NOT!!!!!!!!

I think HorseRadish is trying to say that Beta 1A has been a step back in many ways.  In my personal experience it has more bugs and less gameplay.  I think less items is a step back because now I feel that the importance of items has drastically decreased.  The power they grant has be nerfed across the board for practically every item.  It also seems you are given more gold to buy these items that do less for you than before.  The addition of a new demigod and map is a good but as many have already pointed out unclean beast is fairly useless if your opponent can move.  I could go on but I'll just say Beta 1A was a huge letdown for me.  I prefer Beta 1.(there are some improvements to gameplay in 1A though don't get the impression that there are not any)

I aggree with the bugs, less and worse items being annoying, esspecially combined with the masses of gold mines and higher bounties but the unclean beast is awsome and in general i like the new map. The unclean beast is NOT useless, he is fricken brilliant, if you give him the as/ms, spit and bite skills plus the boots of speed he can run up and nuke the hell out of any enemy demigod, especially once you get ooze to add to the combo. Also if you give him the all father ring you end up with him more than 50% faster than the other demigods.

The new version is still fun but the simplified skill trees (which i understand were necessary, but still make it less fun for now) and the above points make it less than i hoped for. Still i think it is a step up from the first Beta, my major quam is that the bounties should have been increased to 300-500 instead of 1500-2100

There are new bugs, but I think they will be dealt with.  Beta 1 was really remarkably bug free, so I'm sure they'll deal with it just fine.  The gold stuff I have to agree with, it's out of hand right now.  I like the simplified items though.  They're still important to the game, but they're not so needlessly complicated.  The skill trees are less interesting in the way that everything is a straight line that improves all at the same rate, but I'm sure that will change with time.  I generally like the updated skills better than the older ones, particularly the Torch Bearer getting permanent fire mode and a better (imo) deep freeze.

My first complaint is you guys are already making these big statements (beta 1 is beta then 1-a). Its been out for about a day or two and your already flaming it? Play the game a bit more, perhaps for a week or two, then come back and make your complaints. Unclean Beast is not useless...he can fish out 1.8k damage + quick (900 damage + 900 hp absorb + Stun move, followed by the 900 damage spit). Thats basically unavoidable aswell. And seeming how he can move faster then original demigods they cant just "move out the way".

The bugs is perfectly understandable, afterall its a beta, and if it didnt have bugs well then this would be the first beta in the world without them. Thats not an arguement you can use to compare beta 1 with 1-A.

They know they have taken out lots of items, but its not permanent. I think they're just trying to balance it, and it is rlly hard tbh. I like the item nerf aswell. Towards late game in beta 1 some of damage demigods could dish out due to their op items was a joke..

Less stun is GREAT, really like that and you compensated it with slow which can still be deadly but actually takes some skill to use.

I like the teleporter scroll nerf, you have to think before you use it now and you wont just see demigods teleporting back and forth every few seconds.

There is currently a problem with gold. Items are cheaper (in general) but the amount of gold we get can be crazy at times. I had 35k at one point and didnt know what to spend it on.

New flag/gold mine positions is a lot more interesting. You actually have to be constantly fighting for flanks AND middle now, adds lots of depth. Oh and I like how the artifact shop in middle belongs to the player who has middle flag, great idea.

They nerfed flag locking aswell, which was ridicolous in beta 1, but is still usable in beta 1-A.

Overall I have to say great job on this beta, you've really changed it for the better. Ofc there are bugs to work on and some balance issues, but hey this is an engine test isnt it Perhaps our gold income needs to be nerfed a bit or increase the price of items to compensate? Cant wait to see the general demigods.

Source

So the items thing is just temporary .

I don't understand where all this "step backwards" crap is coming from.  The biggest problem I see right now is too much gold, which probably won't be hard to fix (replace gold mines with other bonuses and decrease the bounties).  There are new bugs but there were lots of changes so that is to be expected, plus a ton of the bugs involve the new map and/or the Unclean Beast.  More spells will be added, and the removal of some of the stuns makes them better.  The game is more fun, too, which is one of the most important things

Perhaps useless is too strong a word for the new Demigod.  I had already realized his damage potential the minute I opened his skill tree as I think anyone who played Beta 1 could.  However, rook is still stronger because he can actually stun you for 5 seconds and get some hits off.  Unclean beast can get about one hit off then you run from him.  Movement speed is grossly overrated.  You cannot melee attack a fleeing demigod in this game regardless of the difference in your mspeed.  This means without someone stunning for UB(i.e. a level 10 rook or TB [in some cases regulus])  he can't really DPS.  I understand the concept of having one dps hero on a team but unclean beast lacks the true killing power of other Demigods even if he has great items(cough there aren't many and every player gets them).  Also don't get me started on how useless locks are now.

