Minions, what Minions?

I agree; gereals are still playing like assassins. I'm sure they have something cooked up to fix that, but I'll toss my ideas out anyway:

IMO,

I don't like the "idols" at all. Ideally, generals should have three different types of unique creeps, which are upgraded via their skill tree. The slots on the right for summoning minions can stay, because to keep the generals interesting, upgrading a certain type of creep should have a corresponding ability that they can use (so they don't just summon units).

I liked the "command radius" idea in that other thread, it keeps a general's presence on the battlefield important.

I was also thinking about "what if" generals coulc ONLY buy citadel upgrades and assassins could ONLY buy items, with citadels gaining options that increase minnions/generals' strength. Not sure if I like this idea yet though (what happens in 1v1?).

I don't think generals should be doing too much fighting themselves, but they shouldn't be so fragile so as to run from creeps. They should fear the assassins without their creep support of course...

Agree with the above, for the most part. If you make Generals the only ones able to deal with the citadel though, then the citadel has to affect them directly too, in the form of stats upgrades.

I'd like to see Generals on the front lines leading troops. I'd like to see a greater focus on the minions as well. I'd like to see Generals with both Creep killing ability and siege ability, but very little Demigod killing ability (although you should ideally be able to spec one way or the other, or a middling approach).

I'd like to see unique minions (in squads) with unit veterancy if they stay alive and make themselves useful.

Big ask, but just my thoughts.

I actually like the idea of removing the base everyone can get it units and focusing more on the special units. I like playing the general as a  partial assassin with team abilities and a few minions rather then using an army of units.

I just get my yeti's I don't waste gold on those other minions

I'm not saying there aren't other nice ideas from other players, but right now this what i do with any general. Special minions and that's it, i sometimes get the priests lvl3 if have lots of money.

But imagine if u had some special ability that used/ consumed/ involved the yetis in any way, that would add depth and option. Would be nice and add something quite diferent from assassins.

But it would also be the same as one of Queen of Thorn's abilities.

You can outfit Generals with combat items, and not take any minion skills, and you'll be able to perform just as well as any Assassin. That's not how Generals should work.

So we assume. There's no easy route out of this though, unless you count rebalancing generals as Assassins and just adding the Generals concept in a later patch (for the record, I think that's not the best idea out there). Buffing minions and nerfing Generals isn't enoug either; from what I've been playing, I still say Queen of Thorns is the purest General around. At least how I play her (siege, creep kill, and assassin support through brambleshield). QoT doesn't actually get that much better at killing enemy demigods, no matter how you fit her out. Her autoattack isn't that strong (although it is fast, and you can attack at range), she has no Demigod killing ability whatsoever, because none of her abilities do enough damage quickly.

I've always viewed Generals in my own mind as more supportive of their team (creepwise) and their allied assassins than as simply "The assassins with minions" and remarkably, you don't need minions to support your team. Perhaps that's the real issue here.

I completly agree with your line of thought, and i also see QoT as the purest general.

And when i spoke about a skill to every general envolving their special minions i did it with QoT in mind, because i think the skill where u sacrifice to get healed is nice to keep you alive and makes the minions needed in some way. If you choose that line in the skill tree, and if you dont you still have a general in the way of "army supporter".

"You can outfit Generals with combat items, and not take any minion skills, and you'll be able to perform just as well as any Assassin. That's not how Generals should work."

Why not? You can build a general to play like an assassin instead, so what? If they can't afford minions because they're buying other items, then a balance is still possible.

Although maybe we should allow assassins to buy totems if they want though.

With an without minions is a choice which i think should be optional but making it so one on one u'll lose. I enjoy playing sedna without minions it allows me to assist my allies more. She becomes more like a priest which adds more diversity.

