Sigol

Join Date 09/2008

[Feedback] Generals aren't special

They're pretty much just assassins with pets. Hell you can play them exactly like Assassins. Lord Erebus especially is a very potent fighter, more so than some of the assassin demigods.

Generals are nothing really new or special from the various DotA heros with pets: Undying, Keeper of the Light etc etc...

They need more ways to affect the battle other than wading in and kicking ass. Normaly the player in an RTS is a "General" because he can control ressource gathering, decides what and when to create units, decides where the units go and what they'll do. The current Generals do nothing of the sort other than walk around with a retinue of pets.

- Being able to spawn an extra wave of creeps as a long-ish cooldown ability.

-Possibly being able to control what they wave will be. Being able to get a Giant into the battle a few waves in advance would be amazing.

-Being able to point a wave of creep in a specific direction. Maybe with something like a "rally flag" which they could put down a few times during a fight which would send creeps there instead of to their normal direction. Or maybe this would only work for the General spawned waves of creeps.

-Improve ressource gathering. Possibly by placing some summoned unit on a gold mine they would increase team gold aquisition from mine, and get a little extra for themselves.

-Structure building or structure repair. Another long-ish cooldown ability to repair a mine or fort.

-More buffs. Vampire dude really didn't have that many support buffs and auras.

Hell looking at this list, you could make it so Citadel Upgrades are only available to Generals and not Assassins and you'd really make them feel a lot more like a general. Giving them an extra page in the shop where they could "buy" extra creeps to add to a wave, and an item they could use to repair a destroyed building would be another step in the right direction.

If they makes them too invaluable to have, then at least give Generals a rebait on the Citadel Upgrades, and give them certain upgrades only Generals can get.

There's so many ways you could make Generals feel more like an RTS player, less like an Assassin with pets...

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I agree that Generals are a little too Assassin-like right now. I'd love to see the actual Generals made weaker in combat and increase their ability to make/improve units. In my opinion the General should be spending most of his time doing defensive fighting around the towers (where his weaker combat abilities are compensated for by the towers) while he controls units in several places on the map to assist the Assassins. Some of your ideas, like having the General do more of the creep wave upgrades and stuff, sounds good to me

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Simply giving the Generals a higher hireable max might be enough to make them more unique - of course with an accompanying nerf to the actual General. Having 8 of each type of hireable, or even more might help with that.

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I agree 100%. I'd give the general the ability to build, upgrade and repair structures (including portals and perhaps upgraded item shops) but at the cost that he will LOSE to ANY assassin.

I'd make it so he's truly an RTS hero, not an assassin with pets.

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indeed, it would be even funnier if generals had a really different role; right now, they are really fun to play, but are assassins with some pets, being able to control a wave(by standing near the portal for exemple) would be really great; if you could pay half your life and mana and set a flag where the wave coming from that portal would go would be really really fun and add a great strategic value to generals.

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Actually, that's mainly a tactical change that might have *some* strategic elements to it.

I'd like to see traditional base building and tech trees given to Generals. Let's actually make them Generals.

My vision for the game is of powerful "assassin" demigods roaming the map, taking flags and trying to hunt down the Generals, while the Generals hide somewhere (don't let them build next to the Citadel) and slowly build up a base, gradually increasing in power and army size until they overtake the Assassins.

With that model, you have plenty of tactical and strategic options, like having Assassins protect your Generals as they upgrade the # of gold mines for your team, or are building a defensive stronghold that you can launch attacks from etc.

To compensate for the enhanced power Generals have in building bases and controlling large number of creeps, I'd enhance the power and number of abilities you can choose from for each Assassin. Let's have the Assassins get a true RPG, and the Generals get a true RTS.

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generals shouldn't have to build, they should be able to get right into the battle which they can , I think that their special unit should get alot better in latish game and maybe they could be alittle weaker. first its way to late to put it into game and second a team of all assasins could slaughter in early game. Generals shouldn't play as a normal rts team would this is game is more get into the action real quick making them make bases would ruin it. Generals should also have more auras instead of what they have now and be more focused on passive abilities to help of hurt neaby ally or enemy units.

