Personally I don't want to see anything like a system where the underdog is boosted in any way. You start out equal, the rest is skill.

If anything, stuns are too long and too easy to chain.

Well, if stuns are reduced in power, that solves that problem partially.

I do see the problem, but I just haven't seen it play out like that yet in player games. Level 5 obviously is the "killer" level, teams who get there first are boosted significantly in power. But noone is unbeatable. Flags are extremely important, maybe they should be reduced in power somewhat. Also you should not be able to teleport to a flag you own imho.

However, fighting over the flags early on gives a great incentive to participate in PK and the war and still feel rewarded without actually attacking the enemy base structures. It's like a pre-mini-game. Maybe the impact is too big on the latter game, but I still think it should be there.

For example, I always felt that neutral portal flags spawning full waves was a bit over the top. I'd like to see them spawn no more than 50% of a normal wave.

Can someone give me a brief overview on terminology here? I'm going with the assumption that PK is a Player Kill and Spike is going for big damage fast in order to get kills quickly without the target having chance to escape.

The issue mcmjon raises applies mostly, if not exclusively, to the smaller more open maps like Prison; Leviathan and Zikurat give players more options for demigod activity, and a weaker demigod might be able to avoid a higher levelled opponent in these environments. The thematic issue of the early lead culminating in late steamroller still applies though so I will offer some thoughts. My first thought was that proper character balance should partially eliminate this issue at its root, but looking at it further, with a smaller flag count (and thus the flags having a much higher effect) could it mean that one team can, as you say, develop such a large advantage over the opposing team so quickly? What is it that gives them that advantage in this example? The flags, the added EXP from PKing or the gold? Perhaps one or more of these factors could be toned down, although I am painfully aware that there needs to be enough incentive in killing other players to make people do it.

Some of the more "hardcore" on these boards may argue that an early advantage culminating in a late steamroller is just how it goes, but the way I see it, one of the most ignored parts of RTS design is the point where one team gains a significant advantage over the other team to the extent where the other team will not be able to recover. The problem is that there is no consideration into when this point occurs; it's fine if it's right at the end of the game, but in games like Sins of A Solar Empire that stretch into hours, it's a fun killer.

If you've got two teams of equally skilled players, I think a game of demigod could easily stretch out for quite a long time (although nowhere near as long as Sins, thank god), and I'd prefer there to not be a case where one team can take full control of the game within a few minutes of play. Assuming player skill is equal on both sides, play should be fluid, with the leader changing regularly.

Agreed. Expect their effectiveness to be reduced in the next update.

Mike "Tyo" Marr
Demigod Design Lead 

Excellent. Thanks for the update.

Hi Evanescent, thanks for your feedback. I agree with you about increasing cooldowns and you'll see a fair amount of that in the next build.

A little history on cooldowns ... in the first beta, all cooldowns were long and after a great deal of playing and discussion I decided to reduce cooldowns for the majority of spells. Sadly, I was pressed for time and so I what I did was reduce ALL cooldowns, the baseline being seven seconds. My strategy for this was straight-forward- rather than play a guessing game of which abilities deserved a longer cooldown, I elected for a wait and see approach. So now, as abilities are proven to be too powerful, for example Oak's Shield, I can either decrease the effectiveness of the ability or I can increases its cooldown.

In conclusion, we're in the cooldown increase phase of balance if you will