https://forums.demigodthegame.com/332105

They're many differences between DOTA and Demigod. Demigod might only have 8 heroes, but they go in-depth with each having skill trees to customize each hero. While DOTA with its many heroes you still only have 4 spells. Since i haven't played Demigod yet, but i would believe it to be more balance with 8 heroes vs 93. Some heroes in DOTA are just crazy and overpowered while others are useless. Also Gas Powered Games said that will be releasing new Demigods in the future so no need to worry about the few selection of heroes more will come! Like Trigeminal said quality over quantity. While DOTA only has one map, Demigod has many maps that you can play on. There are also buildings you can capture to turn the tide of battle or help you own even more.

Those are just a few things i can think of read OrleanKnight's post which he link for a very nice detailed summary of the game.

Trigeminal, quality over quantity, about that...

Since you say that you need encyclopedia to play i take it that you have not played DotA very much and that the "heroes lacks in quality" is an assumption based on a somewhat flawed logic. Thinking that if theres quantity then there can not be quality could be right if it is some rushed job but this is a game that has seen constant updates for several years now, driven by a whole community. A community that has helped shape the game, balancing it and adding new and great content.

It's not perfect, i know that much. However theres alot of great quality heroes and even if you don't like some of them, someone else will. Something to satisfy them all. Kinda. I've only played it for a year (or i played for a whole year now) and i don't need an encyclopedia to play and i never did. Even in the beginning i didn't need one. You just tried out some random hero that seemed cool, checked out their skills, then sucked big time. And like with all games you got the hang of it and could play well with a hero that you had not played before because you knew the general idea of the game.

And it seems to me that you think that amatuers will have a bigger chance if theres a smaller group of heroes but in the end don't you think that they would loose big time if they play an experienced fighter? I mean really loose. Like shit i am teh noob let's leave loose. It's like this with all games(not the leaving part). Unless your a hardcore gamer(not the leaving part ).

There is so many people here giving dota shit, i just don't understand. Claiming that demigod is not DotA, saying that "oh they're both good games exept DotA is crap and demigod has this and that is supreme, better in all aspects and so forth. I get that they are diffrent but they still have so many things alike that saying demigod is not like dota is not even funny. I mean c'mon, there's snipertechies and unclean pudge and some skills here and there not worth mentioning. The gamplay is very similar, with some innovations like the generals i guess and control points and stuff. Tough there is minion control in DotA too and each hero has their own sort of ceeps to boss around.  I mean they are both good games but one has some quality minions that's unique to each hero.

Theres of course alot of valid points. Most having to do with the limitations of a custom map and being a little hard on the beginners. Which by the way could be fixed if they were to impliment something like recipies if they wanted to. This is not me voting for doing that tough.

One more thing about quality. Even tough it's early beta, the skills i've seen so far is not at all as cool and fun as the ones i see in DotA. It's like they all can slow by over 9000% and rook and torch get their stun at the same time and with the same duration. I'm not talking about balance. They are just not good enough (i mean in awsomness, otherwise they're OP). There is some skills i like tough. Like snipers track.

Teh_Sehnkon...I think the quality over quantity thing Trigeminal is pointing to isn't about "DOTA sucks and Demigod rocks" so much as it about the fact that you can play Unclean Beast a bunch of different ways and still be effective.  How many ways can you play Pudge? 

On one hand you have a bunch of characters that have limited flexibility and on the other you have a few characters with a bunch of flexibility.  Both approaches have their merits, but it's worth pointing out that they are different, and I don't think its out of line to talk about Demigod favourably compared to DoTA on the Demigod Beta Boards. 

Having said that, you obviously have alot of good thoughts about this type of game, and it would be awesome if you started posting to share them and make this game better, as opposed to defending the honor of a game we are not actually attacking. 

Edit, oh and the devs are on record as saying it costs $100,000 to develop each demigod

Demigod is still in beta and its a fresh new game still being developed. Dota has been out for a while and its a custom game which didn't cost much to Guinsoo and icefrog. While Demigod is its own game and it cost money to develop, it might not have cool spells and skills yet, but in the future and maybe even time of its release it will. Dota is a great game and it inspired games of its genre to be developed now. I think its abit to early to be judging Demigod by saying it doesn't have cool looking skills and spells and such. Gas powered games can change that anytime and add cool and awsome looking spells.

just want to say to all that i wasnt attacking demigod by doing this thread. seems that some ppl took it that way. Im a big dota fan, and i see it as a positive thing that gaspowered games found inspiration in it.

And just to respond to all the posts about op and useless. No heroes are useless in Dota. then its the player who does not know the hero role or plays it wrong. A hero can be the best in the game with a negative score. Yet there are OP heroes. But only 1 truly op hero: Lycan. Think Icefrog just loves him or something:) Heroes can be OP but there are plusses and minusses for each one. Mortred can fx be the most badass endgame hero, but if she faces zeus, lina whatever other nuker in early game mortred will never be more dangerous then a wet towel.

