The issues I've seen so far...

By Amerasu on September 14, 2008 3:04:11 AM from

Okay, so I've tried three games with the mage, two with the rook, and one with the sniper. Not much, but enough to have a couple things to say.

Here's what I've seen so far:

Game Guide - is there one? I'm sure lots of things I've run into quite a few issues from not having a manual to read.

View control issues - The only way I've found to move the viewpoint around is by zooming out with my scrollwheel and zooming back in. A better method is the one used in Battle for Middle Earth 2, where you use the numberkey pad to rotate the screen around. The best way, imho, would be to have a button you hold down (maybe TAB) and when its down and left click, you can drag around the viewpoint.

Widescreen issues - I'm running the game on a 720P LCD HDTV widescreen (native 1280X720) and when I mouseover many things in the game, the hovertext covers things I need to read. This could be because there's no option for 1280X720 resolution.

Frames per second - I realize its still in beta, but the game seems to run really slow and periodically pauses, especially when things are getting exciting. Not good because that's when you really need control the most.

Skill tree screen - having to go to a separate screen that blocks the rest of the screen to see the skill tree kind of destroys the immersiveness. Being able to shift click the abilities on the bottom of the screen to level them up would be a lot faster.

Skills - only the area of effect abilities (fire and frost for the mage) and the building destroying abilities (where the rook lifestealing from structures) seem to be worthwhile. In this game, the direct hit abilities (like fireball or snipe) don't do enough to really make them worthwhile.

Movement speed - the rook should move even slower, the mage should have a instant teleport ability on a timer, the sniper dude should be twice or three times as fast as he currently is.

Maps - I'd love to see a map editor released early with monthly prizes (graphics cards, computer modded to look like the Rook) for the map that's voted best by the community. Speaking of which, a forest level, ice level, flowing lava level, jungle level, etc would be cool.

Heroes - Have a create-a-hero system. Battle for Middle Earth 2 had a create-a-hero system and it was awesome and the community really got into using them online and having them have rankings. Customization of the looks of heroes and having them have unlockable titles for killing so many of each type of hero was great. Another idea for heroes comes from an old PC game called "Total Annihilation: Kingdoms" - non-hero units that killed other units gradually leveled up within the game visually and stats wise (increased armor and/or stamina and/or attack power and changes from black to white with golden shields).

More after I've played some more...

0 Karma | 18 Replies

unless you can find out a faster way to hit a demigod for 700 or so damage with torchbearer i will continue to use fireball......

and create-a-hero is what breaks games

this is beta 1, there is no manual yet, the game isn't even half finished.

and there are teleport items, so i don't see how movement is really an issue.

and the maps are custom made, 3d maps, so i doubt there will be a map editor.

Your balance recommendations way overcompensate. It resembles how I too felt at first, but the more I play, the better balance seems to be. The only imbalanced one is the rook, and there, the only thing I would change is the cooldown on his rock-throwing ability, and then see how things pan out. Similar abilities on other chars have have a longer cooldown.

BFME2 panning is the best; however many other areas of control are pretty bad so I'd be careful ciiting them.

Pretty sure the levels you are looking for have already been made or are currently being created. Each Demigod supposedly has their own personal battleground, previews have shown three I think. The current Waterfall field, a lava field, and what appeared to be an airy field with a tileset field similar to the waterfall field.

If your system is beefy, ie you are maxing it out at 30 fps on whatever settings you are using, turn vSync off. Should get better fps when zoomed out that way. Zoomed in closely will restrict you to 30, but that is more the SupCom engine's problem.

Camera issues, the T button centers the camera on your Demigod and the view resets on respawn so you'll need to press T again. Arrow keys cause the screen to scroll in that direction, and pressing the middle button for your mouse (mine is the wheel scroll) while moving the mouse will scroll the screen as well.

Direct Damage skills I currently agree with you, properly equiping your Demigod causes them to become bad investments later in the game. The Rook's Boulder roll is powerful, and the Torchbearer properly geared can stunlock you. Regulus can deal high amounts of damage, slow you, and shoot from the fog of war when specced right. All the current Demigod's are balanced in how Overpowered they are, with maybe a little more deference given to the Rook for his ease of use and ability to dominate anything he can get to. Have to see how the generals work out before I call for major rebalancing though.

