Make the game more rewarding to skilled players

from Demigod Forums

I think the game should be way, way more rewarding to skilled players.  Right now a piss poor team can hold out against a fantastic team.  A poorly played hero stands a chance against a well played hero.  And each fight/kill does not feel like it impacts the game very much.  Here are my ideas to improve such:

1.  Improve the interface.  Right now if I'm a general, I don't know what what troops I have selected, if they're fighting, if there others I'm not properly controlling, nor how good the troops actually are.  For assassins and generals, I sometimes have difficulties telling who I'm attacking and I never know if they're casting a spell or about to cast a spell.

2.  Put in more timing/skill based spells in the game.  After #1 is accomplished, this gives players more opportunities to really do things with their troops like control who their clerics heal (if they so desire).  Spell interrupts will be drastically more effective if you can see that someone is casting a spell.  I would love to see a hero or two get an ability that intantly breaks him from stuns, and then another ability that breaks a character loose from all snaring effects for a period of time.  You can give someone a spell reflection ability that will reflect all spells cast on the hero for 1 second.  You could bring in heals over time and then bring in the ability to steal those heals.

3.  Speed up games, slow down heroes.  In my personal opinion a game between 2 average skilled teams should last ~20-25 minutes and result in most heroes being around level 15.  A game where advanced players beat down on new players should only last 10-15 minutes.  Only rarely should a game become a drawn out back and forth fight when both teams truly are equally matched and keep it going back and forth.  Why?  Because otherwise every game feels the same.  To do this, I suggest having movement imparing abilities completely remove the effects from any boots and actually reduce the base movement speed of that hero.  Also move the healing crystal further back.  To keep this from becoming frustrating in it's own right make scrolls of teleportation cheap, but have a 5 second casting time.  Also town down un-upgraded buildings drastically.  A low level hero left unchecked should be able to kill one of the front line buildings in under 30 seconds using no items.

4.  At later levels, deaths should have real dire consequences.  I'm thinking over 30 seconds for a level 17 hero and over a minute for a level 25 hero.  Someone dieing should really help sway a battle.

5.  Tone down passive gold collection that is not from flags.  Killing heroes/units and capturing flags should be practically the only way to get gold.  This once again helps set apart the teams who are good and those that are bad. EDIT: to clarify, I'm ok with flags giving descent gold as well because you have to fight over those flags.  The amount of gold you just get from having a citadel, especially after its been upgraded is my main complaint.

1,914 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Demigod Forums Top

3. Hell. No. Making buildings killable by low level demigods is basically turning it into a completely different game. Powerful buildings is the reason you need armies - if Demigods could push on their own, you might as well get rid of the portals.

5. The opposite - tone down kill-gold, put more gold mines into the middle.

2. There already is timing and skill based Demigod combat - using potions and other items is the most obivous skill/timing based mechanic, with many spells that can be used at all times, but have more profound effects when used at the right time. Deepfreeze to interrupt, Shield to absorb incoming burst damage spells and remove debuffs, bat swarm/cloak of elvenkind to dodge incoming line attacks and move out of range while rooted, etc.

In addition to that, with the introduction of Erebus and Oak, Last Hitting has arrived in an manner that actually makes sense, and is not a contest against your teammates.

1. Agreed 100%

Reply #2 from Demigod Forums Top

1. Yes, the interface is not very "friendly" at this point.

2. I didn´t checked all skills now, so I don´t know, if there are only (for instance) 3 skills, which are only different called. Like "bubamm" dealing 350 instant dmg or something like that. We need unique skills (and not only by the name) :)

3. Well, the sim speed is ~+1/0/-1 for me, so in the beginning it´s fast and at the end i have time to make my decisions :D

4. I don´t know about the death time. Played only a few games until now. But if it´s small on the later lvls, it should be increased. (we´re getting closer and closer to DotA o.O, but I think your team have to "feel" that one demigod is missing)

5. Well, one big aspect in Demigod are the flags you can capture. So I think they shouldn´t be reduced.

More gold for a kill: Well, I´m very sorry, but I really didn`t play the game quite often (due to my life ;) ). So I don´t know, if there are bountys. I think bounty on an enemy demigod which has killed a lot of your mates should get a bounty. So the bountys could maybe balance this issue. An other point of view: The respawn time for death demigods seems to be not very high. So the death will come back faster which makes it possible for you, to kill them more often, which gives you more gold (even if a kill is only ~400 gold worth [don´t know about the exact numbers ^.^]). Combined with the bountys it would be ok.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Demigod Forums Top

While I don't necessarily agree with all of your points, I definitely agree in that the game needs to reward skilled play and create a larger gap between average players and great players.

If it does not manage to do this, the game will quickly become boring because there will be little incentive for players to work hard in order to improve.

Reply #4 from Demigod Forums Top

1.  100% agreement.  As it is implemented right now, the interface cannot support any RTS style play at all.  For the time being, it just seems like a Diablo-style interface with some limited RTS commands overlayed on top, and it just isn't doing the job.

2.  I agree that casting animations are definitely needed.  Otherwise, skill interupts are just a guessing game.  As for the spell reflection ability, 1 second is way too short, even for "timing skill-based" mechanic.  Finally, this game really isn't about healing, so if an HoT were introduced, the ability to steal an HoT would be effective against, like, one hero?

3.  I agree that demigods should be slowed down and healing crystals moved back; other players have said the same thing.  I've only played Demigod since yesterday, so I'm not familiar with the game enough to make comments on towers except to say that right now they probably do too much damage.

4.  I agree.

5.  I agree with DatonKallandor on this.  I think there should be many more gold mines that each produce less gold.  It would make the logistics of the game more dependant on capping and defending locations on the map, and would give the game more of an RTS feel.  Alternatively, the relative amount of gold from mines vs. the amount of gold from bounties could be map dependant, so some maps are more Diablo style, and some are more RTS style.

If you want to push it even farther in the RTS direction... make abilities and summoning troops cost gold and be less tied to cooldowns/mana... ?  That, in conjunction with making income more gold mine-dependant, would make it even more RTS like in that your capacity to attack the enemy at all will depend on your ability to cap and hold points on the map.  It would also make the games go much faster, as the power would shift definitely to one side or the other.

Reply #5 from Demigod Forums Top

5.  Another idea: They already announced they were going to split $$ up between gold and warfunds.  Gold is for buffing your hero, warfunds are for buffing yoru citadel.  What if gold *only* comes from kills on troops/players and warfunds only comes from flags on the field?  Gives a whole new RTS aspect never seen before.  Just an idea

Reply #6 from Demigod Forums Top

Burnmelt, the War Rank Points were actually supposed to be in Beta 2. Maybe it's not in because it didn't make it, or because it did make it and they thought it wasn't fun. In any case, we should get to try it - hopefully in some future patch.

Alternatively, the relative amount of gold from mines vs. the amount of gold from bounties could be map dependant, so some maps are more Diablo style, and some are more RTS style.

This is actually really brilliant.