For Kestrel: Hot Topics That Aren't God-Awful Bickering

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

the most obvious issues at the moment all resolve around the primacy of Health items above just about everything else. the inefficiency and genericness of many of the helms and gloves also contributes to this problem. at the moment almost any Demigod in the entire game is well served by this same item set

* Nimoth Chestguard

* Narmoth's Ring

* Unbreakable Boots

* Vlemish Faceguard

* Boots or Wand of Speed

its been ages since i've played a game where i did not buy exactly those items, regardless of which Demigod i was playing.

i think those items are in line with what is expected from a quality item. everything else is too weak. buff other items alot. specifically the numerous helms and chest-pieces in the 3k gold range. all of them are completely terrible.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

someone should take Crucible out behind the shed and put it out of its misery. the map is irredemable in my opinion and should be scrapped entirely.

i'd actually like to give massive props and a big recommendation to another forum poster who has done some great work on map designing. his stuff is very creative and looks like alot of fun. go check out his stuff. here is a link to one of his threads

https://forums.demigodthegame.com/358548

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

the Idol summons seem fine, though minotaurs are a bit weak, but at least they're cheap to make up for it.

Oak's Spirits and Erebus' Nightwalkers are both very good and need little to no adjustment.

Sedna's Yetis and Queen's Shamblers are both horrifyingly bad and need massive buffs. I would recommend changing the spells around entirely so that instead of being a giant mana sink where you have to constantly recast them (to replace the easily killed minions) they should have longer cooldowns (say 30 seconds, like the Idols) but produce minions with MUCH higher health.

I'd also like to generally see Queen's minion buffing skills consolidated a bit and improved a bit. Shamblers are far too much of a skill commitment from Queen at the moment. Sedna's Yeti skills seem fine, its just the Yetis themselves that are too weak. Sedna's Yetis should probably just naturally always have that Wild Swings ability (cleaving melee attacks hit multiple targets) since Sedna has no other source of AoE damage and really desperately needs it.

Yes. All Yes.

Item Modifications:

Helms

Plate Visor: also give -5% ability cooldown
Theurgist's Cap: Change to 100% change to deny 25% of health and mana regen for 10 seconds.
Vinling Helm: Remove % gain modifier, instead make ability 3% chance to gain 1000 Mana on hit.

Gauntlets

Guantlets of Brutality: Decrease to cost 300 Gold
Gladiator Gauntlets: +10% attack speed instead of +5%
Gauntlets of Despair: +10 damage.
Doomspite Grips: +50 weapon damage

Armor

Duelist's Cuirass: +600 Armor, 10% to crit
Armor of Vengeance: Increase damage to 50.

Boots

Footman's Sabatons: Decrease cost to 450 (Why more expensive than either Scaled helm or Banded armor?)
Ironwalkers: Armor bonus increased to 1500. When at low movement, also gain +30 HPS.

As for 6 (holes demigods should plug)

There are a lot of boost auras in this game (most of which kindda blow) and only 1 (sorry if this is wrong) aura that negatively affects demigods.

I think we need an antimagic hero. A hero who can drain mana with an aura or attack. This would put a hole in melee assas who have enough mana to seriously unleash hell.

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

Helmets need a bit of work. Some are too good to not take, and others are not worth looking at.
Gloves... I'm not too fond of them to be honest. More effects would probably be best, I don't think that a flat out damage boost would be all that desirable... mostly the gloves could just use something to make them more desirable.
Armor... It's too good to not invest in... but it's not the fault of the armor I guess. +health is just so valuable.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

Multiple pathing for all new maps is desired.

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

Look at Battlenet.

5. Should player stats measurement be made public or kept under the hood? We don't have access to the baseline formulas. Should we?

I think we should know the formula for it all, at least then we could better formulate suggestions for improvements.

6. What are the holes any new demigods should plug in the current selection of 8?

Light has no multi-form Demigod (likeQoT & TB)
Light has no caster type Demigod (like QoT & TB)
Dark has no "big guy" (like Rook)
There are no female Assassins.

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

Not quite sure what you're asking here... but I feel that all Demigods should be capable of fighting 1v1.

8. How can AI be improved, and what protocols should exist for AI in online games?

AI should not exist in Pantheon or Skirmish. In the event that not enough players can be found for a match AI should only be used to replace the entirety of the opposing team and no experience should be awarded to the players at the end.

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

Shamblers and Yetis are subpar compared to Spritis and Vampires. The vampires can have vast health and are easily numerous and spirits have a direct benefit to Oak himself. Making Shamblers / Yetis much cheaper (mana-wise) would go a long ways.
Basically, Shamblers and Yetis need a major boost to make them worth taking over other abilities.
Merge Entourage and Summon Shamblers for QoT and her problem would probably be solved... Yetis just don't do enough damage to make someone want to take them over any of Sedna's other abilities.
In other words: See what transitive said.