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I just feel that something is needed. Something more than just switching a few abilities around to make generals more "aura assassins". Maybe if you gave all the generals the ability to put down towers and gold mines outside the base it would help. IDK. I just feel that playing as a general right now SUCKS because it's exactly the same as playing an assassin.

Can you honestly tell me that going aura spec followed by stat whoring every game as a general, pretty much the same thing you do as an assassin, wouldn't get boring after a week of play?

I know it would for me

Also, your argument comes down to a basic question: Is this an RTS, an RPG, or both?

Your argument states that it's an RPG.

Mine states that it's an RTS when playing as Generals.

Whatever the devs intentions are, something needs to be changed to enhance replayability IMO.

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What i'm saying is its primarily and rpg but with generals its a combo of rts and rpg. The game was meant for constant action and getting quickly and easily playing like an rpg not an rts. I also feel that general should be able to buy an item that creates 2 giants allowing them to get them early and stuff. They are supposed to be leaders that can make their team stonger and still be able to fight. But as I said before I beleive instead of allowing u to make more of your special unit it should be that u can make more and they get stonger. If u allowed them to create portals than what would be the point of captuable portals in the middle of the base. Also if u make it so only generals can up citadel what are assins supposed to do when they got all their items. I dodn't mean to sound mean but think this stuff through and provide logical improvements on what should be done to make generals differnt yet still be able to get right into the fray.

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Towers are really important in game right now. Letting generals buy an item that would repair a destroyed tower / fix a damaged tower would be one way to give the RTS building control aspect while still have the play itself be in-your-face action.

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I'd like to see traditional base building and tech trees given to Generals. Let's actually make them Generals.

My vision for the game is of powerful "assassin" demigods roaming the map, taking flags and trying to hunt down the Generals, while the Generals hide somewhere (don't let them build next to the Citadel) and slowly build up a base, gradually increasing in power and army size until they overtake the Assassins.

i think i would no be so fun like that. If you spend the match hiding in some dark corner, to my opinion it is just frustrating and boring, add building to that and you spend your time hiding and waiting for some building to be built, while a single assassin discovering your location means you will have to rebuild all your base.

Furthermore, the maps are far to small to play cat and mouse, there is just nowhere to hide and build something.

But still i also think that generals would benefit to be more differents from assassins... and i insist, making them control where the creeps are going would

1-assure that each team want to have at least one general

2-could be ballanced by adding some cost (waiting a few seconds (not too much because it would be ballanced but boring) or halving your maxhp or some gold or even taking awayy your 'familiars'

3-would force players to make tacticals choices regarding where they focus their attack

4-could probably be coded relatively easily (it just set the final destination, the path finding algorithm does the rest)

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Maybe if you could purchase additional abilities for your followers that would help too. Or have another tree of upgrades strictly for the General's personal minions.

I still wish this was more "RTS" and less "Action RPG" for Generals though. The former has more longevity than the latter IMO. If you don't introduce thinking strategically as a General, what exactly is the point of choosing a General? So you can be an Assassin with pets and auras?

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What good would controlling the basic waves do? It's not like there's a lot of things they can do - and no room to manouver to change their impact in any meaningful way. The Generals hireables are a great first step because they're better than creeps but worse than demigods.

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The lack of difference in play style for assassins and generals is very disappointing. Improving UI elements to allow better control of summoned units as well as having finer control of hp/mana/cast displays for selected units & targets will help but there should probably be more changes added. Allowing a general to have greater effect on the abilities/stats/resources of the ground troops and/or buildings while toning down their own personal abilities/stats to make them less effective when played the same as assassins would make for a more rts feel imo. Right now it seems as if there's only 1 archetype

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^ my point exactly. When you combine all the things currently lacking in the game, it adds up to a dismal disappointment in terms of longevity.

Hopefully that'll be addressed in future updates though. I'm just saying at this point that the online community would die off in a month if you released a game like this.

Sure, there would be elite players that love the game and continue to play (there always are) but I don't see the average joe playing a generically similar assassin/general for the 25th time hoping for something new.

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I was really hopeing that generals would be more RTS and less rpg. But after playing beta 2 i feel they are no differnt then assassins in any way. Which is makeing me really doubt this game.

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Same.

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Being able to upgrade the citadel as an assassin makes playing an assassin feel like a general... The answer seems obvious.

