Back from the lake, what’s next?

By Frogboy on May 17, 2009 7:43:49 PM from

The last few weeks have been pretty intense. Demigod has been unlike anything we’ve released before. The good news is that its sales have been really good and despite that first week which saw our network brought to its knees, the game’s average review scores have been 4 out of 5 (well over 4 out of 5 after the first week).

Our chief technology architect, Jeff Bargmann, who I brought onto Demigod a couple of weeks ago when it became clear that we were going to need to develop our own network solution for the game is clearly obsessed based on the 4am emails he sent me over the weekend. Jeff is also the lead developer on Impulse, ObjectDock, ObjectBar, Fences, and numerous other projects. When I absolutely positively must have something amazing done right and quickly, he is my go-to guy. So this weekend he’s been working on various proxy solutions. Cari, our lead game developer also found ways to solve some of the Pantheon and Skirmish issues that were reported over the weekend.

I don’t want to make any promises but given the success of Friday’s update and the likelyhood that the proxies will go online this week, we should be nearing the point of diminishing returns for getting people connected on the multiplayer match making side. I also know that Gas Powered Games is looking seriously at in-game connectivity.

Personally, I think the long-term solution is for us just to host the games entirely. That’s what we’re doing in Elemental for its multiplayer – our servers host the entire thing from the start.

But with the connectivity issues in MP likely to substantially diminish this week, it’s time to start thinking about what we should do next.

Demigod v1.1

So on the horizon there’s Demigod v1.1. Now, question is, what should be in it? Now, these aren’t expansion packs but I can think of a few things on my personal list that may or may not agree with what you guys want so let’s talk about that.

Here’s my personal preference list for v1.1 in brief:

Favor points increased by a factor of 10.
Option to Concede. Would let players quit a game they feel they’re losing. Their Demigod is removed. If all players from that team concede, the game is over.
Smart Quitting. If someone exits within the first 3 minutes, there’s no harm, no foul. It counts as a disconnect but not a loss. Sometimes there’s lag or someone has a slow machine or whatever.
Random Demigod. Players can choose a Random Demigod to play.
Updated AI. Smarter computer AI.
Various balance tweaking.

Now, this doesn’t include DLC content such as Clan Wars, Scheduled Games, Group Join, etc. This is just v1.1. But it does give you an idea of some of the things we’re thinking of.

What would you like to see in terms of new features?

+912 Karma | 180 Replies

What will increasing favor points by a factor of 10 do? Completely defeats the purpose of having earnable items if people are getting 1500 favor a game.

Additionally, I have a comment on what has been called "heal-by-icon" or rather, having a party status list on the left side (like MMO groups) so you can target your allies easily. While this is very convenient, I feel that it removes much of the skill from the game (of map awareness, watching your teammates' HP, etc). The party status list is a great advantage in MMOs where you are playing against scripted AI enemies. However, in a PvP game like Demigod, I feel it makes things just a little too easy...

Quoting RapierX,

reply 25

quoting post

Smart Quitting. If someone exits within the first 3 minutes, there’s no harm, no foul. It counts as a disconnect but not a loss. Sometimes there’s lag or someone has a slow machine or whatever.

I can already see this being abused.

This needs to be 1 minute maximum, to allow people to bail out of things like panthenon when it's 1v1 on a 5 player map - that kind of scenario is just ridiculous. Same deal with any games that launch where players drop early - i for one have no intention of sticking around if a player drops early game. 1 minute gives you enough time to react and leave to people who havent made it into the game.

Deepjay - while I feel for you there it makes it too easy for people to dodge games against good players. Maybe some solution is needed, but this is a terrible one.

There are a few balance issues that need adressing. The recent Erebus tweak proves you're aware of this, but there one thing in particular I'd like to bring to your attention:

Currently, Snipe can target a building in the fog. This means that, at any time, Regulus can take a potshot at the citadel. This may not seem like a big deal, and with a single Regulus it generally isn't. I tested in single player, and was able to bring down the enemy citadel in 14 minutes - normal Regulus play would've almost certainly done better - but I did it before bringing down many of their towers, before the citadel had ever even been within sight range.

