'd like to believe this but from my experience of developing games myself this means they don't have anything awesome yet(maybe they have an idea of what they'd like it to be!).

The Breakdown of Brent's Pros and Cons

Demigod

Pros

Ranking system means no/less leavers in pub games.

8 maps means the game is designed to have anywhere from 1v1 to 5v5 matches.

Demigods are more intricate than DotA heroes.

It is a retail game meaning it is supported by a large company known for putting out timely extensive patches.

Still early in development so you, yes you! can be a part of its development by becoming a beta-tester.

The community is new and maybe you didn't get in on the ground floor of DotA. With Demigods you can and get in when its all good.

It will have a reportedly awesome single player.

Cons

Community is still fairly small and new compared to the DotA legacy.

There are only 8 demigods confirmed for launch.

Unknown whether it will be balanced but probably since SUPCOM was well balanced.

Still early in development and hard to tell what kind of game it will become.

It costs at least USD 45.00 to pre-order and get into the beta(starting sometime this week, probably tommorrow Sept 4 at noon).

DotA

Pros

91 heroes.

A dedicated community.

Already established as a competitive game.

Well balanced after many many patches.

A nice slew of items.

Nice depth of strategy and skill.

Cons

It is a WC3 custom map and is therefore limited by WC3's engine and graphics.

It is made by one guy(although he is freaking amazing) and that inherently means DotA may cease to be supported anyday.

DotA is plagued by poor players especially at the public level.

The DotA pub community is fairly bad with trash-talkers and leavers.

DotA has no integrated ladder system. It is all based on player kept ladders and competitions.

Single player dota sucks.

And the winner is...

Its early. Yes thats a pansy weasel answer but its also true. If I were forced to pick I would say Demigod is the logical successor to DotA but that doesn't mean I'll stop playing DotA. I still love DotA and probably always will. Anyways thats simply my opinion obviously you will or already have formed your own.

Beta Information

To play the beta you must pre-order the game before the beta starts. It may start as early as Noon Sept 4th(tommorrow) so get on it ASAP. If you don't you can always pre-order it later and you will be able to play the beta when a new phase begins which seems to be every month or so(people who pre-order can play in any/all phases which begin after the date they pre-ordered). This costs you USD 45.00 or more but it also means you can download the game the day it comes out. I personally pre-ordered the game because I loved my experience with it and I would recommend it to anyone(I suggested it to my two friends. Feel free to read these other posts about the pre-order and make your own decision.

Some guy talking about IRC Chat with Dev - Sept 3

****Dev Post on Beta Details - Sept *** Read this *****

Dev Post on Beta - Aug 9

A post about getting into the Beta Sept 1

+5 Karma | 26 Replies

Good write-up. If I knew DotA, then I'd probably be even more enlightened, but this covered everything important that I can think of.

(I know I should have tested it and I'm sorry but there were other cool games and things to do at PAX too!)

I think Impulse is used in the ranking stuff.

thanks for the feedback!

One of the things we'll be looking for in terms of feedback are suggestions on how to add more strategic depth. Even in beta 1, the engine test, we'll be interested in ideas in this area. We have our own plans but we definitely like to hear from those who are not inside our walls.

Thanks for the (P)review.

There is something I don't exactly understand: will there be at least 8 Demigods at release, or exacly 8? I mean, in the first case, what an pre-Phase-1 version displays cannot be representative of the final game, can it?

So far the developers have been saying there will be only 8 at final release. But some devs left it more opened ended by saying 'committed' to 8 so we'll see, all I hope is that the skills are freaking awsome, then we won't have to worry about the number. Also the PAX build only had 3 playable demigods, so no it's not representative at all, the 8 comes from official sources not assumptions based on what we've seen.

Also this far out strpis my measley content only report where I was just writing down evreything I encountered. You wrote down how it felt to play the game and what not, So very nice job!

There are also consumables which did not seem take up these slots.

They take up their own consumeable items slots, of which there are 3.

Also you referenced my post .

Nice write-up. I'm glad you liked it

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 3

thanks for the feedback!
One of the things we'll be looking for in terms of feedback are suggestions on how to add more strategic depth. Even in beta 1, the engine test, we'll be interested in ideas in this area. We have our own plans but we definitely like to hear from those who are not inside our walls.

Skills that are synergistic within and between Demigods so they're like the cards in your Magic:The Gathering deck.

Great read. I have been playing games of this style since the original Aeon of Strife for WC3, and have played every incarnation of DotA (Twilight and Allstars), ToB (still my reigning favorite of the genre), and many of the other attempts at modifying or improving on the idea. I have really high expectations for the game from what I've seen on paper, so to see a fan of the genre give it praise from actual gameplay is extremely encouraging.

The only point I would even begin to argue is to call DotA's 91 heroes a pro. Eight demigods might be a small number (hard to tell, having not actually played it ) but I expect it is more likely to be balanced with fewer variables.

