Lessons from DotA that Demigod missed...

By aselrik on May 23, 2009 6:18:06 PM from

aselrik

Join Date 11/2008

Demigod has a lot of features that make it more appealing than DotA. However, Demigod missed a couple valuable lessons. In particular, even a slight skill advantage in Demigod can cause a whole game to be pretty lame. The problem is, Demigod doesn't have the control mechanisms that DotA has.

1) Many levels are small enough that a single good player can repel all lanes.

Cataract, one of the most played custom levels, a single player can move from side to side, unhindered, in about 15 seconds. That means, if you know you're outmatched - you CANNOT leave. Basically you turn into instant XP.

2) Large Levels Lag

My computer can't handle Mandala (the only level with 3 lanes). It can't even handle "the brothers." My computer was top of the line last year. That's probably better than 80% of gamers. (Way to miss your target market?)

3) Mid level portals.

The other issue is, somebody at GPGs is in LOVE with mid level portals. 4/8 maps have mid level portals. This is highly disruptive to game control. If your not a very good player, you can't get XP off of these "phantom lanes" because you'll be tanking all the creeps.That means your stuck on the primary lanes, which there aren't enough of.

4) No neutral creeps.

In DotA, if you've fallen a bit behind, you can kill a few neutral creeps unhindered.

5) Very short distance between towers. In addition, some tower placements make towers meaningless.

In DotA, there is still some strategy and creep reliance with towers. In Demigod, it quickly gets to a point where towers are meaningless, especially if you don't have the money to spare to upgrade your citadel. The combination of these 5 items means, basically anytime you are against a "good" or "very good" opponent (relative to your own skill), the game is a complete lock out and lacks any push and pull that is inherent to DotA.

6) Creeps and general's creeps are not very good.

A single ability shouldn't wipe out a whole group of creeps. Especially in a game that emphasises "Generals." When I'm playing OAK and I can rally the charge to wipe out all the creeps, that's not good game design. End of story.

7) The game lacks items that make a significant impact on creep waves.

In DotA, if you're not a very good player, you can at least buy aura items and gather several waves of creeps to make a good push. I've never seen a gathering of creeps like this in Demigod (except when they're at the citadel.)

I've put in about 30 hours of play time in this game. It probably didn't help that I stopped playing for a few weeks and the strategies have changed, but I'm not having fun learning how to be a good player. I know some people's attitudes are "Suck it up noob" but lets face it, my attitude and the majority of gamers out there play to... have fun. I'm not going to keep trying harder to become better at a game, when I'm not having fun LEARNING to play the game. There's lots of people out there like me that feel the same way. DotA became a very popular, good game because of good *Design*. Demigod deviates from DotA a lot. In some ways that's good, but there has to be balance in the Design. "Control Mechanisms" - something that keeps the game in check (allowing for push and pull), long enough that the game is interesting for both sides. A skilled side will still win, but only the most noobish players vs pro players should be a complete steamroll.

tl;dr Demigod is won/lost too easily in the first 5 minutes of the game, than you either be a tool and leave, or you suffer for 40 minutes.

#2 - Top of the line a year ago, and you can't run the bigger maps? Something's either not right or your computer was not top of the line

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Yeah, seems like your having a bottleneck in your system if it was truely top of the line parts. Something is hindering it.

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1) Many levels are small enough that a single good player can repel all lanes.

I have been outmatched many times and switch lanes if im getting outpowered on one. Its not that hard. The most they can do is what, follow you? Then just stay behind towers and farm the xp. I dont see the point your trying to get across tbh (not being offesnive, just dont understand thats all).

2) Large Levels Lag

What are your settings. Are you sure its not just the players and the lag from the fact that these big maps are mostly played with 4v4/5v5 match ups, where there is a higher chance someone will have a shit computer or bad connection. Play offline on singleplayer and tell us if you still have the lag. What are your specs?

3) Mid level portals.

The Brothers as a portal nearer to each base, and one in the middle. If you play on it regulary you will realise that people rarely fight for the portal near the persons base. This is why they put the portals in the middle, because if they were closer to one persons base then there will be little contest over it which defeats the whole purpose of them being there - to create a point where players must fight over.

