Custom Appearance By Faction, Randomization For Gateways

The first would be cool, the others, I'm not sure about. 2 and 3 would be more liable to piss people off than to make them go "omg that was awesome when we randomly got sacked by a monster that was supposed to be on our side", and if it's weak enough to be killed easily by the towers, what's the point other than a bit of visual confusion? 4 I like, that's cool, but keep the rewards relatively small so that tacticians who spend more time flanking and stuff can still fight effectively, instead of eventually having no prayer. 5 WTF!? Wrong game, and if that's supposed to be witty, it just flew so far over my head it hit mars.

1. Good idea.

2 & 3. I don't like it.  The flow of the game is supposed to be two steady streams flowing against one another with the Demigods tipping the otherwise equal balance.  The "odd and unexpected" will come from playing multiplayer against players and teams who use the Fog of War strategically to mount surprise attacks.  True "randomness" is usually bad for games seeking to be competitive as Demigod is.

4. I could deal with it, but I wouldn't necessarily want it.  I've never had a game actually last to level cap, so maybe my opinion on it will change.

The only deciding factor in a competitive team game like this should be the players' ability, not random events.

I don't like any of these..

Generals will have special units unique to them that they can use which is sort of like your first idea, though.

i like #3.

Yeah, general units do obviate the point of unique skins, and in all honesty, I take back what I said about #1, becuase it would only add to the visual chaos.

Problem is all the 'serious' gamers hate randomness (for good reason, how are you supposed to test your abilities with random stuff popping up to put you on the defensive?)

I like having fun - I`m not looking to Demigod as the next candidate for Olympic sport in 2010. My suggestion for randomness is for subtle randomness: I am not at all suggesting that the premise of the game be betrayed, or that its tight flow be fundamentally destroyed. And since this is a skirmish game, I want to see stuff that will help provide a fresh experience after the umpteenth time playing it, just as I`d *still* like to see in Sins Of A Solar Empire; the more elements that do that, the longer I will be playing the game.

Unique units to each Demigod? Sounds interesting. I`d still like to see tailored unit graphics/animations though.

Btw, part of playing well is dealing with random events... the random events your opponent puts before you. What I propose therefore is nothing beyond the ken of any serious player to deal with.

This is true. I wouldn't mind a 'random events' option in non-ranked games, but I wouldn't want to win a ranked match because of a random event. Remember the different point of view of the people who do want it to be the next candidate for Olympic sport. Giving both the option to have their own say on some things is probably the right way to do it. One thing I want to see on it though. The neutrals must spawn in the center, otherwise it would be either too devastating or useless.

actually in sins of a solar empire all the competitive players played with random resources and random planets..

It forced you to adapt your strategy to your starting location instead of using the same build orders every time.

But a big powerful monster randomly spawning and attack people? No.

It might be cool, however, if you had a flag at the middle of the map and after capturing it, 60 seconds latter a powerful monster would spawn and killig it is worht a good deal of xp/gold for your team.

But you'd have to be highish levels and work together to kill it, and both teams would be wanting to kill it.  If you sspawned it in the begining of the game then the center would basically become off limits.

That's the good random. There's a difference between the randomness that requires planning and skill and the randomness that requires luck and fortuitous timing. The random monster is in the second camp.

Love the idea. Definitely as the centerpiece of a map, though. However, I'm not sure about making it the geometric center. Maybe something like that random middle section sticking off the main path in the lava map so that access can be controlled to some degree. It wouldn't do to have it drop in the middle of the front lines.

something like on the lava map would be good place, that nook to the side.

Exactly. Make the team who wants to farm it control the center of the map but also go away from the main fight.

no. 3 is interesting.

But I agree that it should spawn at center or in other neutral place. Price for it should be some cash/xp/items or maybe some efect which will last some time.

Yeah when it is killed, whichever team did the most damage would get the drop.  If anyone picks it up it goes into the consumables/artifact spot for everyone on the team.  That'd be neat too..

But then that'd require a new model/textures/shaders/effects/animations made to make that creature so i doubt we'll get that ;[

But it would be awesome. ;[

Regarding random unit spawning at Gates, you could ponder the concept of featuring 'Chaos Gates' in parts of some levels/maps: Gates that when captured are less reliable than normal Gates, maybe even far less active from a frequency standpoint, but still potentially valuable to a controller.

Anything to vary the play experience.

I'll just happy to have an option to play with totally symmetrical maps (Beta1 map) or play a non-symmetrical randomly generated map with features 1-5 in play. Then I can have fun with the random map, and if someone wants to prove to me that they got robbed, we can start up a symmetrical one and show them who's boss (probably them).

A player's abaility should be also judge by reactiveness to certain unforseen threat.

Yes, but that doesn't mean squat when due to random chance your opposition doesn't get judged that way. The unforeseen threat should be your opps fault.

#1 wouldn't work. You have 2 portals on your side and 3 characters in the beta map........who do they change to be like?

And 2 and 3..........just plain no.

Obviously I disagree with those who believe that more varying elements would be unacceptable in multiplayer. To the developers I say this: I hope that you will consider things such as these for at least single-player. Its going to be fairly easy to exhaust a static & wholly predictable array of game elements in single-player, and I hope a nod will be given to those who will be playing this game primarily in that mode if nowhere else (all due respect to onliners...).

Obviously entities would take turns appearing as your forces or as the forces of your allies. Hardly a dilemma.

For example, a wave spawns consisting of grunts, archers, and priests. The grunts are of your persuasion, the archers are of ally #2, and the priests wind up being of ally #3. Just an example of course. The participants in a team determine the pool of graphical assets from which forces are drawn.

I don't like any of these ideas except #4. 

#1 is the general's ability.

#2 and #3 take away a key compnent of the game, that is eveything is supposed to be constant except you, so that you may be judged worthy of becoming the new god.

#4 cool, no level cap.  I like it for personal pride.  I also think that the bottom player stats upgrade should have more lvls.

#5 huh?

I have to say, I would like to see #1. I don't really care how they work in it. but a little more unit variety would go a long way to keep things interesting.

Lots of games have elements of chance to them, I don't see why that would imply less skill.  It just means obsessive people can't figure out a precise optimal sequence that works every time.

I suppose one thing to do might be to assign each creep a points value and have both portals spawn random creeps adding up to a similar value each wave, but honestly individual creeps are fairly insignificant so it's just fiddling around the edges.

In Counterstrike, sometimes you flick your wrist in response to a sound behind you and get a lucky head-shot.  That's part of the game, it doesn't take out skill, people with good reflexes, good aims and good tactics are still score significantly better.  Ok, so when you do get that lucky head-shot then people call you "lucker", accuse you of cheating, and probably kick-ban you, but that's because the game is full of rude idiots, not because the randomness is bad.