TormakSaber

Join Date 10/2008

How to further differentiate Assassins/Generals

Sometimes I feel like Assassins and Generals don't play differently enough. You have 2 demigods (Sedna, Erebus) who are played prettymuche xactly as Assassins simply because the current metagame doesn't/can't/won't (pick one) a minion build: They get outpowered by other 'Assassin' role characters. Oak is a General, but you see more than a few people simply use his spirits for Soul Power, which is a damn shame. Queen of Thorns is the only general who I see oftne played as a general: That is, minions. And for the buyable minions, how many fights have you been in where the enemy general simply purchases Bishops and nothing more?

To me, that's a downright oddity. I don't feel very much like I'm playing a general. Currently, there's a really big disconnect between the grunt armies and the Demigods. Both of them do their own thing, and if they come together, well, awesome. I think some sort of ability, or totem, or... something, might be added for generals to allow them to command the grunt armies and really feel like a general. Perhaps a totem you place down, and then the next wave (or 2 or whatever), all grunts will path towards that item. That means you could direct your entire grunt army to a place it's needed, or somewhere it won't normally path.

My second idea was to somehow allow generals to "grab" grunts and attach them to themselves, using minion slots, perhaps the skill bought ones or the totem slots. These would fill up like normal, so, say,a Sedna who hasn't bought idols yet, could attach 2 archers and 2 grunts to her as a freebie, just for being a general. Or perhaps add some minimal gold cost, like cost to attach a unit to you is 1/2 the cost you normal get by killing it. So you could attach a Giant to yourself but it costs 50 gold (1/2 of what you get for killing one.) This one probably needs balancing to make sure an Erebus wouldn't simply grab 10 priests with his Nightwalker slots and then get Bishops... or is that not a bad thing? after all that's a lot of free XP to cart around with your minions.

I'm not sure what you would do for Assassins, but to me the above ideas would go a long wya towards helping increase strategy, and make Generals feel more like playing *Generals*. Commanders! Tacticians!

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Dang it went a typed a big long reply only to have the forums bug out. Anyway... That isn't a bad idea with giving Generals the ability to control a limited number of creeps. It can either be dependent on their level or on the attribute skills. Maybe 2 creeps to start off with and 2 for each attribute level. Another idea would to have a brand new idol that would replace a single type of idol of any kind. This idol would be able to take control of a certain number of nearby friendly creeps when you activated it. A range on 5 yards should be sufficient. One set of numbers this idol could use is 4, 8, 12, 16. It nice, easy and straight forward. The minion-creeps would respond exactly the same as normal summonable minions. It would certainly be fairly powerful late game when you luck out and capture 8 of your giants. But I guess on the flip side, now that they have been detached from the main army, they will be easier to kill.

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I like the initial thought "differtiate the assassins vs. generals more" and your analyis in the first paragraph is really good!

But I don't like your way to fix them really. The minion control sounds a little strange. But I could imagine to give the generals the possibility to change the path of the creep waves between 2-3 fixed routes. And I have to state: don't you think that assassins should get some uniqueness over generals?

Imho it's not the core problem that generals CAN be played like assassins. It's more that the generals can do anything that assassns can + the have idol slots + they have a possible minion build/skill.

I made a thread about that matter ealier, perhaps you a interested in a read:

An approach to further increase the uniqueness of generals and assasins

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/349885

Generals get 3 idol slots with no further justification (especially since you can play them without a single point in minions but enorm profit from healing priests or tower sniping gunners).

Assasins have nothing which makes them unique. Or in other terms: Assasins can't buy or do or get anything what generals couldn't (favor items excluded)

So I would like to see a further tab in the normal item shop:

- Weapons which have attack based effects on them (noticeable, but not too high) and no further stats.

- Only Assasins get the possibility to wear those weapons and get one additional item slot for those weapons (like the idol slots)

- Effects of those weapons could be lifeleach, %chance to splash damage, % chance to chainbolt, %chance of dmg dealed to minnions as well or anything like that

- to increase the similarity to idols which can be bought from startup due to the price: Make 4 grades of each weapon

That way would not only be the uniqueness of assasins & generals increased, but also the possibilitys for balacing of both "classes". This balacing would not be possible with favor items since assasin only favor items compete with common favor items (swift anklet!)."

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I really like that idea of assassin only items that upgrade rankwise along the same vein as idols. Going to skim over your other post now.

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I like the idea of making generals more like generals... but I also think that this difference would be better off eliminated. Give all heroes minions and such to allow for a greater variety of playstyles. I'd be fine if things go either way, or even if they remain the same.

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Ways I see to fix this:

-Put out Minion boosting only items (not items that attain something for u AND ur minions)

-Make the Minions more powerful, scaling exponentally imo, so that at the beginning, they are good fighters, and at the end, its something to take notice for.

-Swap out, or give (swap is better imo) the Generals more skills to buff up Minions.

By making Minions more potent, makes general players, play like generals, with the possibility of going Assassin. The other way around is hard, but they are more effective at Assassining then Generals would be.

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Quoting Reaver,

reply 5

If anything, its all because of Minions. I believe that the minions of Generals are not powerful enough. (excluding idols) the base minions (nighwalker, Yeti, Shambler, Spirit) dont give enough oompf. They run up, smack something for some damage then go down in flames, making u spend more mana for things that dont do enough, of anything really...

Ways I see to fix this:

-Put out Minion boosting only items (not items that attain something for u AND ur minions)

-Make the Minions more powerful, scaling exponentally imo, so that at the beginning, they are good fighters, and at the end, its something to take notice for.

-Swap out, or give (swap is better imo) the Generals more skills to buff up Minions.

By making Minions more potent, makes general players, play like generals, with the possibility of going Assassin. The other way around is hard, but they are more effective at Assassining then Generals would be.

How do you wan't to BUFF minions and not make Generals overpowered?

From an balance point Generals and Assassins are comparable.

But if the other skills stay the same and you buff the minnions while not needing more skill points than now you buff Generals heavy. And that would make them op imho.

And I still don't see a reason why Generals get 3 Item slots more than Assassins

+ The abillity to buy the cost efficienst healing item: Priests (especially lvl1 has crazy hp/s for 900 bucks from startup!)

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-Swap out, or give (swap is better imo) the Generals more skills to buff up Minions.

is that better?

and if they were to give generals mroe skills, then theyd need to give Assassins more as well

also buffing minions means nerfing a bit the other abilites to be useful still, but not a total dis regard

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Erebus is pretty beastly with a good minion build (provided the AI doesn't freak out), not sure where you got the idea that he can only be played effectively like an assassin.

The only General I don't see using their own minions (not idols) often is Sedna, because Yetis suck especially with the horrendous AI and pathfinding, so they spend most of their time spinning in circles on the spot.

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-Swap out, or give (swap is better imo) the Generals more skills to buff up Minions.

is that better?

and if they were to give generals mroe skills, then theyd need to give Assassins more as well

also buffing minions means nerfing a bit the other abilites to be useful still, but not a total dis regard

Yeah granted it reads better now

Swapping skills would be one way or to add skills for both. Great idea!

I have an iditional idea for that: add 5 levels to max lvl but let the total exp for max lvl stay the same. Mean less exp per lvl than now. And that way one could add 1 skill with 5 points as minnion buff and one could give the assasins more power.

Buuut that could throw the balance over too: Oak etc. could skill allmost any non minnion skills.

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