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I don't think taking options away from one class as an "upgrade" is a good idea though. This game simply needs more content, not to spend effort shifting content around.

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To me i feel generals should play more defensive makeing towers fixing towers. While also haveing the power to lead the creeps on a assault that would even make a assassin think twice about going in with out back up. While being completely (almost) useless with out any creep waves to supprot him.

summery.

I was hopeing i could build a base defneses fority a postion to retreat to. While leading the charge with the waves of creeps. But i dont feel like that in this beta with the genreal and its makeing me a little sad . I feel like a slightly weaker assassin not the RTS genreal that i thought we have.

edit: i also do not like the minions. They to me feel a bit weak and awkward to use. They also make me feel like the generals are not being looked closely at . And that they did this just to say hi you got minions theres your rts now we dont have to spend more money on it. I am hopeing that this is just becuase its beta 2 and they havit implamented what they wanted yet. So they gave us them for a quick test drives.

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Quoting DatonKallandor,

reply 2

On the contrary, I'd rather see Generals be able to have fewer summons, but ones which are in fact much, much stronger than regular creeps. This way Generals are all about using your strong summons in the most effective way, not simply amassing an army and sending it to different spots on the map or having it gang up on an enemy Demigod.

I also like the idea of Generals being able to deploy buildings like smaller, weaker towers and healing totems in strategic locations on the map. Perhaps they could spend gold to do so.

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Quoting PossiblyImpossible,

reply 20

Quoting DatonKallandor,
reply 2
Simply giving the Generals a higher hireable max might be enough to make them more unique - of course with an accompanying nerf to the actual General. Having 8 of each type of hireable, or even more might help with that.

On the contrary, I'd rather see Generals be able to have fewer summons, but ones which are in fact much, much stronger than regular creeps. This way Generals are all about using your strong summons in the most effective way, not simply amassing an army and sending it to different spots on the map or having it gang up on an enemy Demigod.

I also like the idea of Generals being able to deploy buildings like smaller, weaker towers and healing totems in strategic locations on the map. Perhaps they could spend gold to do so.

This is an idea I can get behind! The stronger summons would offset the summonable minotaurs etc. very nicely.

It would help to make upgrading at least available exclusively to the generals. It would make the general feel more useful. Base building? I could go either way there. Temporary structures sound like they might be able to be implemented well.

On a side note, did anyone else have any issues with selecting minions using the buttons? It seems like each button cycles between a) the minions the general, and c) nothing. I just want to select my spirits when I click the spirit button...

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Quoting bcasteel,

reply 21

Quoting PossiblyImpossible, reply 20

Quoting DatonKallandor,
reply 2
Simply giving the Generals a higher hireable max might be enough to make them more unique - of course with an accompanying nerf to the actual General. Having 8 of each type of hireable, or even more might help with that.

On the contrary, I'd rather see Generals be able to have fewer summons, but ones which are in fact much, much stronger than regular creeps. This way Generals are all about using your strong summons in the most effective way, not simply amassing an army and sending it to different spots on the map or having it gang up on an enemy Demigod.

This is an idea I can get behind! The stronger summons would offset the summonable minotaurs etc. very nicely.

i dont really like that idea that much. I mean when i think of genreals i am thinking of helping out the waves not useing summoned pets to do that.

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What about with an increase in the number of non-general-specific creatures? Then you could have swarms of weak creatures supported by a few stronger creatures, and then the general himself.

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that might work but assassins have noting to fear from a general with a wave really. the way i would like the genreals to play is to shine in the middle of a creep wave while being extrermely weak when exposed in the open away form his backup.

thats my own optionan and thats what i thought they were goign to do. While giveing u the abilty to build a small base ( may he could build his own fort on the front lines to depoly creeps???) and to have auras to increase the creeps effeitveness while havieng maybe 1 offeinsve ablity.

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In a way I like that, but I really do enjoy being able to teleport around as Lord Erebus. I see what you're saying, and I don't think we actually want very different things. I would just like to see the personal summons to mean something as it is, I barely notice having them.

I agree that the General needs something more to differentiate them from the Assassin, and a mini or temporary base might work... Although I think giving them the exclusive ability to upgrade is also a good idea. I think people that play generals will want to do this more than people playing assassins, as a whole.

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