And you shouldnt really be tanking all the reinforcements at the mid-portals. You should be luring them back to towers, let them two shot kill them then going forward again. If you cant do this for whatever reason you just need to walk in the opposite direction the reinforcements are going and they should ignore you. And tanking reinforcements...lets be honest thats not really hard.

4) No neutral creeps.

In DotA, if you've fallen a bit behind, you can kill a few neutral creeps unhindered.

I admit having some neutral creeps in Demigod would be fun but its not really something has to be included. Demigod doesnt have to copy every mechanic or thing DotA has. Being allowed to kill a few neutral unhidered isnt really good imo. You should be punished for not keeping up with xp not allowed to go kill some neutral creeps for some quick xp.

5) Very short distance between towers. In addition, some tower placements make towers meaningless.

I dont quite get this point. Because tower placements are different from DotA its bad?

6) Creeps and general's creeps are not very good.

Again - just because in DotA creeps are stronger then they are in Demigod I dont get why Demigod has to clone everything DotA has. If we are talking about "Generals" and their "minions", then they are far from bad. You just havent been using them right. Some of the strongest builds atm involve heavy minion usage - trust me.

7) The game lacks items that make a significant impact on creep waves.

Well you can upgrade your reinfrocements with more armour, attack and even different types which you cant do in DotA. Just because the citadel upgrades arent actually items they are still things you can buy that really ihave a huge impact on creep waves.

tl;dr Demigod is won/lost too easily in the first 5 minutes of the game, than you either be a tool and leave, or you suffer for 40 minutes.

People always say this and I dont understand. I have had tourny matches where I am put 3-0 down and I still end up winning. The main reason people think the game is decided in the first 5 minutes is because the better team gets the first few kills, and since they are better, they continue to dominate. It has nothing to do with the fact that they are only winning because they got a kill or two in the first five minutes - its because they were better then you. But still, I have to stress a lot of games can start v. well or v. bad for you but end up completely in the opposite direction.

Im going to have to be a douche and say whats been repeated over and over - your really trying to compare this game too much with dotA. Your even going as far as to complain or say that Demigod is missing specific mechanics that were in DotA. Thats just like saying cnc generals is shit compared to age of empires because you cant garrison units in castles - thats just too specific of a comparison, and you cant compare certain game mechanics with another just because they are in the same genre.

DotA doesnt have flags, upgradable minons, citadel upgrades, generals/assasins (two diff type of heroes) - but that doesnt mean it should, it just means that its a different game with different mechanics.

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About the map, okay the current maps are differents than Dota and they offer a different style but...

What i really want is a Dota-Like Terrain. Where are the cliff, the secret path, the woods, the neutrals creeps and so on. Current demigod maps feels so... begginer.

About your computer... something definitly wrong with your setup. I wouldn't blame the game on being too ressource intensive.

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To be fair Dota has got over eight years of development behind it so its bound to be a tighter game. I enjoy playing demigod and feel that if it takes off, then in the future it could be a good alternative to DotA. The Devs are backing thier game which is great. Hopefully they take some of the suggestions from the community into account.

Your are right about towers and creeps but that will be caught as the game gets patched and through experience. I personally thought it was the subtle things that it was missing. Like being able to dodge behind trees, hills that affect LOS, being able to see your opponents build. Really clear item descriptions would help as well. Or a website that went into some detail on what everything does. Still this will come with time as the game gets a larger community. If your not enjoying it then maybe look into the game again in a month or two, once they have had sometime to tweak it

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i would also like to add some:

there is no hiding places in demigod, if you are on low health, fog of war cant be used as an advantage to escape, or turn the tides of battle so you can win. the only time i have an "omg that was lucky" moment is when i teleport away.

you can stack items, imo it is abit silly, especially when your opponent gets health items and can survive a 3v1 situation at low levels.

lack of skill required when using spells, the only spells i like in the game are boulder roll and spike wave.

dont get me wrong demigod is a good game, i know its different to dota, but if i had to compare them only the above reasons would be why dota is better.

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I think direct comparison is not a good idea, as although the same fundemetal game mechnanics, they are drastically different games.