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

Not quite sure what you're asking here... but I feel that all Demigods should be capable of fighting 1v1

The question is whether for example Sedna wiping the floor with just about everyone in 1v1 duels is a balance issue. Should all characters be close to equal in strength against each other in 1v1? My opinion is no, the game should be balanced for 3v3.

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

I'd like to see some of the expensive gloves become usables, I find my usable slots are taken up by either wand of speed or consumables and I rarely run out of slots, giving me something I'd actually want to use on the gloves would certainly challenge that. Something like a mana burn ability, A 25% 2x crit chance for 10 seconds, 25% life steal for 10 seconds etc. Things that are on par with the artifacts passive buffs but only for short periods and with decent cooldowns.

That might be a terrible idea though, I haven't thought it through much. The balancing would be an issue.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

Release the map editor.

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

Like the one in Steam imo.

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

I've said this in other threads, but Yetis are competing with Silence, Heal and Pounce for skill points, they're going to need to kick serious ass if they're going to become a viable option. There should be more of them for a start.

Quoting transitive,

reply 1

buff other items alot. specifically the numerous helms and chest-pieces in the 3k gold range. all of them are completely terrible.

Agreed. Best example of this -- Vinling Helm compared to Plenor Crown.

Plenor Battlecrown
Cost: 1500

+1575 Mana
+70% Mana Regen

Vinling Helmet
Cost: 3300

+1050 Mana
+70% Mana Regen
3% chance on being hit to restore 350 Mana

Vinling Helm is worse than Plenor Crown and costs 1800 more.

1. Most of the items in the game could use some love. What are your thoughts on pricing, effects, and synergy? How can we make the items more dynamic with the least effort?

"Ironwalkers" are absolutely useless, especially for assasins, they really need a buff. At least +500armor standard and cost should be reduced too.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

Some flags on Cataract, like the goldmine flag of the darkside can be capture while being out of range of the towers, that shouldnt be possible. Also I would like to see some more towers near the portals on Cataract.

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

I played Starcraft a lot, the friendlist there is simple but good and shows you where your friends actually are instead of just "ingame" which is useless, also you get notifications when a friend joins a game and how the game is called making it easy to join too, i want that for demigod.

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

Probably like Battle.net, with a chat and being able to see stats of people by clicking on their names and being able to "whisper" to people outside of games.

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

Absolutely not, this is a teamgame and It should be played as a team. 1v1 shouldn't even be played in demigod.

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

Yetis need a serious buff, a lot more health for a start, they die too fast, maybe reduce summoning cost too.

Zechno your suggestions on Gladiator Gloves and Iron Walkers are too much, the gloves need zero improvement and the +30HP/s on the boots is unnecessary.

EDIT: Statement about Iron Walkers retracted.

Quoting Zechnophobe,

reply 5

Item Modifications:

Gauntlets

Guantlets of Brutality: Decrease to cost 300 Gold
Gladiator Gauntlets: +10% attack speed instead of +5%
Doomspite Grips: +50 weapon damage

I already use Gauntlets of Brutality most matches as ice TB, I don't think they need a buff they are a VERY cost effective item.

Gladiator Gauntlets are also a very very cost effective item, just not for assassins.

Did anyone know that Gauntlets of Despair have a hidden +8% attack speed bonus that isn't documented? It's in the LUA files (I don't know if this was fixed later on, but I doubt it).

Zechno, your suggestions really overbuff items making people who kill other demigods seriously overpowered if they have that extra gold.

1. I think more items with special traits should be added to give new depth and strategy into the game. Magnus rod/Warpstone/Wand of speed etc are examples of these items. Stuff like interrupt/heal/silence/stun/slow/heal/repair buildings/lower cast time (not cooldown)/steal mana/steal life/crit chance for X seconds would be nice (given the right cost).

2. Make maps mirror like. For example cataract needs each side mirrored so dark side doesn't have advantage of health flag + gold flag on the same side. Fix the fact that some flags can be captured without taking damage from defending towers. Less bottlenecks for spam fests would be nice.

4. I think that playtime/wins/losses should be enough to make it simple. If you want to be more detailed then perhaps add average simspeed/upstream (for the people with 128k upstream that join 4v4+ games). Also why is there no way to message team (only) in the lobby to make for strategies before starting the game?

