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.

+912 Karma | 228 Replies

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. Only works on magical spells (i.e. rook hammer slam and boulder roll not affected nor is Regulus’s sniper shot or other non-magical effects).

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. Only works on magical spells (i.e. rook hammer slam and boulder roll not affected nor is Regulus’s sniper shot or other non-magical effects). Cool-down time of 24 seconds.

This is not a good idea. I especially dislike the differenciation between "magical" and "non-magical".

Let me tell you which demigods it would affect and which would just benefit from it:

DG strongly affected by the scroll:

Torchbearer. QoT

DG minorly affected:

UB, Oak, Erebus

DG not affected or only in a negligible way:

Sedna, Rook, Regulus

Thinking of the Fact that most people consider Rook overpowered, it is strange to add an Item which would make Rook even stronger. All in all this item screws up the whole balance too much.

And 1 more Thing: What happens if both player activate the Scroll of Rebound?

Well, there should be a scroll that also affects non-magical skills as well. That way, at least you have to have to pick one or the other (IE, no blanket reflect). In either case, I don't think it should reflect the full damage of the spell/skill anyway. I think 50%-80% works out better. If you think about the base mechanic (invincibility for 2 sec + enemy damage) returning the full damage of a spell/skill seems a bit OP.

Also, there's the problem of status effects. Are those reflected as well? Should they be?

Perhaps 2 seconds to is just too long of an effect. If it lasted maybe .5-1 sec and had a startup time of .5-1 sec, it would require more thought. Also, I agree that it's way too cheap. Should be more like 2500 for the scroll or the damage reflected back should be severly reduced (10%-20%). Anyway, if you had to time the impact perfectly, I wouldn't see it as being such a raw deal. Not to mention you can always dodge the reflection (or at least, that's how it should be).

Which skills/spells are vague? I'm sure there are a few, but your examples don't reflect that. A boulder is a boulder, wherever it came from, same with a crossbow bolt. Sure you can twist the idea with "magical" boulders or "energy" charged bolts, but only then do you start confusing a simple idea. Personally, as long as the attack not too much of a stretch, listing an attack as "magical" or "nonmagical" would be enough of a tool tip.

The split does seem too much for one mechanic, but can you really say it's a bad mechanic?

tangent:

It's probably too late in development now, but it would have been nice to see more types of counterattacks.

/tangent

well splitting up skills in non-magical and magical isn't necessarily bad if you can keep it intuitive, but doing it for one item is.

Snipe looks pretty magical too me and the fact that it gains damage the further it travels is somewhat counterintuitive for something non-magical. I renounce my doubts on boulder, the tooltip states that rook grabs it from the ground.

But still what about Queen of Thorns' Spikes? are they just as physical as a boulder or are they magic.

Venom Spit - Magic or just physical/poison/chemical?

Foul Grasp - Magic or just physical (gaining hp with it when it is non-magical is somewhat strange)

And yes you could add a "magical" - "nonmagical" tag at every tooltip instead of explaining it in the scroll indeed.

The Problem I see is that if you take Frogoboys logic that rooks hammer and Regulus snipe are "non-magical" almost no skill is "magical" and some are really hard to tell.

Queen of Thorns summons well Thorns to damage, which are physical.

Sednas pounce is physical, only her 200 dmg from max level heal is magical

UBs Venom spit could be magical or Physical but well it doesnt help there a lot anyways because UBs skills are overtime effects, except you want to reflect the whole debuff and not only the damage.

Erebus Bite magical or physical? I dont know... probably magical because he is vampire and drains the lifeforce, he doesnt render so much flesh of his opponent to explain the damage I suppose^^ but bite is very fast to cast and you cant really prepare for it.

Oaks AoE attack is probably magic as well as penitence. well he does most damage with physical attacks anyways.

well and as said before Regulus and Rook wont bother if the enemy gets the rebound scroll/ring at all

Now we come to the one DG who will have a huge problem, because almost his complete skills/damage is magical and everything of him has a long cast time or slow muzzle velocity: The Torchbearer, he will be the worst hero to choice if we introduce the Scroll or Ring, unless the ring gets an artefact.

I just find it odd to introduce an item which has such a different impact on each Demigod.

Wow, I just found out that if you highlight text then click quote, you only get the highlighted text....thought I'm sure I'm the last person to figure this out.

Anyway, back on topic: I tend to agree with this, but it's such an interesting concept that I'd hate to just abandon it.

TBO: I have to agree with you that some skills/spells would be hard to classify, but as such, isn't it equally true that you could just pick on or the other without it being much of an asspull? Anyway, not to keep harping on this, but it's like I said above, I'd hate to see it abandoned.

