The Official Demigod Change Request Thread

By Frogboy on March 29, 2009 3:29:09 PM from

Want something in Demigod’s balance changed? Make the case in this thread.

Everyone here at Stardock and GPG can feel the electricity in the air. It’s that feeling, that knowledge that the game you’ve been working on is going to be a hit. Those of you in the game industry know that feel. But for those of you who aren’t let me explain: Game projects take years from start to finish and let’s face it, statistically, most games aren’t very good. And for those on the project, it can be a real morale killer because the teams on those games usually know it long before release but cannot really do much about it. With Demigod, both teams (Stardock and GPG) know they have something special here.

That said, I’ve put together a list of change requests that are in front of us to see what we can do and what we can’t do.

This is the official change-request discussion thread. As these features are changed/added/addressed we’ll update this post.

I. Game options

d. Tower Strength

i. Weak is 2800. Please change to 4200.

ii. Normal is 5600. GOOD.

iii. High is 14000. Please change to 8400.

e. Grunt strength

i. Please change to” Grunt HP”

ii. Weak is 240 HP. GOOD.

iii. Normal is 390. GOOD.

iv. High is 870. GOOD.

f. New option: Grunt Damage

i. Weak: 75% what it currently is.

ii. Normal: what it currently is

iii. High is 150% of what it currently is

iv. Severe is 300% of what it currently is

g. Gold rate

i. Low. please increase by +1.

ii. Normal. Please increase by +2.

iii. High. Please increase by +3.

h. Starting gold

i. add: Please add “low: $0”.

ii. normal is $1000. GOOD.

iii. high is $20,000. Please change to $5,000.

iv. filthy rich is $40,000. Please change to $15,000.

II. Citadel Upgrades

b. Building Firepower. Please reduce cost on each one by 50%.

c. Currency.

i. Currency I. Please change to 4 gold.

ii. Currency II. Please change to 6 gold.

iii. Currency III. Please change to 8 gold.

d. Black Smith

i. Black Smith I. GOOD.

ii. Black Smith II. Please change to 40%.

iii. Black Smith III. Please change to 50%.

iv. Black Smith IV. Please change to 60%.

f. Experience.

i. Experience I. Please change to 20%.

ii. Experience II. Please change to 30%.

iii. Experinece III. Pleae chnage to 40%.

iv. Experience IV. Please change to 50%.

III. In-game Balance

a. Going up a war rank gives all players on that team 1000G.

b. When teleporting, the target destination displays an animation to cue players that someone is teleporting in.

See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhuPKYyKu5I&eurl=https://forums.demigodthegame.com/342558/page/4/&feature=player_embedded for refrence

c. Torch Bearer

i. Fireball I. Please increase damage from 300 to 400.

ii. Deep Freeze. Cool down penalty on others reduced by 3 seconds on each on.

d. Rook

i. HP decreased by about 10% at all levels.

ii. Boulder Roll 3 stun time reduced to 3 seconds.

e. Unclean beast

i. Base speed reduced to 6.0

ii. Reduce melee damage by about 10%.

iii. Reduce HP or Armor by 10%.

f. Destroying a tower provides 800 gold, destroying a fortress 1600 gold.

IV. New Items

a. Scroll of rebound. $250. Upon use any spells cast on that player or area around player within the following 2 seconds are rebounded upon the caster.

b. Ring of rebound. Instant cast time. Upon use, any spell cast on that player or area around player within the subsequent 2 second are rebound upon the caster.

V. Ongoing Bug issues that must be resolved

a. Disconnects in-game

i. More consequence for disconnecting

ii. The game must be able to cleanly recover from a disconnect.

b. Connectivity

i. Connecting to other players needs to be as reliable as possible

ii. Current beta connectivity dialog needs polishing

c. Pantheon

i. Pantheon experience when connecting needs polish

ii. AI players should be last resort and there should always be at least 1 human player on both sides.

d. In-Game (separate bug database not covered in this thread)

VI. User Interface Requests

a. Tracking toggle button on screen (for new users, the [T] track option for having th3e camera follow and center on the Demigod is very nice but not easy to get to.

b. In the lobby screen, display the Experience rating (from the Pantheon) by a player’s name to make it easier for players to balance custom games.

VII. New Features

a. New Multiplayer Option: Skirmish [Demigod]

i. User selects Skirmish then choose Demigod and then presses Fight

ii. Impulse Reactor puts together players that are balanced to battle it out.

iii. Pantheon displays separate top players for Skirmish.

b. Pantheon Teams [Pantheon]

i. Players can create and join teams

ii. Player s can only belong to one team at a time

iii. Various ranking options based on Teams.

c. Skirmish Tournaments [Pantheon]

i. Not to be confused with the Pantheon itself

ii. Set begin and end date where players participate in a series of Skirmish games with their rankings filtered during the tournament. Top players win prizes.

