On the road to version 1.2

By Frogboy on June 26, 2009 6:37:27 PM from

Greetings!

Version 1.1 is out! A few house keeping things:

We have put up: http://www.demigodthegame.com/opengames.asp for people who want to keep up with the number of people online which includes also the number of current games, open games, and lurkers.

Second, with v1.1 you can kind-of control the AI with the P (ping) key. Just mouse over where you want the AI to go and it will tend to go there unless it decides there’s a higher priority objective but it works decently (about as well as it does on humans <G>).

Now, with that discussed, let’s talk about version 1.2.

Gas Powered Games is on board to open Demigod up to pretty significant official modding support which I think would be totally awesome. I don’t know if anyone reading this has had a chance to check out the LUA code (scripts). A few mods have already been made but obviously modding right now is a problem because you can’t use them online. We would solve that by having officially sanctioned mods (players would submit them to DemigodTheGame.com and once accepted would be treated much like extra “Game options”). I’d be curious to find out if modders could add new units and such.

But what we are particularly interested in doing with v1.2 is nailing down “features” that users want changed or fixed. So please feel free to use this journal entry as a means to tell us what things you think we could do in v1.2 that would make the game even more fun. Whether that be things I’m already aware of like improved path finding or better queuing up of spell actions or anything else that you feel detracts from the experience.

+912 Karma | 138 Replies

Quoting Chirmaya,

reply 17

Modders cannot add new models due to the fact that the models use the Granny 3D format and that there is no exporter that any of us can get to put our models in-game. If GPG could somehow release an exporter for us, then you would see custom models working.

So, aside from unit/structure/map models,

Can modder use existing models to create a new demigod? Say a giant is a new demigod. A catapultisaurus is another new demigod. sorta like dota.

I believe it's been mentioned before, but I would love to see a "Randomize Teams" option for custom games. I think it's the perfect solution for those who are wary of premade teams in custom games, plus it would add a new and fun level of challenge not knowing who you'll be partnered up with until the match starts.

Also, and even more importantly, Native VoIP!! I know, there's Vent, TS, etc., but I like meeting and playing with new people, as I'm sure many others do, but like most RTS games, DG does not lend itself well to typing. It's really hard to coordinate or get to know new people with the extremely limited interactions through typing, and you don't tend to meet too many new people on private Vent servers... (extra points if a host option could be added to only allow those with mics, and/or a filter to show/hide VoIP games for those searching).

The two biggest things for me personally are:

-Auto attacks: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/356419

and

-"Instant" skills: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/357087

but I would also like to see the Valour Flag fixed: https://forums.demigodthegame.com/357156.

Thanks for all the good work you guys are doing and for putting up with all the complaining thats happening at the moment. It's very heartning to know that you're listening .

Persistent lobbies. It's annoying to be booted back to the server browser after every custom match.

Here are a few things I would like to see:

After a custom game ends, put the players back in the custom game lobby so they can play each other again or talk instead of dumping everyone to the menu. After a skirmish or Pantheon game, put the players back on the multilayer game type select menu and not the main menu.

Make the artifact shop harder to click on. In combat, if you click past it or next to it, It often opens up the shop.

Re-balance/Fix some of the maps. Exile in unbalanced because the mana flag on the dark side is better then the health flag on the light side. On leviathan, the aisles are to wide so you can walk around the towers and ignore them.

Release a map editor. For a 3vs3 or 4vs4 games, there is only 2 decent maps(cataract and zikurat) . The rest are not practical (prison and crucible) or not as fun(mandala is to big, Brothers feels like you 2 different games going on at the same time, on Leviathan the mana and health flags make demigod play as a entirely different game balance wise).

I would love to see a different game mode similar to point capture advance or push the cart in TF2. Another that would be fun would assault in the original UT. GPG and SD are only touching the tip of the iceberg that can come out in the game mechanics that you have created.

Allow people in custom games to be able to check on a person's stats from in the game lobby. At least have win/loss ratios.

Make demigods have an aura, and make them transparent so you can see them behind other demigods. If an bad guy is behind rook, he should glow hot pink through rook so the opposing team can see him.