As a quick fix I like the Rebound mechanic. It just needs a clear set of rules that apply in all cases. Once you start making exceptions for specific spells or Demigods (who don't need the help) you have introduced a new set of problems that we don't have time to fix. It should look like this, imo -

a. Scroll of Rebound. $500. 0.5 second cast time. Upon use any spells cast on that player or area around player within the following 2 seconds are rebounded upon the caster. Only works on Demigod abilities and spells (i.e. normal attack damage is not reflected). Cool-down of 15 seconds.

b. Ring of Rebound. $4,000. 0.5 second cast time. Upon use, any spell cast on that player or area around player within the subsequent 2 second are rebound upon the caster. Only works on Demigod abilities and spells (i.e. normal attack damage is not reflected). Cool-down time of 40 seconds.

Some rationale -

- stunlocking and slowstopping aren't really an issue before level 5, at which point you should have the cash to buy a scroll or two. $250 is too cheap for such a powerful ability, imo. $500 is expensive enough that you don't want to waste it while remaining accessible for when you do need it

- You should have access to the ring pretty quickly after warpstone but it is very powerful, so it should cost more. (I'd actually be comfortable moving both of these items to a higher cost as long as they are close to each other)

- These items need a cast time, if a short one. They become far too powerful if you can wait until the last moment to trigger, because the enemy has no chance to abort his spell or catch you if you are careless. Most of the truly abusable abilities have .5 to 1.5 second cast times, so .5 should be enough to make this worthwhile

- All spells and abilities should be affected. Possible exceptions for teamspells, so if Oak tries to shield you it takes, rather than shielding him^^ Making opponent exceptions to maintain continuity would be selective at this point, since Rook can neither fit into those boots he just bought nor wear 5 pairs of them (I know I know, all in a spirit realm - so that means Boulder and Snipe are actually projections of animus and can be countered accordingly, right?)

- Upon casting rebound the caster should either have a tell-tale aura for duration of spell or an obvious and unique tell-tale cast animation when it procs.

Edit - I forgot this but the cooldown should be long long long - you shouldn't be able to trigger this any time you want

How does this version look?

Quoting Ke5trel,

reply 12

Snip. No reason to requote all of this.

*gives stamp of approval*

Quoting Ke5trel,

reply 12

Two problems: 1) The 0.5 second cast time. The point of these scrolls is to counter spells. This means stopping a spell that's in the process of being casted. If you have a cast time in addition to your recognition/reaction time, there's a good chance you'll miss stopping the spell you're trying to stop.

2) You have a cooldown listed for your Scroll? If that's a persistent item, it needs to be a lot longer, or cost a lot more. No need for a cooldown for expendable items.

Edit, Afterthought: A consequence of a long cooldown, which I agree it should have for such a powerful ability, will be a decreased pace in the gameplay, since people won't want to fight enemy demigods without their rebound ready if they have one.

Quoting TiberiusAudley,

reply 14

Two problems:

1) The 0.5 second cast time. The point of these scrolls is to counter spells. This means stopping a spell that's in the process of being casted. If you have a cast time in addition to your recognition/reaction time, there's a good chance you'll miss stopping the spell you're trying to stop.

2) You have a cooldown listed for your Scroll? If that's a persistent item, it needs to be a lot longer, or cost a lot more. No need for a cooldown for expendable items.

1) 0.5 second cast time means you have enough time to react if someone is warping in for a stunlock, but not enough time to wait until the hammer is on its way down to activate. Offense needs time to react too...The whole idea behind Rebound in the first place is allowing players to adapt - if you give it to defense but take it away from offense all you have done is made damage and control spells obsolete.

2) Have you ever carried more than one of a given scroll or potion at a time? When you activate a teleport scroll you have a cooldown until you can use another one. Rebound scrolls should be at the upper end of consumable cooldowns, if not share the Ring cooldown of 30-40 seconds. If you have both the scroll and the Ring cooldowns should be mirrored.

Afterthought - Or it will encourage stats and dps against rebound spammers. Or maybe everyone will carry Staff of Renewal every time. Point is, Stuns and Snares will still play a part but they won't begin and end every battle..

I dont see why this scroll will end the stun ownage.

Imagine a Rook has the ring himself, someone tries to stun him he activates ring -

hammerslams, and then he can even stun afterwards himself.

It just makes the whole situation somewhat different. But wont solve the situation.

And one big concern I have are AoE spells.