Version 1.03: Updated March 29, 2009.

+897 Karma | 228 Replies

d. Black Smith

i. Black Smith I. GOOD.

ii. Black Smith II. Please change to 40%.

iii. Black Smith III. Please change to 50%.

iv. Black Smith IV. Please change to 60%.

that would probably break 2v2 completly for some Demigods.

If it comes to giants in a 2v2 match, The Reinforcements already pretty much own the demigods. at least if you dont have massive AoE. but almost no Demigod can survive fighting vs 10 catapults some giants and priests pluss the archers and Minotarus without going back to heal already.

So it would force player to have Demigods with good AoEs in 2v2 because otherwise they wont stand a chance in late game.

and with the gold mine changes you want to make it would be no problem to get giants with high upgrades as soon as you hit war rank 10.

edit: Might still be very bad on maps with more than 2 portals / teams in matchups bigger than 2v2.

your ideas concerning the game options are good - except for gold income where you got the numbers totally wrong - others covered that already so no reason to repeat it.

c. Currency.

i. Currency I. Please change to 4 gold.

ii. Currency II. Please change to 6 gold.

iii. Currency III. Please change to 8 gold.

So what does that change means, it means that the time to get the investement into Currency I. back is halved. So far so good, thats a bit a matter of taste - probably would make currency I a must-have rather than an optional item and would give the team which reaches War Rank 3 first a bit bigger advantage.
I can only guess but I assume that you think that the Currency upgrades stack (which they don't) as its hard to believe you would want a +4 upgrade for 1800 money and then a +2 upgrade for 3000 and another +2 upgrade for 4200.

Currency I as it is now is somewhat useful and Currency II rather useless and Currency III totally useless. With your changes Currency I is a must have and Currency II and Currency III are still the same : additional income of +2 per second for a too high price.

e. Unclean beast

i. Base speed reduced to 6.0

ii. Reduce melee damage by about 10%.

would like to get an explanation why a hero which definitely isn't overpowered needs a that harsh nerf especially compared to the cosmetical changes you want for Rook.

f. Destroying a tower provides 800 gold, destroying a fortress 1600 bold.

even ignoring your other changes to massively increase the amount of gold in play this would be a bad change. Increasing the bounty for destroying a tower would make it even more effective to have all Demigods on one lane to quickly bring down towers. Even now grouping up is considered a bit too efficient from many players. If you want to have strategic gameplay and mapcontrol more important you need to increase the bounty on archers and minotaurs so that when all players are on 1 lane they lose more gold compared to those spread out and killing all creeps than currently.

TheBigOne:

The point of this thread is to discuss proposed changes so that we can make sure we don't make mistakes.

If you want to have influence, you would do yourself a huge favor by not implying that your opinion is a fact or insulting my knowledge of the game.

It is certainly possible that I may be mistaken on a particular value that a given item provides but it does not affect the validity of the change request. My job is to try to make the game as fun as possible for everyone.

If you want to participate in this discussion, please be constructive and respectful to participants (including me! ).

What we're going to do is listen through the discussion and make changes to the original post as people make their case for additions, requests, etc.

Quoting TheBigOne,

reply 3

...Even now grouping up is considered a bit too efficient from many players. If you want to have strategic gameplay and mapcontrol more important you need to increase the bounty on archers and minotaurs so that when all players are on 1 lane they lose more gold compared to those spread out and killing all creeps than currently....

This is an interesting point and i totaly agree with this...

Right now, form big groubs is a must!

Here should be a more balance to favor spread-out!

not less fun for the "team gank" because flag capturing and locking has nothing to do with ganging up on your opponent.

It will make it almsot impossible to hinder someone from capturing your portals and lock it in late game. Now you see someone capturing your portal and you can teleport to that place. But if you teleport into your enemy with 3 sec cooldown you will die in 90% of the cases.

Lets take a Sedna TB combo. First you get silence for 4 secs (if skill isnt maxed) then you get stunned for 3 secs. Which means that you cant use any skill for 10 secs. so you lose the portal and your life. even if you portal 2 people because those spells are AoE and 10 secs are enough to kill a single demigod.

Your idea will create more problems than it solves in my opinion.

I totally agree that teleport ganking is no fun. However I think your solution will result in being no fun in lots of situations either as it is a too great advantage for the attackers.