Micah, in this thread, did the math, and found that it'd take a trio of Regulus's (Reguli?) under four minutes to take down a citadel using snipe. Given that on some maps, this can almost be done from within range of the crystal, that's a real problem.

I can think of two solutions. One would be to make Snipe incapable of targeting targets out of sight (which would make sense, and would drastically increase the value of vision items and skills like the Totem of Revelation and Tracking Device, but would seriously nerf the power of Snipe as an early-game post-teleport finisher). The other would be to make Snipe incapable of targeting structures. This'd also make sense - who snipes a /building/?

From a technical standpoint, I suspect the second solution is substantially easier to implement.

EDIT: Forgot to link the thread with the math on the exploit.

Pathfinding bugs (such as getting hung up on architectures/map edges) as someone else already mentioned would be a priority as well.

Complete removal of Parasite Egg...

More Favour Points? I disagree with that... if anything, I`d like to see more long-term options for making use of Favour points.

Increase the cost of Ashkandar`s Sword to 23,000.

Life Drain should only work with melee attacks, not ranged attacks. Oueen Of Thorns being the exception since her "ranged attack" *is* actually a melee attack wherein she physically touches you.

Quoting Kalil Chernov,

reply 4

There are a few balance issues that need adressing. The recent Erebus tweak proves you're aware of this, but there one thing in particular I'd like to bring to your attention:

Currently, Snipe can target a building in the fog. This means that, at any time, Regulus can take a potshot at the citadel. This may not seem like a big deal, and with a single Regulus it generally isn't. I tested in single player, and was able to bring down the enemy citadel in 14 minutes - normal Regulus play would've almost certainly done better - but I did it before bringing down many of their towers, before the citadel had ever even been within sight range.

Micah, in this thread, did the math, and found that it'd take a trio of Regulus's (Reguli?) under four minutes to take down a citadel using snipe. Given that on some maps, this can almost be done from within range of the crystal, that's a real problem.

I can think of two solutions. One would be to make Snipe incapable of targeting targets out of sight (which would make sense, and would drastically increase the value of vision items and skills like the Totem of Revelation and Tracking Device, but would seriously nerf the power of Snipe as an early-game post-teleport finisher). The other would be to make Snipe incapable of targeting structures. This'd also make sense - who snipes a /building/?

From a technical standpoint, I suspect the second solution is substantially easier to implement.

Very good sensible ideas.

I'd really like to be able to see the citadel upgrade screen from anywhere on the map, just so I can see what allies may have bought while I was away from the citadel. It'd be really strategically valuable to know on the fly what upgrades your team has at certain moments.

Definitely: Voice Chat with a Push-To-Talk key. At least to be able to coordinate better with the team.

And a fix of the multiplayer Favor points system?

Please. You're doing great work, i managed to play online this weekend.

Quoting Chirmaya,

reply 24

My vote is for the enabling of UI mods for online play.

Yes, custom mod support please.

I don't expect much out of V 1.01 except bug fixes, tweaks and some sensible UI changes - like an option for numbers displayed on Health and Mana bars permantely. Anything else is a bonus. I'd like to see what we have working perfectly first, though, before more stuff is added in.

I'd like to see a mini skill window, similar to what we have for combat stats (health/speed/dmg etc) so we can grab a skill on the fly when leveling up.

Quoting Alterschism,

reply 7

Good suggestion

Quoting Alterschism,

reply 7

Yeah god - citadel screen and player skill trees should both be visible while DEAD also. Of course not interactable, but you should at least be able to see them. There's absolutely no reason i can think of for not allowing this to be viewed.

Replays!

I was playing a 4v4 game, and their TB hit me with a 1050 damage fireball, at L7, which should take L10. I'm not certain if this was a bug/exploit (even unknown to the player), or my imagination. Replays would make it so much easier to find out.

Friends able to join the same custom game. Also, message windows poping up while playing.

Quoting The_Deathstalker,

reply 14

Replays!

I was playing a 4v4 game, and their TB hit me with a 1050 damage fireball, at L7, which should take L10. I'm not certain if this was a bug/exploit (even unknown to the player), or my imagination. Replays would make it so much easier to find out.

Friends able to join the same custom game. Also, message windows poping up while playing.