Some pathing improvements would be nice when walking close to a 90 degree corner. Rook gets stuck alot.

Better minion control. If you independently take control of your minions, when you right click to move your hero, that should not override an independent minion order.

Listen to zechnophobe on your forms about balance. He used to design CCG's and balance them for a living, so his comments are generally spot on and well thought out. He has alot of good posts about balance changes and game design. Read them.

So what does "officially sanctioned" mean when it comes to modding? Are you guys screening for vulgar content? Are you also screening for copyrighted content? Cuz I was gonna use a bunch of models off sketchup that I doubt the modeler had the right to put on the internet for an idea I had...

Please for the love of the All Father, remove AIs from Pantheon. If this can't be done, then you must make them the "Hard" level of single player cheating.

A mod I'd like to see is one that shows how many flags you need to win a Dominate match.

Balance the bloody game first before doing extra stuff.

I'll divide my list into Needed and Wanted items, with Needed being the ones I think need to be in 1.2 and Wanted being the ones that I'd like to see in 1.2.

Needed
If these items need to be held back from 1.2 for any reason, please let the community know before the release of the patch and inform us of where Gas Powered Games is in their development, even if it's as simple as "Gas Powered Gas is hard at work on [item] and believe it will be ready for the next patch".

Replays. This is very important for strategy review and the growth of player skill as well as the development of the competitive side of Demigod.
UI Updates. The addition of targetable panels for each team member with viewable health/mana in particular is a highly needed item. It helps immensly with situational awareness and allows you to know the status of your team mates at a glance. Included in this are the options for the new chat window - transparency, position, text size/colour, size and fade out delay.
Path Finding. Having your Demigod go one way and his minions go another, and then getting attacked before your minions arrive, is a problem as well as getting stuck on corners while escaping/pursuing. These need to be eliminated or at the very least lessened as they can have a direct impact on the outcome of a match. It really does need to be bulletproof.
Gameplay Glitches. In particular, the Torch Bearer auto-attack glitch and the Unclean Beast spit/grasp glitch need to be fixed as these can directly affect the outcome of a game if they're encountered at the 'right' moments.
Correction of Online Statistics. As it stands now, the online statistics aren't as functional as I'd like. I understand there is a delay in their reporting, however I've seen several of my games not show up at all and others which I've won count as a loss and vice versa. For the Competitive aspect of Demigod to improve, these online statistics need to work.

Wanted

Post-Game Options. Being returned to a lobby, or altering the post-game screen to include the option to be returned to a lobby, would be fantastic as would the ability to click on the names of players displayed in the Post-Game statistics screen to have them added to your friends list.
Additional Options. Options for re-binding keys in-game, the density of the black-and-white death effect and the behaviour of the camera upon death, numbers displayed on health/mana bars, permanent options for the display of non-player health bars and more need to be added to ensure each person can customise their game experience.
Character screens at death. I'm not quite sure why we're unable to view our skill tree, item store or citadel upgrades screen while dead. This ensures that the 30 seconds a player is out of action for isn't a complete waste of time, and allows the dead player to contemplate their strategy further.
Highlight Player options. Adding a coloured aura to members of the same and opposing team should be an option - it helps them be more noticeable in a crowd and refines the targeting aspect of using abilities.
Rook Ability Guides. Placing a tower in combat can be frustrating as you're often given the 'abort' text and no tower is placed. When selecting the Tower ability, the ground should become highlighted where the tower's can, or cannot, be placed to serve as a guide to players. I believe a straight line when using the Rooks boulder ability, showing it's projected trajectory would help it be more useful.
Minions. Minions need to be more viable in terms of their use. As it stands now Generals like Lord Erebus, for example. are more useful as a direct Damage Dealer Assassin-style Demigods than they are with their Minions, including the purchased ones which begs the question of why are General Demigods in the game. Minions need attention, be it through direct tweaks or alterations of the items relating to them.

There are other additions which I feel need to included, or alterations to be made, however these are the ones I'd like to see now.

How about fixing all the bugs that were introduced with 1.1? Like crashing a lot (never happened before 1.1, and now i almost cannot play a decent game, and i'm not the only one wtih this issue), fav items not stored, if host quits then no stats are recorded, random option not working, etc. I thought patches were to fix bugs, not bring more...