We need diversity! Only one tipe of minion or only special minion is not enough. If player want to use general without minion it's their strategy. As I see DG, the strategy part is not having general but making decision (wich equipement, wich spell, where can i go, do I need to attack and push forward or do I need to defend my citadel, etc). But some change in the idol system could be usefull.
For exemple:

• Give player to choose their army (3 tauren idol or 2 priest and 1 siege archer), this create complexity. Add more generic minion type
  

• Use your idea of minion icon to select them and heal them, dev could add minion XP (instead of buying lvl 1 2 3 or 4)

• For smaller minion squad could be usefull, this way we can see how the fight is going. Once we have lost some units we can heal the squad, call reinforcement. (near portal or near health crystal or with idol) A General could have a reinforcement spell to bring back units during the fight

• Minion have to be more meaningfull (stat are hidden like attack, hp, regen, spell etc)

• We need basic unit control (defend position, attack move) for exemple in defensive mode priest will focus on regen. 

Currently Demigod is a new gen strategy game.
The problem with general's minion is that it's note userfriendly to use them. They aren't meaningfull and we haven't a lot of option with them. But because of the small number of minion we can control (30-40 max) we need to micro them. Add control, create squad, this will increase minion utility and micromanagement will keeping the same number of units on the map.

+ The citadel upgrade are for the team, General have access to a special skill that increase their minion. A game should be playable with only assassin.

Because they're supposed to be two different styles of play. As it stands, you can play Assassin Demigods and Assassin Demigods that have the option of pets. That's not "play it like an RTS or play it like an RPG" - it's play it like a party based RPG or a single character rpg. It's not what was advertised.

I have to say that, all together, your ideas would make an interesting style of play. The "mindless minions" i mentioned before would stop being mindless and would be a compact group or squad to whom you could order specific objectives or behaviors. And the lvl and regen ideas would save lots of time and money of the general giving him the chance to make citadel upgrades or buy some items.

In my idea, even if i didnt lose much time to it, one can also add details/ features to make it more complete and add diversity. The point i meant for keeping only the special creatures is to suppress the buying, rebuying, sumoning (again and again) of the default minions. It would save time and money, much like in your ideas. The point of having skills that would require to have some minions sumoned is to transform the generals in smth that would be much diferent from the assassins, for instance:

- QoT sacrifice for health (implemented already and imo a nice skill and smth diferent from any other demigod)

       (and from here some imagination)

-QoT Bramble could be dependent of having minions too for intance.

- Oak "Wall of Souls" (Oaks spirits join to surround him and create a defensive barrier around him Absorbs damage ## x souls and reflects #% dmg)

- Oak "Soul Reckoning" (Target enemy minion is possessed by you spirit and becomes controled by you)

- EB "sacrifice minion" (area dmg for instance, or poison, or mana)

- EB "master sumoner" (sacrifice all your minions and sumon a powerfull creature to fight along your side)

- Sedna "yeti enrage" (enrage one of your yetis giving him + dmg and speed, the yetis enter bezeark and cannot be controled by you anymore)

What i mean is that this could be a viable way of changing Generals in a interesting way, would change gameplay a lot even for the assassins. Since they would gain smth for killing the generals minons, prevent them from using certains skills.

Not saying the it better or worse than your idea. To be honest if they can implement everything that you said (that i doubt), i like your idea more than mine.

But one thing we can agree for sure, generals cannot stay just like they are now.

DG is not a RTS game or a RPG game, depending on wich assassin or general you choose, but a strategy game with roleplaying aspect. I think that dev have to work a little more to explain what their are creating. (I could be wrong) But a lot of player could be disapointed as they will not playing a classical RTS like DOW 2 (nice game but nothing new, only the 40k universe woth it. I'm playing "beta").

I love you special minion capability especially Oak "Soul Reckoning", and if implemented they will had new strategy with general.
But in the same time dev have to keep generic minion, and add meaning and control to them.

Waiting for beta 3 to see how (where ?) the game is going.