Did oak stun you? because that increases damage taken

Is THIS enough kittens for you Azrailx. . .

I've mentioned it elsewhere. But it can be confirmed here. Viewing citadel and store while not being directly at them would be very very helpful.

(to double check prices before heading back, to decide what to buy while walking home, to see what allies have purchased at the citadel, etc.)

Obviously what I say is easier said than done, I don't pretend that it isn't. But you wanted to know what my input is so....

Define what you mean by "Favor points increased by a factor of 10." becuase I think I am too slow at the moment to know what you mean, or I just don't know what you mean at all.

Replays are somewhat already doable. Google that if you don't know what I mean, I am too tired to try explainin how (that is meant for the masses, not Stardock as I'm sure you already know how). I know that it just (for the most part) knows what abilities are used and when to who and so on, and that is a good idea except for when patches hit, the replay will not work. I would like a full on replay system that ignores patches. By that I mean if I'm on version 1.4 and I want to watch a version 1.2 video of when Queen of Thorns was OP and could kill everyone in a 5v5 by herself, I won't have downgrade or find a workaround to see it.

I like the contribute gold to the citadel idea, but I don't know if that would be too much. Maybe you would have to lose like 20% of it during the transfer to make it so you can't all just pool to win. Give it two options as well, amount to deposit before and after the tax. Like if i want to deposit 2000g it will eat that down to 1600g. But if I wanted to deposit 2000g and have it actually be 2000g I could put it in a field that will automatically deposit the amount necessary for me to deposit a full 2000g, assuming i have that much. Like i said, this would be a dual option box so that people wont make the mistake or atleast have the option to do it quickly rather than fuck with the math. I actually went to 4chan to get the math on it. I know i knew the equaiton necessary to get it, but for some reason it just escaped me. I sat here for like 20 minutes trying to get it lol. Basically:

x = value before the deposit

y = value after depost

% = the percent we are being charged.

x - %x =y

Basically just put in y, 2000 as the amount you want to end up with, and the equation will tell you that you need 2500 to deposit 2000 with a 20% tax.

UI Improvements - Need the ability to see the health of all minions for generals. This would make items such as the Twig of Life, Horn of Battle, and Blood Soaked Wand much better and worthwhile

Personally, I think the long-term solution is for us just to host the games entirely

What about the people who dont live in north america? I ping about 225 to the US (from .au), so that would make my delay 500 ms to another person in .au, as opposed to the sub 100 ms Im getting now.

If you're going to go for the server method, a better solution would be to have hostable server code (like many of the fps's), and just let anyone host a server for their region. Or host your own servers in various places. Im tired of being forced to play on US servers.

Clickable map (mentioned a few times already, but one more for the charm
Ability to reorganize the item slots. For example, having a scroll of teleportation for F1 and Heart of Life in F2 eventually ends up in situation where the HoL is in F1 slot and the new scroll of teleportation you buy ends up in the F2 slot.
Instant skills, like the wings of Regulus or Ooze of Uncle Beast, could be triggered while running. Now you have to trigger the skill and instantly click to move again. The pause when playing like this is barely noticable, so it could be removed by allowing instants while running

This is an awesome game.

It lacks 3 things:

- VOIP

- Banlist or at least indication of quit / played ratio s that the game can be limited to a given ratio

- User scoring so that you can choose to play with only people of a given level.

Thank you

Hey !

I haven't read all the previous post but I wonder how about a actions' log ? Like in most MMO your actions and the actions of foes and allies against/with you are recorded and can be read later.

Use case : You just die killed by X, and during the pre-resurect waiting time, you can browse the combat's log to analyse your action and eventually set up a new strategy... It's so frustrating when you get killed but can't analysed what happend exactly.

Also the ability to view the skill tree during death time would be nice, you know to check and/or plan further evolution... I don't understand why it's impossible :/

a mapeditor would be nice.

1-2 new demigods

friendlist

more items

gametypes

Replays please

AI Improvment is pointless waste of time, I figure Sorian is going to be working on the AI when we get mod support so maybe you could make a deal with Sorian.

3 Minute rule, Yes as someone said above people quit when they die early so the best bet is if you quit after 3 mins & OR 1 Death its a dissconnect.

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Back from the lake, what’s next?