How about some proper QA testing this time?!

And btw, asking players to give "new ideas" in this thread is ...odd. Doesn't you or anyone else reads the posts on this forum anymore? I've posted new ideas and fixes, DOZENS of times. And like me, there are others. What's the point if no one is reading them?

Maybe later i will make a "constructive" post with my wishes for 1.2 (pasted from other threads, because no one is reading them apparently), but for now all i wanted was to share with you my frustration of not being able to play this game after a long awaited patch that was supposed to fix things.

A KEYBOARD-ONLY way to cast spells on yourself, like maybe Shift+[1-4] would cast on yourself.

-Make your health and mana displayed in the UI as hard numbers WITHOUT having to hover over your health bar. Some option to make that text displayed permanently would be great(kind of like ~).

-Rook can't make towers where he is standing.

-On Cataract, some of the extra background stuff is too close to the map, it can interfere with your view if you're kind of looking at the map from the side at the side flags in the middle.. Move that stuff back or something plz?

-Speed up the forums! Terribly slow: Page Render Time: 0:0:6:926 (6926ms) ?! Often get timeouts when trying to post or reply too

-An anouncement to your team when citidel upgrades are purchased indicating what was bought. "X has grown stronger" doesn't count. If someone bought the first gold upgrade, i'd like to know immediately so I don't try saving up for it and go ahead and purchase gear for myself, for example.

-Some kind of indicator for how much an items effect would be. +35% mana per second doesnt mean anything if I don't even know how much mana per second I'm currently mana'ing.

I think the idea is to consolidate the opinions of the vocal so that Frogboy can give the Developers a single link to read through which is about 5 pages, where 90% of the posts are what the developers want to read, rather than 50 links of 9 pages each where 15% of the posts are want the developers want to read.

Quoting Blitz64,

reply 1

Can modder use existing models to create a new demigod? Say a giant is a new demigod. A catapultisaurus is another new demigod. sorta like dota.

That would be confusing as hell to determine which giant on the field is you.

I think it is best to make a list of what people want in the game in a simple summary as i think the developers maynot have enough time to read through 50 links. Another thing i think should be urgent is to introduce a mini patch to fix the crash introduce by patch 1.1 & also the favour items not being able to save at least to allow players to at least be able to play instead frustrated by those crash.

Some more like party frames or something, kinda taking the idea from world of warcraft but its nice to not have to scroll around to see whos at what health, or like on the side for generals like how many minions you have, their overall health percentages as a whole would be nice too

maybe im just stupid but if a friend is in the lobby, it should change to "in lobby" and have an option to join that persons game for giggles or whatever, it always says in game and makes it difficult to see where they are at

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 13

[/quote]

quoting post

What are you doing the most every game? That's right, autoattacking. I decided to do little write ups for the features, cons, and bugs that are part of everyone's favorite action. I describe the bugs at the bottom of the post.

Torchbearer Ice: Torchbearer in Ice mode shoots a icy ball as his autoattack. It's simple, accurate, and doesn't seem to suffer from any particular issues. It deals damage when the ball hits. Torchbearer can attack while moving in Ice form and does so slowly.

Torchbearer Fire: Torchbearer in Fire mode shoots a fireball as his autoattack. It's mostly similar to the ice except for a few key differences.

1) He cannot attack while moving. I'm not sure why this is the case, as every other Demigod can attack while moving but it seems perhaps an oversight? This is a big disadvantage because unlike every other hero you can no longer attack while chasing. Your best bet is to just get off one final Fireball on a fleeing hero because you can't rely on autoattack beyond 2 or 3 hits if they start to flee.

2) There is a bug where the fireball will not hit targets if they are very close to the Torchbearer, especially if they are small. A minotaur attacking Fire TB is a good example of this, the small fireball will try to arc towards the small target and hit the group and appear to fizzle! This is annoying to say the least and should be fixed sometime in the future. Sometimes it will even miss ranged targets, but seems inconsistent.