One huge change, is the towers, you mention they are "useless" but i found they were too usefull in dota. People would use them early game as their dps, you would get HEAPS of cash if you took one down .. there was so much competition to knock them down.. and if your team was down a twr or two, the other team had HUGE advantages.

Demigod has provided me with more opertunities of having comebacks .. Although often times I don't, I feel its possible.

I think demigod could improve primarily with map design. The stats/character control/etc is all relativly balanced, and it promotes certain ply styles and all that fun stuff. but depending on the map, I don't feel I play differently, i just move around in different patterns. Right now each map just looks like different textures, and a slightly different pathing .. It would be sweet to have some really "unique" things with all the levels .. something that stands out are the towerless flags in the middle, creates a chokepoint almost EXCLUSIVLY for demigods .. almost a mini arena. Would be cool if there were more of these .. or even map interactables .. would be cool to see effects change on the map.. or even paths that could be unavaliable untill certain thigns are destroyed or w/e

Some dynamic, and unique aspects to each map would push the replayability of this game WAAAAY higher...

my few cents

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I agree with what the original poster states. In addition, I think Demigod needs more Demigods. 8 is much too few. And Demigod needs to add the stealth mechanic.

However, I feel in many ways Demigod is a more demanding game than Dota and this isn't a bad thing. I've had many games that went on for a long time with some really nice comebacks so I know the longer games are definitly possible in Demigod it just requries a certain amoutn of skill and team composition.

Theres aspects of Dota however that Demigod has improved upon that make it hard for newer players. For instance last hitting creeps in Dota. In Dota you can last hit creeps and someone who can learn to do this very well will make far more gold that others who are less skilled - which can be unfair for new players. In addition, learning recipes... Demigod removes that requirement for new players to jump into a game.

However in Demigod, when you kill your opponents it seems you get much more gold. I wonder if Demigod could use diminishing returns on opponent gold... like when youkill someone the first time you get the full amount of gold and as they die without getting and kills they return less and less gold each time. This could prevent noobs to demigod feeding too much and ruining the game. IF someone is dying that much then they sholdn't be worth the same amount of gold in my opinion.

Theres probably other ways to make the game in general more fair for newer players... but really by doing that you are holding the newer players hands perhaps a bit too much. So what if Demigod is a more demanding game? That's kind of what I like about it..

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I think most of these problems only occur if you dont upgrade your citadel. Creeps and towers get much stronger when you upgrade them, and in Dota creeps upgrade automatically. Also in Dota, at higher levels towers are like childs play, any player at about level 15 can easily destroy a tower with the help of some creeps, i think towers are stronger in Demigod because there are much more of them. I do agree that creeps can be kind of week, they shouldnt die with one aoe move, but again, upgrading them can solve that.

P.S. StAcK3D_ActR, giving you karma for an awesome name and pic.

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Quoting ,

quoting post

2) Large Levels Lag

My computer can't handle Mandala (the only level with 3 lanes). It can't even handle "the brothers." My computer was top of the line last year. That's probably better than 80% of gamers. (Way to miss your target market?)

Lessons youshould take from IT folk. Your lieing. In your mind maybe "Top-of-the-line" was that $800 at bestbuy you bought but im sorry if you were TOP last year you would be fine this year. My friends PC is 2-3 years old ... he runs a little dual core on 32-bit XP.. 2gig ram .. 8800 GT. FULL graphics never lags regardless of level.

So again you def were not "top-of-the-line".

Lesson learned.

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Good post OP - in particular when talking about creep waves. I havent played DOTA in several years but there is a substancial difference between the two games in regards to creep waves. DOTA does do it better - and i hope Demigod can improve in this regard. You should never be able to wipe out the enemy creeps in one hit, and likewise, you should be rewarded for keeping your own ones alive, and having 2-3 waves stack together and really pushing forward with momentum. DOTA afterall is PVP based around mastering the uncontrollable creeps to your benefit.

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I find Demigod to be exceptionally well-balanced.

DotA is far more of a slippery-slope game, where losing early screws you in the end. I personally have had several amazing comebacks in Demigod that would have never been possible in DotA.

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Lessons from DotA that Demigod missed...

aselrik