[Opinion] The Stalemate Factor

In Beta 1 B/C, the games always seemed to go to whoever got the most damage multipliers first. Just for fun, I would play UB and wait until the late game and charge in and take out the Citadel in no more than three hits. Obviously, this is a bit too powerful.

In Beta 2, they seem to have gone the other direction. Now its too difficult to get victory. I just played a game that lasted about one hour and fifteen minutes. About 30-45 minutes of that was after everyone hit level 25. Basically, I spent the last half hour running around in a rather boring stalemate against the AI. I ended with around 50k gold and a sigh of relief.

I'm no expert, but I would have to guess that defenses are overpowered now. Many times I have gone up against a Demigod, swarm him with my army, watch his health slowly drain, and then watch him run away at mach 12. People run around insanely fast (making it very difficult to actually kill them) and they have a ton of health to boot. Compared to offensive power, well, towers seem to be doing more damage than anything else. This means that whoever is attacking is taking all the damage while the defenders never die. And if they do, they're back very quickly. The death penalty only started to get even slightly annoying at level 20.

Attacking power is weak. Abilities are great, but they have their limits. Even if you get everything maxed out, you can still only dish out a few thousand damage in a short period of time. This sounds great, but when that damage isn't enough to actually kill anyone, it feels pointless. The only way to get anywhere was when my whole team was together and we teamed up against a single guy.

Creeps are worthless. Well, giants are good, but everything else is worthless at this point. All they do is clutter up the lanes. The best you will get from them is a deflected Tower shot.

Speeking of worthless creeps, minions are fairly pathetic at this point too. This can be grouped under abilities to some extent, but it still deserves a mention. I spent most of my time playing Erebus and Oak and by the time I hit the endgame my minions hardly lasted a second. I would charge in with a massive army (sometimes I would get special minions from a wave of Demigod-less creeps) and all my guys would die within seconds. There needs to be ways to buff your minions as a General so they stay useful in the late game.

Again, auto attack becomes the most effective weapon simply because it scales with your level. The difference is that now you can't one shot everything, so even auto attacking takes time. You know, time when they can run away at mach 12. I've found that even with stuns, linked abilities, and powerful auto attacks, it is very difficult to get people to actually die. When they do, its usually because they choose not to run away because they're a stupid AI instead of a real person.

Anyway, in a nutshell...

Slow people down. Sonic the Hedgehog would make a cool Demigod, but when everyone breaks the sound barrier, you get some problems.
Make direct damage abilities more powerful. Find some way to improve them beyond just skill points. The only useful things in the late game right now are debuffs because they work on percentage instead of hard numbers.
Make minions more powerful. Heck, make them upgradable. The only thing you can do for them right now is buy a better idol (which is fairly cheap) or use a weak area buff. Massive swarms of them die in seconds to an endgame Demigod.
Increase the Death Penalty.
Auto attack is OK. The other stuff is just too weak. (Just so I'm not taken the wrong way.) I haven't played Assassins as much (yet) so I don't know how well the damage multiplier abilities work (Bestial Wrath/God Strength).

Or am I just awful at this game because it took me over an hour to beat the AI?

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I agree with pretty much everything in this post. And before it gets suggested, yes, we know there are game options to change the gold income and death times, but Normal, which is supposed to be the basic gameplay, could use some tweaking.

I just played against Oak, with myself as Oak, and he was the biggest tank on their team, which seems contradictory to the idea of the generals...

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I don't know if it's so much a problem that creeps are worthless as it is more of a problem that towers are doing too much damage...

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Again, though, this Beta is not balanced. Just because the problems are there, doesnt mean they havent noticed them.

That said, I agree with most of the changes, except:

I havent had issues with speed. Erebus was zooming around one of my games, but a Boulder Roll stopped him easily enough. As the Rook, I certainly wasnt going anywhere fast.

Try the assassins. As a 25 Rook, I could sway the battle more or less by just standing on the frontlines, and demolish the entire enemy Creep wave with Hammer Slam. The enemy Rook was a bitch to take down, but the Rook is supposed to be.

I cant speak for the General's Special minions, but for the creeps, I think they're good where they are. Weak enough so that you feel like the Demigod you are. Strong enough so that they can destroy a base if left unchecked (And they can, with catapaultasauri,) and pitch a battle in or against your favor.

The defenses are massively powerful, but considering they wont come back, I think it's understandable. Kind of an anti-rush thing, it prolongues the game as you wear down your enemie's defenses. Of course, as a fan of SupCom, Sins and Company of Heroes, I love long games.

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Well, I should say that I don't think the creeps are too weak, but I'm not sure about the general-controlled units. IMO, they do seem to die too quickly if their play style is suppose to be more of a WCIII RTS feel. I haven't played as a general too much, but right now at least the non-general specific units feel a little too much like throw-away trash.

Also, I really don't think they were going for SoaSE length games here...

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I would like to see creep's damage get upgraded much faster/stronger than their health. It helps make the demigods more importants in the fights with AOE attacks, and it makes them more deadly against buildings as the game goes on.

I also agree with the OP about slowing people down. In my personal opinion, make the crazier boot speed increases effective out of combat only. Or have a hero with a slowing debuff (aura, targeted or otherwise) completely nullify the effect of speed increasing equipment and apply the speed reductions to the character's base movement.

Move the healing crystal MUCH, MUCH farther back, like a couple seconds walk behind the last shop. Being able to heal while still defending your base makes the game hard as hell to finish. You can just spam blizzard+fire nova, or whatever your hero's massive AOE is all day long.

Finally, for heroes levels 17+, increase the death penalty time drastically. After the citidel upgrades improving the death penalty, I would like to see a level 25 player have to sit out for a minimum of 45 seconds. Probably a full minute if your team is terrible and hasn't bought the death penalty upgrades.

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Fully agree with the OP. I just played my first game of Demigod, and it was just slow as tar. It took about an hour and a half for us to finally get through and the creeps definitely were just too weak. I also second the need to scale up the death penalty time as players level up. I really didn't lose anything for going in and doing suicide rushes against the defenses and flags.

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