5. Read above.

6. Read Daikaze post.

7. No. This game should definitely NOT revolve around 1v1 balance. Not even 2v2 balance.

8. AI should understand two simple things: when facing 2+ demigods alone he should run away. When he has less than 33% health he should run away. I see the stupidest AI's just plain hitting auto attack against an enemy while they slowly die. Maybe they should make the AI like in Nightmare mode and give them some sort of "cheat" edge. Like a bit more gold/xp. I dunno.

9. No idea.

10. Buff Sedna/QoT minions. Lower health and damage for Erebus/Oak minions. The reason I say this is that they have a much better synergy from +minion health/damage items. If you have 10 spirits and you take a +5 minion damage item then you have just given yourself effectively 50dmg more per attack compared to 4 yetis that have just received 20 damage per attack. More so, they cost mana to summon and oak/erebus are relatively free (no or low mana).

10. Is there any chance for some sort of character sheet for minions so we can explicitly see all of their stats in game? For example, double clicking on a summoned minion could bring up a character sheet, or small icons could be added to the UI showing the current minions that are out. It would be nice to see damage ranges, attack rates, move speeds, and armor values stated. This would really help to define exactly how much the minion damage items effect dps values both per minion and per minion swarm as opposed to damage per attack. That info could prove useful in the discussion on minion damage items.

Quoting Shadow,

reply 11

Zechno your suggestions on Gladiator Gloves and Iron Walkers are too much, the gloves need zero improvement and the +30HP/s on the boots is unnecessary.

Gladiator gloves maybe.. but Iron walkers? How often are you at movement speed 5 or less? It needs to be some miraculously impressive effect seeing as how you cannot trigger it yourself. There are normal items in the game that give 1000 armor at about that same gold value (Armor of Vengeance) that are considered pretty bad. If the point of the item is to be a way for people to fight against speed debuffs, it has be actually effective at it.

Zechnophobe

Gladiator gloves maybe.. but Iron walkers? How often are you at movement speed 5 or less? It needs to be some miraculously impressive effect seeing as how you cannot trigger it yourself. There are normal items in the game that give 1000 armor at about that same gold value (Armor of Vengeance) that are considered pretty bad. If the point of the item is to be a way for people to fight against speed debuffs, it has be actually effective at it.

Fair enough.

I might even go as far as giving the player 2k armor but maybe lower the speed requirement to 4.5 or 4.7. Normally when you're that slowed, you are dead no matter what. But suddenly becoming extremely resilient to AA damage might give you enough of an edge to fight back or escape.

Not listed, but some type of Macros would be nice. Right now there is only "P"ing. And/or Bman's mod, that would take the need for lots of communicating out (no more constant OOM needed). Anybody else play Sedna? "Move hands to typing postion, Enter, O,O,M, Enter, Move hands back to gaming position" in the heat of battle usually means a dead teammate. In fact, what ever happend to key-mapping? That + Macros would help a lot.

As for items, I wish they would either use percentages OR solid numbers when possible. Right now, trying to compair if +70% is better than +11 is just a toss up for me half the time.

The Minotaur Minions are just awful. They need like +50% HP imo. I can't decide if I should make a school field-trip to North Koria, or an all Yetis & Minotaur build for Sedna. What if Yetis stayed exactly the same, but had a life-steal aura? They healed Sed and any allies near. Would kind'a go with her character concept.

Cool trick, remap 'ping' to something the left hand can reach. Makes you significantly more combat effective.

2. Several of the maps have obvious flaws. How can we make the maps more balanced with the least effort?

Leviathan really needs more towers, overall. More defense around the Citadel, as well as a couple more up near the front lines. Pathing is still pretty bad (I get stuck around corners), and is especially bad on Crucible, where if I was to stand at the Artifact Shop and order my DG to move to base, it will not work.

3. What would an effective friendslist look like?

A simplified AIM, or something like Steam has. I'd like to know where my friends are, exactly. Also, I'd like to ask for an Ignore list, as well, even if all it does is put a flag next to people's names so I know that I had a bad experience with them so I won't play with them again. It would greatly improve my gaming experience.

4. What would an effective game lobby look like? I.E. what information do we need about other players? What communication options should we have?

First of all, I think you need a general chat that permeates all modes of play, no matter whether you are in Skirmish, Pantheon, Custom Games, or a Custom Games lobby. Then, I think being able to see the rank/score of players would be nice, but that would also require stats to be working properly (so that they matter). Again, I want an indicator for ppl on my friends list as well as another indicator for my Ignore list.

7. Should the results of 1v1 duels reflect our understanding of the game's balance?

It should give you a good understanding of balance, but it should not be the only way. I mean, if a DG consistently beats every other DG in 1v1, it should indicate a certain imbalance, especially if you have 3v3 of the same DGs on one side, and it consistently beats another, it would also indicate imbalance.