One question: you mentioned potential crowding with 6 demigods - have the developers confirmed team-based games, or did you play team-based games at PAX? Everything I have seen only talks about 1-on-1 matches, and I'm very much hoping for team battles since that was probably the deepest part of the strategy in the AoS/DotA/ToB games.

have the developers confirmed team-based games

I hear up to 5vs5.

We will know soon enough.

3v3 was the only playable mode at PAX

Quoting SyxxByNyne,

reply 7

At PAX we played 3(humans)v3(AI). I was just pointing out that with 6 actual players in the small middle area it could get a little hectic. I was just projecting so this may or may not be true. I find the awesome precedence of a Demigod in the middle of a battle to be much more noticable than a hero can be in DotA.

DotA

Pros

91 heroes.

I'd agree that having that many heroes is not necessarily an advantage. It's certainly incredibly overwhelming to new players, and becomes harder to differentiate.

Also of note is that it's not an entirely fair comparison to say that DotA has so many heroes to Demigod's 8 (to start)--in DotA, all they need to do is set stats and abilities, then balance. Here there's a huge amount of work that goes into concepting and asset development on top of that stuff, and it's not exactly cheap

I would like to see more than 8 eventually.

Definetly not 91 though I think that is rediculous.

I think 10 Would be a good amount, 12-14 at MOST.

But 10 is a pretty fair number.

But still Personally I think 8-10 Really good demigods is a lot better then 80 crappy ones.

But still Personally I think 8-10 Really good demigods is a lot better then 80 crappy ones.

Absolutely, I'd much rather have everything feel like it belongs in the demigod's character and style and have the two match.

I think 18 or so would be the limit sometime down the line..

I'd like to see 12-14 like.. within a year after release, and that would be enough I think to ever have.

12-14 eventually would be good, I think.

I just wanna fox.

"the limit" = "a good limit" sorry.

Only fox I wouldn't get angry about is like an Anubis. :/

But i don't think Anubis fits with the others style. Not roman/greek enough.

again

as once said by Scathis himself:

Demigod IS NOT DotA

good comparing though, very thoughtful

also, dont forget DotA has gone through 2 OTHER developers as well (they have their own items too) IceFrog(current),Guinsoo(2nd modder), Eul(the one that started it all way back, around 7-8 years ago...) damn time flies...

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone I hope you all gained something from my post. I did put the 91 heroes in DotA as a pro but I can see how it could be overwhelming for a new player. Perhaps a middle ground can be achieved in Demigod. Perhaps when you first start playing you can play the 8 original Demigods but as the game develops you can gain access to more. THis way beginner's only need to learn the 8 original but players who want to take the game farther can access more giving deeper strategy to the game. The more heroes you have means more combinations and unique synergies. One thing that makes DotA so interesting at high level play is that you might come up against a combination of heroes you've never faced before even though you know each individual one. You might get hammered and then have to analyze why that combination of heroes was so powerful. I think everyone agrees that if Demigod were to have too many heroes at launch their quality might suffer. However, having more Demigods as the game develops can only strengthen it as a game. Feel free to disagree though =D this is all opinion after all. I think developing a new Demigod every 1 to 2 months would keep it fresh and exciting for years and years.

Also a thing to consider is that if a particular person does not like General types for instance that might limit them even further to their hero options. You might say its his own fault for not liking generals but it'd still be nice to have more choices for the guy(maybe a casual player who finds Generals difficult).

Quoting Kitkun,

reply 17

12-14 eventually would be good, I think.I just wanna fox.

Didn't you know? Unclean Beast = a very dirty fox

*bites Insanetitan*

91 is way too many. Quarter of that at most, I think.

91 would disqualify it from being a game. If you have to study for it, it's not a game anymore in my book. Sorry, that's just the way it is for me, I have enough classes as it is. It's much better to have more variable and deeper heroes that can perform many different roles. It makes the heroes more interesting and gives equivalent depth without being as overwhelming.

Please remember that Dota currently has 91 heroes. When I started playing (guinsoo's era) it had around 60 to 70 heroes. I'd assume in it had even less in its earlier stages. Granted there were some earlier heroes that are no more (or radically changed), but its likely to continue to add heroes.

In any case, you have to play a hero a couple of times just to become familiar with his abilities. That means for a new player, a minimum of 182 games of Dota. At 30 minutes per game (bear with me here), thats 91 hours or nearly 4 days worth of Dota. Thats worth about a level 40 to 50 hero in World of Warcraft and maybe a 4 or 5 prestige in COD4. Its doable, but thats just to become familar with each hero.

Regardless of the final count of Demigods this year or next, it is going to be much better to start with a few, perfect them and then slowly add more rather than have a whole slew of crappy ones to start with. Heck, if the game lasts as long as DOTA, we may get up to 50+ Demi's.

Heck, if the game lasts as long as DOTA, we may get up to 50+ Demi's.

Doubt it, given the money they're pouring into their art departments to make the demi's this good. If you count modded ones, that's entirely possible, though.

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

Demigod vs. DotA PAX Impressions

A Competitive Player's View