I didn't mean to insult you and probably formulated it in a way I shouldn't have. And I think that you are very good in identifying problems but when you post very specific things like "change x to y" I expect you to know the specifics or just write "I think currency upgrades needs to be more useful" and let GPG do the details.

Quoting TheBigOne,

reply 3

your ideas concerning the game options are good - except for gold income where you got the numbers totally wrong - others covered that already so no reason to repeat it.

c. Currency.

i. Currency I. Please change to 4 gold.

ii. Currency II. Please change to 6 gold.

iii. Currency III. Please change to 8 gold.

So what does that change means, it means that the time to get the investement into Currency I. back is halved. So far so good, thats a bit a matter of taste - probably would make currency I a must-have rather than an optional item and would give the team which reaches War Rank 3 first a bit bigger advantage.
I can only guess but I assume that you think that the Currency upgrades stack (which they don't) as its hard to believe you would want a +4 upgrade for 1800 money and then a +2 upgrade for 3000 and another +2 upgrade for 4200.

Currency I as it is now is somewhat useful and Currency II rather useless and Currency III totally useless. With your changes Currency I is a must have and Currency II and Currency III are still the same : additional income of +2 per second for a too high price.

e. Unclean beast

i. Base speed reduced to 6.0

ii. Reduce melee damage by about 10%.

would like to get an explanation why a hero which definitely isn't overpowered needs a that harsh nerf especially compared to the cosmetical changes you want for Rook.

f. Destroying a tower provides 800 gold, destroying a fortress 1600 bold.

even ignoring your other changes to massively increase the amount of gold in play this would be a bad change. Increasing the bounty for destroying a tower would make it even more effective to have all Demigods on one lane to quickly bring down towers. Even now grouping up is considered a bit too efficient from many players. If you want to have strategic gameplay and mapcontrol more important you need to increase the bounty on archers and minotaurs so that when all players are on 1 lane they lose more gold compared to those spread out and killing all creeps than currently.

i agree with the UB nerf, beast right now is a bit too strong with a spefiic build

also, i wanna add

soemtihgn abotu sedna

sedna need at least 6 yeti

right now, even after the suposed changes, they are still pretty much worthless

6 yeti with a bit more hp,

because from what i understand, yeti should be liek tanks

good hp, with acceptable damage

right now, they cant hold anything

so just 6 yeti with a bit more hp will make them better and viable

even with mroe yeti and mroe HP, they wont be a real threath to demigod

Just would like to clarify my opinion for all those who like or dislike it. I said u should be able to tele in but than can't use spells or attack but u are invincible. How ever u can still move around use potions and such, furthermore u can be near flags making it impossible to capture. I say able to move so u can either chase them down or get in a possition to kill them. I also did not suggest a particular number of how long stunned because I thought u guys could agree on something. It could be as little as 1 second or as many as like 3 making it not nessarily a huge chance to get away but enough to prepare.

Not a change so much as an improvement: better pathfinding for A.I. units. Right angle or greater pathways can confound Minions that attempt to follow you. Maybe this is something that needs to be addressed on a map-by-map basis rather than on a general A.I. basis. I suspect you folks are already looking at this though.

@Ultimeh

I think this needs some more testing.

UB biggest disadvantage is that his main damage output is normal damage.

So the wisest thing to do vs UB is to go for High Armor.

You can easily get to 50% Armor. TB, Rook etc do a lot of damage with spells which arent decreased by Armor which gives them an advantage over UB in that matter.

I will need to analyse that a bit, but maybe people just dont play the clever counter vs UB right now.

Not sure about that though.

And Venom spit also might seem like a very strong ability, but you musnt forget that it is damage over time. Its a debuff which can even be removed by sedna.

A complete stun + invulnerabilty like orb of defiance would be indeed reasonable and probably not have the potential for unintended side effects the silencing has; at least in my opinion.

UB early/ mid is too strong, a good beast player will destroy people

the tweak they wanan give is is acceptable, ist a minor nerf

I agree with Ultimeh - The UB Change is acceptable. Before we start going so bad on it, we should give it a chance. You say armour counters his damage - but he does have spit + hp drain which ignores armour. Not just that, armour can only save you so much and UB can also use frenzy if he see's opponent is going high armour.

On top of that, if you see a TB going full armour to counter a UB - Good luck casting all those spells you want with armour instead of mana items

spit can be dispelled and we have seen how UB is a like with speed 6.0 in earlier versions.

Compared to Sedna or QoT , UB is rather weak (not the damage but overall) and they aren't changed at all.