8. How can AI be improved, and what protocols should exist for AI in online games?

I think either 1) have AI give less or no gold when killed (when replacing a player), 2) when a player leaves, increase gold production for all teammates proportionally to compensate and have no AI replacement, or 3) a mix of the above where the replacing AI has no gold production, gives no gold when killed, and increase gold production for teammates.

10. How should minions be altered? Specifically, should they be nerfed or buffed? If so, how and why?

Sedna and QoT minions really need some help, whereas the other minions are all ok. Sedna's minions could use a bit of help with pathing (not sure how to fix), cheaper to maintain and cast, and probably have the Wild Swings thing by default. As for QoT, too many of her skills depend/affect her Shamblers, it's just so much of an investment to make them good. The Mulch ability is nice, but difficult to get a shambler close enough to do any damage. A larger explosion radius would help.

There also needs to be a passive/defensive/aggressive stance option. Sometimes I don't want my priests walking up to an enemy and start shooting. Passive: Only follows you around, heals, but doesn't attack at all, unless ordered to. Defensive: Will not move to engage, but will attack anyone within range, will not chase. Aggressive: Will move to engage and kill anyone it sees. In any of those cases, manually choosing a target should override any current target it already has. If it can't reach the target, it should constantly try to instead of just shooting someone close by. Also, stances should be able to be given to each type of minion, so that I can have my shamblers on aggressive while my priests on passive. General Minion builds should really play like a RTS, imo.

PurplePaladin

The Minotaur Minions are just awful. They need like +50% HP imo.

Oh God no. You really don't want that!

Just gonna throw these in from the other thread. I'll make a separate comment for my own feedback.

Quoting pacov,

reply 8

I'll just address number 2 (how to make maps more balanced with little work). Towers. More and more towers specifically around the citadel. I'd think this would be easy to add to any map and it would reduce the effectiveness of minion pushes. Obviously not the most brilliant idea, but it should be something very easy to implement (or at least I'd think).

Quoting ItchyDustbin,

reply 7

1. items

Increase cost of level 4 siege archers, change minion items to be % based so Erebus and Oak aren't insanely better than QoT/Sedna, half the +hp/s of horn of battles activation, or reduce the range severely. Oh and of course fix all the completely useless items.

2. maps

A lot more towers around the Citadel on leviathan, Remove prison altogether, more towers around the citadel on Crucible, add a neutral portal to the middle of mandala or move one of the creep waves into the middle.

3. effective friendslist

It should show the name of the game or lobby they are in, and who else is in it. It should also have an option to invite or join into lobbies.

4. effective game lobby

Team chat, option to be unable to see the opposite teams Demigods, player ladder ranking, player region.

5. player stats formulas
Why on earth should we not be allowed access, it would help to find flaws in their system to help make it better.

6. new demigods

Stealth, Static areas of debuffs.

7. 1v1 balance?

Never.

8. AI

If there is more than one enemy Demigod nearby run the fuck away.

9. single player tournament
Some sort of story-esque voice acting or text inbetween matches.

10. minions

Oak and Erebus minions maybe need a tiny debuff, but Queen and Sednas definately need a pretty big buff, especially Sednas.

Quoting StAcK3D_ActR,

reply 6

1. items

   reduce journeymans proc plz, maybe only procs off demigods attacks/spells only(and reduce cost)

    HoL was nerfed too much

    fix heavens wrath, its too easy to control the map with

    reduce range of horn of battle, atm i think it has inifinite range

    reduce cost of artifact consumable potions

    increase crit chance on items(excluding ashkandor), i dont see crits occur enough due to slow attack speeds.

    allow instant cast items to work whilest running.

    add in more activatable armor/helms/gloves/boots or rework some that are already there

    controversial: limit hp stacking to an extend. low kill/death matchs can get very boring!

2. maps
    crucible, remove the artifact flag at the bottom of the map, and put one at each base, and reduce towers around bottlenecks

    exile, remove healing from sides of map, and reduce towers around bottlenecks

    zikurat, move the front most towers alittle away from each other

3. effective friendslist

    personally i dont like it movable, its too fiddly

    allow an option to turn off player images

    allow on mouse over to scroll down the friends list

    enable you to see the game name of the game your friend is playing, "in-game" isnt good enough

    allow it to fit nicely on the screen in the in-game lobby and custom game list, the width limit is still too big

   Reduced 88%Original 500 x 500

   allow right clicking of your friends name to view their stats/link to pantheon page

   make chatting easier with someone, during a game. i dont want to be clicking a picture just to chat(an easy whisper function in the normal in-game chat would be good)

4. effective game lobby

   disconnection %

   i dont really care for leavers, but for others maybe a leave/RQ %

   kill/death/assists

   average kill/death/assists per game

   wins/losses and total games played

   pantheon ranking number

   how many times a player has used each demigod

   how many times they have randomed

   just basically all the information from the pantheon site. most of this is to make the game more competitive, i know most people wont like half the stuff listed so maybe an option to hide it?

