If you can dominate the opponent Demigods you both gain more gold to upgrade the citadel with, while also stopping them from gaining much gold to upgrade their citadel with, and it allows you to focus your Demigods attacks and abilities on the enemy creeps, helping your creeps defeat the opposing creeps.

Nail on head.

/thread.

I thought I read that Frogboy said they werent going to use gold for citidel upgrades, instead using points from flags.

If this is true then it just becomes a battle of the flags and considering that the creeps dont really get close to the flags in the first place this makes them that more unimportant and useless and still leaves an unbalenced game towards hero killers, which im pretty sure is not the way the devs are trying to lead this game.

Yes gold is just a placeholder for the citadel upgrades, gold will be used to buy items and another currency will be used to buy the citadel upgrades. But again I disagree with the creeps dominating the game, put a TB or Erebus against those creeps and soon you'll realise they go down in a matter of seconds with little to no damage to the Demigods.

It's just that some of them are better creep killers some are worse. Once you have like 200%-300% mana regen you'll be able to destroy 2 lanes of creeps constantly (with catapults and angels yes, giants are a bit tougher stuff but they only come around the 35-40 minute mark).

With you taking down the creeps you'll get the money to upgrade your creeps. I'd say there's much more emphasis on gold right now then on anything else (this'll change in some other beta build so this is NOT a flaw). Having more gold then the other team wins you the game.

It could be that in a game without TB or Erebus you'll have to focus more on creeps, but spending all your money on creep upgrades will get you killed in the long run.

Ok I'm in, I usually play around 20:00 GMT+1. Just to test this I'll buy items from early on and only when my item slots are full will I start to upgrade my creeps. To be honest I am curious what will happen.

Have you played a large game yet Mario? Just wondering because honestly...you could play tick/tack/toe between every click you make against a cat and still have no problem beating the AIs.

I SOMEHOW managed a 4v4 and the creeps didnt decide the match. Actually...if I recall someone died 12 of the team's 15 deaths.

But, the point remains that it wasnt the creeps.

I have noticed when Cats come out the game...speeds up a LOT in the term of base destruction.

Ok, what I'm getting at is it would be best to test this with at least a 3v3 with players, not AIs. I'm not saying its true/untrue, would just like to see results with people

I'm down...but I kinda work nights. I'm here till 6AM EST.

The "right people" read the forums, participate in the forums.

First, I think the side that collects the most money and holds the most flags should win. Period.

But only in the sense that gaining that money and controlling those flags should require considerable player skill in the first place and then considerable wisdom in making use of the money and war points and advantages that flags and money provide.

Now, this part of the game is the most fluid right now as we play test it through and try out different mechanics on this to get it where we like it.

Right now, there is a  key problem with the mechancis IMO:

The war ranking progresses without skill being involved. That is a huge issue because is rewards players who just stand back and wait for the progression to come and just upgrade the Citadel.

You tie access to better Citadel upgrades and better creeps to a mechanic that is based on the skill of the team and suddenly everything changes for the better.

Mike has proposed a new concept called the War Score -- players gain war points through specific deeds like controlling flags. These points eventually move the war ranking which, combined with money, allow for players to get better creeps and better Citadel upgrades.  This brings back the skill element much more.

There are also other balance issues to consider:

In this screenshot, notice that the team that lost had far more kills but had less gold.  That is because Citadel upgrades for gold production vastly out weigh the gold collected through combat victory.  

What should probably be done with that gold upgrade in the Citadel is to increase the gold collected through combat rather than mines.

How about giving War Score for destroying enemy buildings, and giving some instant War Score for capturing an enemy flag (the amount could be based on the time elapsed), not just for holding it. That way a skilled team could turn the tide of a losing battle by a well organized offensive.

I like the concept of the war score system.  However, I don't think capturing flags should give score.  Holding them would be much better.  Otherwise trading flags becomes a positive proposition if you have money, to speed up your war rank.  Losing flags should be a pure negative, if you gain war rank by recapping them there is an upside to losing them.

While some degree of positive feedback is inherant in this system (the winning team gets advantages to help them win more, things like early investments in gold snowball), it would be nice if the war score system didn't put one team in a permanently locked down position.

A lot of players quit DotA in the first five minutes after dying once or twice because they know how far behind a single death in DotA puts you (you lose gold and the other team gets gold.)  This then snowballs throughout the game.  The time only death penalty and less uber-item based system alleviates this to a degree (it will always exist in this style of game though.)

I like sound of the planned War Rank changes.  The current system of both teams progressing over time at the same rate is quite bland, and the War Score concept sounds like it will add a lot of depth to the game.  I'm interested to see how these work out.