I like the skill tree as it allows certain builds to emphasize their natural abilities rather than their skills. I've come out on top in a 2v2 fight as a Regulus not putting a single point in to one of his actual activated abilities.

Again ... I just lost a game because my two Rook allies became AFK, stuck in the back, inert, at the regeneration structure -- while the two enemy Rooks were assaulting our "base".

My Regulus could not stop such an assault all by himself. I had not seen my 3rd enemy for awhile : that Torchbearer was probably stuck in the back of his own base -- making it a 2 v 1.

But when two Rooks are simultaneously pounding at your Stronghold, a lone Regulus won't be enough to stop them -- especially when he is regularly stunned.

I hope that the devs will fix that demigod-going-AFK issue.

we've discussed practically everything he had a promlem with in huge threads and im pretty sure we came up with solutions for each 1 most of them say no to this guy

Killing with Regulus is easy:

Just skill the attribut boni and go for attack speed / dmg items. You will kill everything You can easily evade those stuns by the Rook. You may not stand still, that´s all

Quoting Nokthra,

reply 6

You can easily evade those stuns by the Rook. You may not stand still, that´s all

Oh ... gee, thanks ... I would never have figured that out, all by myself -- being a girl.

To be serious : I knew that, of course. I'm so agile with the Regulus, that I can play most games without "dying" once (and in those rare games where I "die", it's never more than once).

But ... when your Stronghold is down to 20% HPs, and there's a huge & messy crowd around it, you stand still and shoot like crazy on the 2 Rooks that are rapidly pounding on the remaining 20% -- it's too late for agility & finesse.

That was the precise context of my previous post.

Quoting Nokthra,

reply 6

Killing with Regulus is easy:

Just skill the attribut boni and go for attack speed / dmg items. You will kill everything You can easily evade those stuns by the Rook. You may not stand still, that´s all

Those builds are getting nerfed in the next build. This IMO is a bad decision because currently this is the only competitive Regulus build. If Snipe and Mines were stronger, nerfing item/stat builds would make sense.

No Game Guide, its still beta. It would be in constant alteration and thus is reserved for when the game is nearly completed.

View control - press spacebar and move your mouse. There you go.

FPS - check your graphics settings, decrease if needed. If your still having big problems, post your dxdiag.

Skill selection - already suggested but thanks.

Movement speed - appears to be part of the balance that is still in progress. Too early to tell.

Maps - maps were created using pretty high end software that would be difficult to dumb down to allow players to create there own map. Gameplay comes first, user created game content second.

Heroes - reported price per demigod is around $100,000 each to develop. This is because each demigod is carefully crafted, drawn, modeled, and animated. A hero creator would have to group many character traits and you would actually have less diversity then with developer demigods. If your thinking add a spore creator, well, lets just say we would like the game to release sometime next year, not 5 years from now.

Not trying to bash your post, but it doesn't look like you've made much effort to read what others have posted.

quoting post

Movement speed - the rook should move even slower, the mage should have a instant teleport ability on a timer, the sniper dude should be twice or three times as fast as he currently is.

you don't care much about balance do you?...

I could rip apart most of the rest of your post too but Odit beat me to most of it.

The skill selection has indeed been post like Odit said, and is a bad idea regardless and makes very very little sense, especially for the reason OP gave.

Just read back through everyone's replies.

1st - You're absolutely right, I haven't read a single other person's post on these forums. And I don't plan to. I don't think much of the game right now and am really sorry that I pre-ordered it. Playing the beta was a gigantic let down for me.

You guys are so into this game that when an average gamer comes along that hasn't devoted serious time to it and posts their general issues with the game not being fun, you freak out and bust on them for not reading the forums, etc.

Let me repeat... I doubt I'll ever even return to this forum after this post because of how let down in the game I was. I may try the game at retail release just because I stupidly payed for it already but as for being a part of the process of refining the game while its still in beta... well, with "forum gestappo" and "demigod-yes-men" like the majority of the people that responded to my post above patrolling the forums, I find trying to post my frustrations and hopes for the game even less fun of a use of time than playing the game was.