5. player stats formulas
make an option to hide/show your own stats

yes, we should be able to find out everything we want about the games mechanics.

7. 1v1balance
yes, for true balance.

no, for team play, 3v3 and higher.

8. AI
it should be removed from the game. it is bad for a multplayer centric game

9. single player tournament

a testing mode for single player would be awesome, set level, gold, spawn creeps etc..

note: all of the above is my opinion. you do not have to agree

1. Items
I agree with transitive's first reply. With the exception of the trinkets page and the occasional artifact it's uncommon to buy any item that costs more than 2k gold, because the slot cost is significantly outweighed by the gold cost

I'm going to go through just the armor for some specific examples, but gloves, helms, and boots all need the same refurbishing.

To start I'm setting the price of item slots at 500g. In other words, if one item has the same effects as multiple others it should cost 500g more for every item slot it is freeing up.

As pricing gets better and items more effective the price of item slots should go up, but right now it looks like the devs are setting item slot cost at about 1200g, which is astronomically too high..

Even if the devs did nothing more than pushing down slot cost across the board it would go a long way toward fixing items.

Armor item tweaks:

Duelist's Cuirass - this item is actually fine, if limited to the couple of viable crit builds, no change in effects but maybe decrease price 500g

Armor of Vengeance - another good item no one buys because it's too expensive. Decrease price 500g

Platemail of the Crusader - the effects right now are 100 armor, 20 hpps, 250 minion health, 4 minion hpps, 1% chance on being hit to heal for 300 hp. First off 100 armor is fluff, it's a useless effect included to jack the price up. 20 hpps is useful, as are the minion buffs, but neither is worth 4500g, especially considering you get similar buffs from Hauberk of Life for 1750g. The 1% chance to heal is too low, even against an arrow Rook or minion build. I would strip out armor buff, increase the minion hpps to 7, and increase heal chance to 3% while decreasing price 500g

Groffling Warplate - 675 hp and 1200 armor isn't worth anything like 5200g. For 2450g and three item slots you can get 1350 armor, 900 health, and 5 hpps. With a price on item slots of 500g, that still puts the acceptable cost of Groffling at 3450g. Oh right, I forgot about that 1% chance to shield for 300 hp or 10 seconds. Bump that up to 3% and you can raise the price to 4000g, if you really need to.

Godplate - 1200 armor, 1050 hp, 20 hpps, 275 minion health, 300 minion armor. I have no complaints about the effects of this item. I simply fail to conceive of a game in which I would save up 10,000g to buy it. There are so many better things to spend 10k gold on. For 4200g and four slots I can get 1350 armor, 1500 hp, 15 hpps, 200 minion health and 3 minion hpps. Add 500g per slot and another 500g for the minion armor and you are looking at 6200g. That's a much more reasonable price for this item. Still not viable in most games but as the top tier item in this menu it shouldn't be.

I'll make comments on the rest of our topics as I write them.

equips are inconsistant, imo. I think an issue may be because theyre trying to cater for both assassins and generals.

boots section - only 2 of these enhance movement speed (1 relatively cheap and the other, super expensive). each item really needs to have what another provides, but only increase in effectiveness as the expense gets higher. this will also eliminate confusion and give each equip category a unique 'effect'.... i dont understand y there is boots of speed -10% move increase then the next one up unbreakable boots - 600hp, 5hps, 800mana. TBH, i think unbreakable boots' stats belong in the body armor section.

lets put it this way ... if u go for speed ... boots section is what makes sense.

gauntlets section - generally, these increase ur base attack by X amount. Why is their one that gives 15% chance of gaining mana on hit? (ive used this once btw, was the worst investment ever coz 15% seemed like 5%, in a time span of 10 mins i only recieved its benefit 3 times) also, why use an item that depends purely on CHANCE? Give it base attack increase also, maybe by 15 dmg. I know that will give me more incentive to buy this item.

i believe any gaunltet u get should have an effect on how much dmg you do. attack speed bonus stats should be in the more expensive section.

[i may edit this to add more]

I'm 65% certain that the gauntlets of despair don't actually give you mana, they just take it away from the target. Could be wrong.

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For Kestrel: Hot Topics That Aren't God-Awful Bickering