Regulus: Regulus' autoattack really doesn't have anything special going on with it. If you're in range he'll shoot a bolt and it will fly over and hit you. It homes, so there is really no escape. Occasionally it has missed a target and spun wildly around trying to reach them but that seems rare. As everyone knows, with the +2 range boost autoattack outranges normal towers, at +4 it outranges archer towers, and +6 outranges fortresses. The wings cause Regulus' autoattack to hit a small aoe area.

Queen of Thorns: 2 modes, significantly different range autoattacks. Both modes are subject to the "Multiplier Bug" I will describe later.

1) Open mode: Shoots a thorn attack through the ground. This is instantaneous and cannot miss as far as I can tell. Hits one target, pretty straightforward.

2) Closed mode: Shoots the same thorn attack, but it hits a small aoe area. This is a pretty big advantage and can be used to hit multiple creeps at once, and sometimes hits the minions with an enemy Demigod. Pretty useful to say the least.

Rook: Rook's autoattack is a bitch slap with his free hand. Not only is it hilarious, but it deals hefty damage. Later on Rook's autoattack will send creeps flying, which autokills them if they aren't dead already. (I am not sure if you need his +50 dmg upgrade to grant this effect). Rook suffers from both the "Fake Attack Bug" and the "Mistarget Bug" I will describe later. When Rook autoattacks towers he switches to the hammer for a cool animation. Can attack while moving, but if the running enemy is faster than Rook (which they almost certainly are) you won't get much use out of this.

Unclean Beast: A melee slash with his claws. Fast and mostly accurate. Can attack while moving and does so in a smooth motion. Can apply debuffs if you've specced it. UB has many bugs on his autoattack, with three - the "Mistarget Bug", the "Multiplier Bug" and the "Fake Attack" bug.

Sedna: A melee slash with her sword thing, or Sila will attack with claws. Usually accurate, can attack while moving, pretty standard. Sedna's autoattack suffers from all 3 negative bugs - the "Fake Attack Bug", the "Mistarget Bug", and the "Delayed Attack Bug." But not usually the "Delayed Attack" bug after Pounce or Silence, only Heal. Odd....

Oak: Melee attacks with his axe. He can attack while moving, as can most everyone else. Oak suffers from all 4 autoattack bugs - the "Fake Attack Bug", the "Mistarget Bug", the "Delayed Attack Bug", and the "Multiplier Bug." Oak suffers the "Delayed Attack" the most out of all heroes in my experience, almost always following Surge of Faith.

Erebus: Melee slash with the scepter. Can attack while moving. Erebus suffers from several bugs - the "Fake Attack Bug", the "Mistarget Bug", and the "Delayed Attack Bug." It should be noted that Erebus seems to suffer the "Fake Attack" and "Mistarget" bugs more than all other heroes.

Now that I've gone through all the heroes I will describe the various bugs that occur with autoattack.

Multiplier Bug: This bug is the only one beneficial to the player. When an enemy is fleeing from you and you are autoattacking them while moving as the enemy just reaches the limits of your autoattack range sometimes your hero will start delivering autoattacks in rapid succession. Happens most often with Queen of Thorns and Oak, but I have seen it with UB as well. Your hero just starts hitting them over and over. I've seen attacks multiplied 5 or even 6 times at once, though it's usually 3-4 attacks. Can happen when you are faster than they are and chasing (when they just get into range) or when they are faster than you and fleeing (just as they are leaving your range). Regardless, you should not get to machine gun your attacks like this for way more damage than you do normally.

Mistarget Bug: This bug is a nuisance. Often when you right click on a target your hero will walk up to that target but then....attack something else. Right click again - they attack a different creep. Enraging to the say the least, but usually only happens when you are attacking creeps, not enemy Demigods. Still, if I issue an attack order to the archer I don't want to walk up then start hitting the minotaur behind me. I've started to get into the habit of clicking right NEXT to the creep I want to attack so my hero walks to the spot then autoattacks the nearest target (the creep I wanted) on their own.

Fake Attack Bug: This bug is a real pain. Often you will right click a target and you hero will walk up to it and attack - except nothing happens. The second attack will almost always go through though. But usually your first attack is wasted. Happens all the time to enemy Demigods, particularly after you have used a skill of some kind, or when the enemy Demigod is running towards you. Still, how many times has that one hit been the difference between life and death, or an escape or a kill? This happens constantly to Erebus, but very often to Sedna, UB and Oak. Rook too, and his attack is slow so you really don't want to be wasting a hit.