[quote who="C.C|L|Clyne." reply="12" id="1969859"]My bad on the useless part for heroes on DOTA. All heroes in DOTA do have different rolls i just find some heroes not that usefull like rootrellen. Other then being a crazy tank i don't see any other roll for him. I still say there are heroes that are overpowered like axe or spiritbreaker. DOTA is balanced for having many heroes i will agree on that, but im saying having 8 heroes vs 93 will probably bring better balance in my opinion. I have nothing against DOTA it was not my intention to bash it in way my bad if doing so. I still play DOTA time to time when my friend asks me to by no means am i pro. I was just merely stating what i thought my apologize if i offended anyone. [/quote]

Tree is actually pretty good if you can use him.  That's the beauty and curse of DOTA.  Most people aren't good with every hero so they end up thinking some are garbage and others are op.  It's been said a thousand times, but it's a team game as well.  The heroes are fairly well balanced, but they also depend on synergies with the rest of your team and who you're matched against.

For all those saying the quality over quantity argument, I have a question for you, how many skills are in DoTA? How many skills will be in Demigod?  People claim demigod has so much more variety and customization, but I disagree.  It is true that they may have more versatility from hero to hero, but by having significantly less heroes, your overall choices are still less than dota. 

The problem with Demigod is that the demigod's are so expensive to make.  So, they did a little PR spin on it and claimed that it had vastly more quality than the quantity of dota chars. I would agree with this if the sum of the Demigod's skills were almost at the level of the sum of the DoTA skills, but they're not.  Not even close.  So far, Demigods have about 7 skills each (+1 with stats).  In Dota, each hero has 4 skills (+1 with stats).  Demigod will have 8 heroes.  Dota has nearly 100.  ~56 is a lot less than ~400.

We get it Jinx you hate demigod.  That is why you asked for a refund and bitched that they wouldn't give a full refund even though you downloaded and played the game,... er wait... no it was "personal reason".  You clearly love Demigod.  Seriously, if you don't like the game fine, give a suggestion.  Please stop coming on to say DOTA rules, demigod sucks.  It really isn't useful to anyone.

Yet none of you Defense of the Ancients fans realise that DotA is an AoE ripoff which was around 2 months after War3 launched. So even if you're a huge DotA fan you should know that DotA was never an original game.
Saying Demigod is a DotA ripoff is like saying Rise of legends is a Warcraft 3 ripoff becaue they're both RTS. I like to call Demigod and DotA an AoE style game because that was the first game that played like this as much as I know. (though I could be wrong here)

I have given several suggestions before - mostly on the IRC channel.  Furthermore, citing qualities of a game that I feel are bad is also a constructive criticism.  No where have I ever said "demigod sucks" and left it at that.  I don't even hate the game, I hate some aspects about it but I don't hate it.  Just because I wanted a refund and have made complaints about aspects of the game doesn't mean I think it's a garbage game.  Get your head out of your ass.

Regarding the refund thread, it's been gone through before.  Stardock's policy wasn't clear at the time of pre-order.  In all my experiences with games that had a pre-order attached to a beta, refunds were always possible.  The product has not yet hit the shelf thus we shouldn't be forced to pay. 

It's great that stardock has such loyal fans like you who will go as far to lynch any dissenters.  You even make long and pretty thorough posts which aggregate a lot of the current demigod knowledge into one place.  Unfortunately, this side effects of this include high horse syndrome.

I'm aware it's in engine test phase.  Nonetheless, I argued the volume of skills, which you convieniently neglected to mention.  Finally, about demigod having so much more customization of demigods, how are you seeing this? Their word alone?

I will agree that demigod has more customization options per demigod than dota has per hero.  However, it wouldn't be by such a tremendous margin that it outstrips DoTA's character volume advantage.  Demigods have about twice as many skills as a hero in Dota, yet there are planned to be 8 or 1/11th the selection of Dota.  With ~8 skills, how many radically different builds per demigod do you actually think will be possible?  Stardock/gpg may prove me wrong, but I'd venture "not many".

If you want to knock DoTA, that's absolutely fine.  I enjoyed that game when I played it, but I haven't played it in 2 years.  What I AM doing is using that as a measuring stick against Demigod.  DoTA, a free mod, should theoretically be blown away by Demigod which has production value and a nice budget.

Finally, before you start stepping on DoTA, please play it - and get good at it.  It's very evident by most people's DoTA vs Demigod posts that they haven't even played DoTA and if they have, they got their asses royally handed to them.  DoTA is not noob friendly.  When you begin for the first time, you don't see the subtleties of the game and a lot of people walk away thinking some heroes are overpowered, the recipes are too complicated, or that they're simply "too good" for the game.

Many of those points are absolutely true and could very well make Demigod a fantastic game (hopefully).  I'm always skeptical about future "free" updates and I rarely hold my breath on those promises. While Stardock has a good rep for doing updates, GPG isn't exactly known for great service.  Plus there's the recent failure, Space Seige which was also developed by Mike Marr (according to Moby Games).  I'm not saying Mike is a bad designer, but I can only look at things with the information present.

I agree with Jinx on this one.  Please play Dota before you start bashing it.  Saying heroes are the same just is a fallacy, there are ceratin roles but that is the point.  They all have unique spells.  Anyways when Demigod came out I was extremely excited because I figured it would be like Dota but better because it would be new and would have the freedom of a new game engine and professionals working on it but I was sadly disappointed.  I do understand this is the first beta and it will probably be no where near the end product but Jinx is right you have to beat Dota if you want people to buy this game.  If your game isn't as good as Dota then I don't know what the point is.  I just hope this game is able to fill the gap for Dota players who are looking for something new.