Where are focus should be on making this game competitive..

I agree 100% with this assessment. It was what I was trying to talk about in my own post.

I can get items and totally dominate the opponent demigods, but this doesn't help the war effort as much as upgrading creeps does. I find that nonsensical.

I think if the war effort could be modified by killing enemy heroes, that may help. It would discourage people from hiding and running away the whole game just so they can upgrade creeps to win. The flags will also help, but if they're the only dynamic people will just camp them to win.

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.

frogboy/draginal i think is the ceo of stardock. Also how do u increase war ranking.agree about no flags for increased war ranking.

Nail on head.

/thread.

In one of my other treads I give a possible solution where we put an emphasis on towers and give teams a bonus for taking down tower and increasing there war ranking. It would actually give some importants and make people actually care for defending there towers.

Just to prove a point on leviathan i left the enemy get both extra portals and let them push both of the towers and didnt even try to defend it. I just waited until i reached lvl 6 war ranking and then juts bought catapultasarui and won the game in the next 3 creep waves. I think if we did this it would make teamwork more important as you would have to work together to help save your towers and also make carrying those teleport scrolls more useful and force the players to have more map awareness and not just focus on what is in front of them.

And also as I said in one of my other threads I think it would be a nice addition to let the generals control which path the spawning creeps take, at the the extra creeps you get from the flag portals. This would actually give you some type of bonus for getting the flags.

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

In theory this makes sense, but that is not how it is. First problem is that is does not take that much gold to upgrade your creeps, especially if it is a team effort. And even if you dominated your oppenent you still get your war ranking at the same time. I also do not think you understand how unimportant the demigods actually are in the grand scheme of things. Once you upgrade your creeps you actually dont even have to play anymore. You just have to sit back and watch really.

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.

Well, to be fair, we havn't played the game like this. We dont know if it will be certain flags, if its a bonus for how long you hold it or any other mechanics of it.

Can't really say that until you see how its added.

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.

My only possible response to this is lets play and I will show you that strong heroes will lose everytime.

As it should be I might add

Edit: This picture should explain my point fairly enough

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.

Quoted for truth!

Agree to OP!

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'd love to help test it out , the first team should focus on creeps the second on making their Demigods own, it could be interesting.

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

I am down to play if we can set up a time.  I can play practically anytime lets get a 3v3

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.

Oh man, if it was only that easy. lol

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.

Hey Mario,

You asked where the Dev's were, so ... here we are! Looks like Frogboy already checked in and here I am, the Design Lead for Demigod.

Thanks for your feedback! Your thoughts are spot on and soon you'll get a balance update that will address these issues as well as a slew of other balance related fixes.

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.)

Negative Feedback could be:

Team who is winning gain more ressource and then update their creep (lvl, number) So the second team who is losing gain more xp and gold by killing more and better creep.

Again the problem is that player skill aren't important(currently). Gold mine are too productive and citadel update at the same speed.

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.

I love this place. woo!