Delayed Attack Bug: This bug is easy to see. After many actions (casting a skill for example) you expect your hero to resume autoattacking, but instead they simply stand there. Eventually, 2-4 seconds later they resume autoattacking, but you've already lost 3+ attacks. This happens constantly to Oak, especially after Surge of Faith. It can happen both if you use a skill then wait for autoattack, or right click a target that is already within your attack range. To break the hold of this bug you can move your hero and your autoattack will "reset" and you can attack again without having to wait. Similar to the skill bug of old, come to think of it.....

Missed Attack Bug: This bug affect pretty much every hero. If you are in the autoattack animation and the target you are attacking dies, you still go through with the fuil animation and eat the autoattack cooldown before you can attack again. Happens constantly when you're trying to autoattack through a normal group of creeps. Not sure if this is a bug or just an undesirable feature. If your attack "misses" you should get the attack back on whatever you attack next without having to wait, in my opinion.

And that's the state of autoattack. If I've overlooked anything let me know, and if anyone has more info to contribute regarding the bugs that would be helpful as well.

[quote quoting="post"]
I have noticed this earlier, but only when I started playing with oozing UB, has it become extremely gamebreaking.

When you use any skill/item that is instant, it will stop your current orders.

You are attacking a demigod, turn on the ooze, your demigod chances target and start chasing butterflies. Enemy is running, you use wand of speed to keep up, your demigod will most likely stop and attack a creep. You are running away from demigod, use wand of speed, your demigod stops and starts to attack the chasing demigod. The list is endless. (Well, not endless, but it has as many entries as there are instant abilities and situations where you might use them.)

If you are doing a melee to death, with nobody else around you, this is not such a big problem, (as you will just start autoattacking them anyway), but this type of behaviour never happens. Usually they try to run, there are other units present, or you are moving. This is a huge problem in any chase situations. (And let's face it, no demigod is known to just surrender, they all try to escape.)

That better?

woops, can you delete posts?

When using a teleport scroll, allow players to target a space on the ground, and then just teleport to the nearest building.

I'd really appreciate being able to watch the game while I'm dead.

Quoting ZehDon,

reply 10

Rook Ability Guides. Placing a tower in combat can be frustrating as you're often given the 'abort' text and no tower is placed. When selecting the Tower ability, the ground should become highlighted where the tower's can, or cannot, be placed to serve as a guide to players. I believe a straight line when using the Rooks boulder ability, showing it's projected trajectory would help it be more useful.

This. And in addition, how about expanding and color coding the targeting circle for hammer slam to show the area of full damage and the area of marginal damage.

- Show how many minions of each type that you have.

You could probably rig it up to play with the giant model, but since we can't export animations in GR2 we wouldn't be able to give him skills with associated animations, which would be kinda lame.

Can we please have a GR2 exporter Frogboy? I can't see modding doing a whole lot to enhance the community if we can't create our own content.

I think there should be different levels of "sanctioning" so that SOME mods are allowed in Competetive play. My main issue with competetive demigod right now are some certain interface issues.

The UI seems very amenable to modding... and I think it would be worthwhile to allow UI mods in Pantheon and Skirmish. That way competetive players can really adjust the UI to their personal preference.

IT will be impossible for GPG to accomodate everyone's UI preferences. But if you allow UI mods in competetive play, everybody can be happy... which is good for everyone..

Quoting hoogamaphone,

reply 19

When using a teleport scroll, allow players to target a space on the ground, and then just teleport to the nearest building.

i thought thats how it worked when i had first gotten the game

Version 1.1 is out! A few house keeping things:

We have put up: http://www.demigodthegame.com/opengames.asp for people who want to keep up with the number of people online which includes also the number of current games, open games, and lurkers.

Frogboy - This is brilliant. A clear picture of online activity! Thank you so much for setting this up!

The Forums Are Now Closed!

The content will remain as a historical reference, thank you.

On the road to version 1.2