Then they need to make that clear to their supposed future customers. Just a few months ago (at a time when the Beta was already well underway) they described Demigod thusly:

"Aimed at the first quarter of 2009, it's described as real-time tactical strategy with extensive role-playing elements."

Slightly earlier than the above we got these tidbits:

"- The game blends RTS and action RPG. Experience provides skill points to acquire new powers."

"By contrast, with generals, players who love their RTS games more traditional in style gain a unit more akin to a commander in Total Annihilation. This type of demigod is still very powerful, but its greater strength comes from the units under its command. The character can summon various forms of minions, and give them orders."

On january 22nd, they described it like this: (emphasis, as usual, mine)

"Demigod is a strategy game that adds a host of action RPG elements such as item purchasing, spells, battle experience and much more in order to add a new dimension of skill and excitement for players of real-time strategy games."

If the RTS is not supposed to be in the game anymore (which at this, point it is not) they need to make that clear to everyone, in the beta and outside of it.

PS.: If you think DoW 2 is a "classical RTS" then you haven't actually played it.

I'm playing Beta ... nothing new. It use some mechanism of company of heroes (grenade, MG, wall, choose between 3 way of special power), player have a teleporter in wich they can buy units, units can hide inside building or behind wall. Player have to capture energy and command point (like DOW1), player have to capture special flag to win the game (as WiC). Not a bad game, but nothing new in the RTS category.

offensive skills of generals should be extremely limited, only support and healing skills should be focused on, the queen is the particular general that plays very similarly to an assassin.yet again, i think a properly equipped general handeld with a proeficent player could defeat an assassin general without their mininons.

No game has yet combined these elements - nor put an economy that's as deep onto the field.

I agree, generals should have more of an RTS feel to them.  I'm largely ignoring the idols and saving my gold for citadel upgrades and +mana items.  I do like Sedna's yetis and Oak's spirits though.  QoT's shamblers were somehow not so convincing for me, but perhaps I haven't played her enough.

Perhaps the idols could be replaced with items that give bonuses to the general's army?  Such bonuses could be removed from the common items then.  Or possibly allow controlling a few extra units of the general's unique minion type?  If the command radius idea makes it ingame, that's one candidate for buffing (as long as the amount stays sensible).

Whatever changes are made, it's impossible to prevent people playing generals in a "wrong" way, short of actually locking them to 20 meters of the citadel or making them unable to deal damage at all.  My choice of MMORPG is Anarchy Online, and its players sometimes make the weirdest choices in breed/profession/equipment, just for the fun of it.

U guys all seem to think generals should be all aura's and whatnot. i think generals should be skilled in an asistant category for instance Qot is a good seiger. Sedna is aura and single heal orientated. Oak is killing = stonger. I think generals are sort of like sins capital ships, are they focuesed on aura's and assisting no. So why should Dg's generals. Generals I do think should be tweaked but their spells are fine.

If the split between Generals and Assassins was simply "Killing vs Support" then that should have been made clear from the start. As it is, Stardock and GPG have said that there will be a difference in play style (RPG vs RTS) between the two types of Demigod; that's not what has happened so far.

For the Record, I'm fine with Generals being more support based, provided the players of Generals are rewarded thusly for their efforts. I'm also fine with them being not as RTS-like as advertised, provided someone comes out and says that this is what was being aimed for.

i never said completely assitant based I was just saying, their spells are fine how they are and i was making a comparsin that capital ships in sins are supposed to lead the army, and they do that not just solely by having auras and what not. They are usually specialized at one kind of fighting. they still have their planes though but they also fight and do alot of other stuff.

I also said are the sins capital ships focused on aura's and assisting, no. Their focused on a couple of things and I listed a few. They arn't the best at trying to kill another DG quickly but they have troops to help.

Really when I picture generals I think they should be like a strong hero in an rts and their troops are their army. (I think generals should be a little stonger though) Heroes or capital ships lead but usually they might have 0-2 moves that help their troops and the rest are for their areas of expertise.