Also Gnats people who say Beta1A is a  "step backward" aren't saying it isn't recoverable or that the problems introduced will be hard to fix.  What people are saying is that GPG made some HORRIBLE HORRIBLE balance decisions apparently without thinking about their consequences.  No one is saying Demigod will be an awful game because of this but they are wondering why such bad decisions were made.  It doesn't follow that since beta1 is not a balance build you should make bad balance decisions.  The arguement is that Beta1A is less fun then Beta1.  If you don't see a problem in this I don't think I can convince you otherwise.  Also I don't understand where this GPG is collectively God and can do no wrong(or the right always makes up for it) CRAP is coming from(more politely phrased "don't call other people's opinions crap in the future please").

P.S. Please don't start with the beta1 is not a balance build crap.  If beta1 is not a balance build then DO NOT make BALANCE changes from Beta1 to Beta1A and more over don't make bad balance changes!  Simply add your new demigods, gameplay features(a la more flags) and maps and be done with it.  Beta1 was fairly playable and had alot of choices you could make(There were dps/tank/caster builds for almost every character.  The current items don't define your demigod much anymore.).  Beta1A has decimated the item system in every possible way due to its changes. I say keep the Beta1 system since you aren't trying to balance it anyway.

Have you considered that the unbalanced issues are there because GPG and Stardock are testing out different things to see how they work in practice?

As far as I've seen, most of the skill changes are alterations to their functionality, rather than straight balancing changes.

It does seem more buggy than beta 1, and that's unfortunate, but I really can't criticize balancing problems because they're such a low importance issue right now.

For me, Beta 1-a +- a step foward

The new flag are great idea + gold mine. But Items are less attractive and GOD... the Torch bearer. wtf is this deep freeze skill... No melee unit can attack him and he have a stun freeze too.... :/  and also the torch bearer have a higher damage at start than the Unclean beast !?  I found this weird....

Hope they do something because 2 good player fighting each other, TB always win.  btw rook got nerfed a bit too much.900 domage with the hammer on a caracter with more than 4000+ life is ridiculous.

Its just my 2 cents...

If ur always winning with, or losing against, tb then u are doing something epicly wrong, he is anything but op. UB is better with is uber ms and nuking skills. The rook is interesting now, he is still really good but his roll has changed a bit, he is no longer the uber hero killer he was, he can push epicly and kills towers really well, also he can hold ground with his towers and hes a tank aswell, but he definetly better in 3v3 than 1v1

Yeah I used to play only 1vs1

From what I see , is that rook got balanced, but seriously. a good TB player that play with ICE wont let you go near him so you super ultra power UB wont lay a finger on him with his 400% dommage. you can only vomit and if the other player make a mistage and go to close to you, you can drain life.

guys go online. A.I are not representative. I see Almost no one online so you cant tell. I play always agains Flurus. no stupid A.I

And Beleive me TB with ice is verry verry powerfull with the good item.

This is why i personaly prefer the nuke builds with UB except where the enemy has a rook or another UB. TB can be very strong dont get me wrong but after lvl 10 he get significantly weaker and UB keeps getting stronger, after lvl 10 or so TB becomes a support hero. I don't play vs AI but i live in aus so it is hard to find a match with half decent pin.

TB can certainly be powerful for a while, but he loses his power if the enemy can keep alive enough early game.

Balance really comes on at the latest stages of the game.  We've been making sure that the Demigods are relatively balanced vs. each other for the beta (and for internal playtesting), but gameplay balance still hasn't really begun.  We're wrapping up tuning (making sure that everything is working the way we want it to) and will soon begin the balance phase.  Expect to see some pretty big changes during the the next beta(s), that's when the game will really get a feeling of strategy and depth.  It's also the most exciting part of game development (to me) -- it's when a game goes from being fun to being really, really fun.