So go ahead, post away at what an idiot I am and how my viewpoints and ideas are flawed. Maybe someone will hear you, but it won't be me.

Whiner. Go away.

Amerasu,

I'm going to respond whether you come back or not. (I suppose that's a bit obvious, but whatever.) The game is in Beta 1. Most of the content and balancing is either not done or not in. This is just a stress test is not really intended to be fun yet. They've already stated that the build they have in house is much more fun. (And more complete. And less buggy.)

It would be nice if you at least took a look at some of the other similar topics though.

Innociv, Kyrein,

Why so hostile? The community doesn't need people insulting others.

Quoting Kyrein,

reply 13

Whiner. Go away.

Awesome post, you really contributed to the discussion...

I don't know why anyone even bothered to respond to his "balance" complaints, since Beta 1 is primarily an engine stress test. As for the heroes complaint, GPG and Stardock have repeatedly said 8 or so heroes for the final 1.0 release, and you knew that ahead of time Amerasu--why would you bother pre-ordering the game if you disliked that so much?

Well at least he made an effort to play the beta and come on the forums to make a post. Since he will not read the other posts, and maybe there's a chance he will come back to read this one, here are a few things to remember.

As Kitkun has said, this is beta 1. Many of the features, demigods, maps, etc have been removed. Gas Powered Games and Stardock wished to see how the game would run on a number of different systems. Thats it. Balance, UI, Items, gameplay suggestions are all secondary to whether the game will run or not.

Now, it looks like they have done a very nice job to this point. The game loads and runs on most everyone's computer. There are relatively few game ending bugs, so Beta 1 could be consider very successful. Since all of these issues have been addressed, and discussed, the forums have shifted towards suggestions based on gameplay. This is very similar to suggestions that were made before we even had beta 1, just now, we have something to base them on.

Beta 2 will return many of the features that were taken out of Beta 1 in addition to implementing suggestions from the forums (at the developers discretion) and whatever new features the developer has in mind. It should start to become much more fun to play at that point. Beta 2 and then Beta 3 will be much more focused on balance, gameplay, and player suggestions.

If you are dissatisfied with the current build, then I would suggest you push it aside until the 2nd beta is released and then give it another whirl.

On a side note, online forums are generally places for discussion. Discussion flourishes when there are differing opinions which gives rise to Debate. Debate gives rise to contention and sometimes outright hostility. Overall, the Demigod forums are more centered in Debate and Discussion with little hostility. When particitipating on forums, you should be aware that not everyone will agree with your post or your premise for it. Don't take it personal. If you have something to say, then stick to your guns and defend your opinion.

He didn't make THAT much effort.

He doesn't realise what a beta is and it's too late for him to cancle his preorder. Already charged.

I'd suggest he never plays again. =] Don't need him.

Quoting Amerasu,

reply 12

Just read back through everyone's replies.

1st - You're absolutely right, I haven't read a single other person's post on these forums. And I don't plan to. I don't think much of the game right now and am really sorry that I pre-ordered it. Playing the beta was a gigantic let down for me.

You guys are so into this game that when an average gamer comes along that hasn't devoted serious time to it and posts their general issues with the game not being fun, you freak out and bust on them for not reading the forums, etc.

Let me repeat... I doubt I'll ever even return to this forum after this post because of how let down in the game I was. I may try the game at retail release just because I stupidly payed for it already but as for being a part of the process of refining the game while its still in beta... well, with "forum gestappo" and "demigod-yes-men" like the majority of the people that responded to my post above patrolling the forums, I find trying to post my frustrations and hopes for the game even less fun of a use of time than playing the game was.

So go ahead, post away at what an idiot I am and how my viewpoints and ideas are flawed. Maybe someone will hear you, but it won't be me.

Don't leave this game needs every type of gamer from hardcore to the average weekily or monthly gamer. This beta is not about having fun it was making sure it could run on a variety of computers. Stick it out play a little maybe in a few months you might really enjoy a very unique game.

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The issues I've seen so far...