Lets say 3 people of a team get the scroll and they see TB casting Ice-Rain on them, they all activate the scroll

Then means TB gets 3 x Ice Rain damage which in many cases will leave him dead or at least an easy target, instead of being punished for being so stupid to walk around that closely in proximity to an AoE caster it would be rewarded.

Or how would handle AoE spells? Because if you want to have that thing in it still needs a lot of clarification.

I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.

Quoting Chirmaya,

reply 17

I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.

You're a damn god. Third mod post today by you that the devs should add to this game ASAP. This is incredible and will add a ton to the game.

Please add this now!!!

This effectively prevents telegamking or tele-ambushes, while still allowing teleports and co-ordinated attacks. This pevents the need to cripple demigods after they teleport while giving the party being teleported to an advance warning of what is about the coming $hit storm. This solves the major problem I have had with teleports. Please, please, give this a try frogboy. It may not be the answer it appears to be, but I would love a build like this before we try the no abilities teleport.

I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.

Chirmaya, you are great

karma in my heart, yo

I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.

You are a god upon gods.

So wait - two multi million pound companies couldnt make an animation for teleporting in, but Chirmaya - a single man - could do it in simply a few days. Great, really assuring.

Chirmaya: Beautiful work.

One question on it though. With out them adding new code, does this show OTHERS telaporting, or does it just show your own? Eather way very nice work.

[quote who="[AC]DalzK" reply="21" id="2097620"]
I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.
You are a god upon gods.
So wait - two multi million pound companies couldnt make an animation for teleporting in, but Chirmaya - a single man - could do it in simply a few days. Great, really assuring.[/quote]

I think it took him 20 minutes or so after asked if he could do it!!!

+1 virtual karma since it doesn't work to Chirmaya

was more like 2 hours after he was asked don't belittle his effort.

Thanks again for this proof of concept Chirmaya.

@Twisted it is a simside mod so everyone has to have it or the game desyncs - that is also the reason that there is no public download link to it as Chirmaya probably don't want to disturb the beta process.

Not sure if I'm posting this in the right place, but there's a thread in the ideas sub forum that has a great idea. Take out Ring of Fire and replace it with a Meteor, or make the Ring of Fire for TB more powerful. IMO and a lot of other's opinions, ring of fire is underpowered as is. I never even bother putting points towards it even more now that I realized the points are much better spent elsewhere.

Quoting Chirmaya,

reply 17

I haven't been following anything here, but I was asked to make a quick teleportation mod that shows where the Demigod is teleporting to.

This would be ideal.
Adding a 2 or 3 second silence after you teleport would be terrible. It'd be worse than the current problem of people teleing in and nuking.

Tele is powerfulnwo because you have until the time someone can react to target you and attack you, while you know exactly where you'll be, where they are, and can have your cursor ready over them. The animation is needed so the person being tele'd to can get their cursor there and make it more even reaction wise.

There isn't another alternative. Anything else would be worse than how it is now. So there shouldn't be an anything else. Either keep it how it is now, or add an animation showing where the person is going to tele to.

Either keep it how it is now, or add an animation showing where the person is going to tele to.

It must be a big deal for innociv to break silence ^^ I know alot of times modding is much easier than actually coding, but can we re-examine the animation idea or at least abandon the alternative? It would be nice to talk about other, larger issues.

still lol @ Stardock getting upstaged by Chirmaya

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. and 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.

I still don't really dig this idea. If something is reflected, then it should be for a portion of the damage; not only is reflecting allowing one person to be completely immune to the effects of a spell, but it's also returning an equal amount of damage, which doesn't encourage playing a nuking Demigod as a nuking Demigod. It kind of violates the intentions of a player moreso than I think the game should encourage. If the "Scroll/Ring of Reflect" insisted upon, it should just allow the user to be invulnerable to spells for the two seconds or, if nothing else, return a fraction of the damage/spell upon the original caster.

b. Teleporting causes abilities to be disabled for 2 seconds but players are immune to cast spells during that time.

Maybe abilities should be disabled for one second, at most, but the players who teleport in should not be immune to anything. Using a teleportation scroll isn't a "Get out of Jail Free" card; it's just a quick option of running away. If someone is getting targeted by an ability with a long charge and they run away, they should still be hit by it.

[quote who="[AC]DalzK" reply="4" id="2098192"]still lol @ Stardock getting upstaged by Chirmaya [/quote]

How is Stardock getting upstaged? First, we don't code that kind of thing. Secondly, if something can be done with a mod that requires little effort then that's awesome.

Quoting Frogboy,

reply 6

if something can be done with a mod that requires little effort then that's awesome.

Can we figure out how to add the mod so it can be used by all?

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The Official Demigod Change Request Thread