What if you don't happen to have anything to dispel spit all the time? You're going to die sometimes, especially if there's no allied Sedna handy or present at all.

Plus, UB gets tons of armor and speed, and I've had them run well into my base to kill me, then back out even at low levels.

I ***** about Reg vs UB in particular. I'm not the best player out there, but I just find it frustrating. Nearly as much as Rook tele combos.

Minion damage in general could be boosted so that generals minions are dangerous enough to take down another demigod. Also maybe giving them some utility to help them distinquish themselves from just being another form of damage.

b. When a player teleports, their abilities should be disabled for 3 seconds

i cannot agree with this,

if you guys really wanna put soemthign liek this, make it 1 sec cd

hell not 3

1 sec is logn enough for the enemy to react

Thats why i was not suggesting a time amount simply saying thats what u could do and when i said from as little as 1 sec to as much as 3 I meant u can make it as long or as short as u want.

make the game faster, to me its reeeeally slow to play, even in intense combat

what, faster? normal speed is perfect,what are you here fo?r, playing a fast spaced acade gaem without any thinking/planning or tactic?

Game speed is perfect to me.

Lol! The speed is perfect! That's one of the things I like about the game. You can jump in and play a full game without having to set aside a couple hours!

I only wanted to comment on the teleporting fiasco.
I agree with the skill disabling and don't think that should be changed.

I see the point about teleporting in and then getting killed because you can't do anything, but I don't think that is as dire as you make it out to be. You can still move, so you could place your teleport a few steps away so when you get in range, you are ready for action. Also, just being near the flag will stop the cap. (you can also be moving to be a hard target or use your basic attack untill your abilities are back)

If you made it a full out stun, you couldn't move or anything.

At the most, I would say you could add a very brief invulnerability, but I'm not fully convinced that is necessary.

Less fun for those who like to team gank, certainly. But our mission is to make the game fun for the broadest target audience. Given the sheer number of complaints we've had from people regarding teleport ganking along with my own experience in having it done to me (As well as doing it to others) it's not a good mechanic.

Having the abilities disabled for a couple of seconds for people teleporting in gives people a fighting chance who are trying to capture a flag to react to the sudden appearance of a horde of Demigods.

I'm going to put one more reply out there on this issue and then I will move on to other things:

Tele-ganking is not the main problem. When you get used to it it can be avoided and taken advantage of. We have been playing with it for months. It's a symptom of a larger issue, though - that defense will always have a movement advantage.

If you put a debuff on porting DGs without also protecting them per soccer1 then you have made a balance problem into a broken mechanic. Please believe us on this one, the new players who complaing mildly about tele-ganking will be screaming if you make this change. If you want to spend the point of resources to put it in 3C please do, but then also please play a couple of games against organized and experienced teams so we can show you how broken it is.

If the marker effect mentioned earlier doesn't work and the Defiance effect cannot be easily added with the debuff then I think long-term the players (and devs) will be much, much happier if you left this alone until you had the resources to really look at it.

If Defiance does work then you should be looking at 1-1.5 seconds effect after port, no more.

As an aside thanks for the feedback and the conversation. We don't take it for granted.

Some random tweaks -

Just gonna get behind HorseRadish - stacking different slow and snare effects can make warpstone or equivalent an essential item just to walk away. I would lower duration on all of these effects 30% across the board and pay particular attention to QoT with this.

Per Wagnard, please remove interrupt effect from TB's Frost Nova.

Reward farming grunts better - increase gold and xp gained 20% for minos and 10% for archers. Edit: Per a convo with TBO, should be more like 50% for minos and 33% for archers for gold.

Reduce Pounce damage 10% at all levels on Sedna and make Yetis more effective. I would like to see minion damage higher and hp lower generally, but Yetis as tanks are acceptable.

Reduce effect of QoT's Mulch ability 10% at all levels, alternatively reduce brambleshield absorption 20% at higher levels

Look at slightly reducing stacking DoT effects on UB but leave speed, damage, and armor the same. He is very strong at level 1-4 vs. other DGs but that is made up for by an average middle stretch, imo.

Punish ragequitters' stats

As long as stuns can be chained Staff of Renewal Favor item will be too effective. Problem is I really like the item. Maybe tweak it to a passive 20% cooldown reduction

Look at giving citadel upgrades a 30 cooldown. If I can tech to giants in one wave I will - there is no way to adapt to that. OTOH games will take a bit longer so maybe not, what do you think?

Give Death Timer upgrade a secondary effect. No one uses it. Follow the link for my thoughts on that

Thoughts on any of the above?

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The Official Demigod Change Request Thread