Generals and overall gameplay thoughts
Long read
Demigod Forums
Ok, so I got to play Demigod and I want to write a bit about it's good/bad points, give some ideas, tell people about the game and speak about Generals.
I have been playing DotA for a long time and it took me ~5 games to get the hang of Demigod.
The "learning curve" was pretty easy, but as many people on this forum have already sayd, the game just throws you into an arena without telling you how to play or w/e. I understood the point of the game immediately, because I have had some experience with Dota, and the first things on my mind were "What are all the items? Skills?" and "The creeps have already spawned and I'm still looking on the items/skills. I sure hope I won't fall too back behind in levels."
What I don't understand is how the hell will player new to the gender understand the point of the game?
Just telling them: "Play more and you'll get it" isn't the best advise...
Ofcourse, while playing Demigod I compare it to Dota and in overall, I find Demigod EXTREMELY lacking in common gameplay.
The graphics are realy nice, yes, the maps are cool, the AI is ok I guess, everything is looking good on the outside, but in the inside...
One of the important features in the game is to see the hp bars of allies/enemies. In warcraft 3 they made programs for that, but eventualy it was implemented with a patch. But in Demigod it's SUPER confusing. By pressing the "~" button you trigger the health bar display between different modes that appear to be: Only allied demigods, only enemy demigods, only demigods, only allied units, only enemy units, only units, ally demigods and units, enemy demigods and units, all units.
So UNBELIEVABLY confusing. I suggest either bring up a menu telling what mode you want to use (by pressing ~) or make it a thing in the gameplay options where you check the units you want to display the healthbars.
It took me around 20 presses of the "~" button to set the health bars on everyone. And then it had it's own bugs. Like some enemy demigods for some reason didn't show the health bars. Ok, but it should always show the health bar when you point on the demigod, right? WRONG! Basicaly there was no hp bar above the enemy demigod and I had to look right (instead of the battlefield) to see the target's hit points.
I found a couple of more little bugs like some skills not working on a running Demigod or the Demigod sometimes changing targets (it was mentioned before on the forums, guess it was just ignored...).
I REALY liked the feature that you can attack while running. That was a nice thing 
Also the SOUND in the game is just pure AWESOME. The background music realy brings the godly feeling into the game, but the game lacks some sounds. Like most of the time I only hear how demigods attack, but not normal units. That kind of sux 
Like you don't hear the sound of a REAL battle. Just swings and hits once every second. Good've been better.
I have a strong PC, so I don't know if it's fair to compare, but I had absolutely no lags on the highest settings. < good thing ^^
The game is pretty balanced and the items are ok.
The minimap in the game is pretty strange and the gameplay is made in a way where you have practicaly no map awareness, because it's not as important as in dota. Summed up with what I will say below, the gameplay becomes kind of like this:
Play, play, play, graphics are nice, the game is pretty interesting, omg what special effects, play, play, play, I wonder what I'm doing right now? What are my allies doing? What's happening on the map in overall? What skills are better/worse? Nah... Why should I care about that? I better play, play, play, play, play, I think I should play more in the dirrection of their citadel, no? Play, play, play, play WTF I WON????
I think that everyone has heard about the assasin demigods and it has been sayd many times that generals are play in a more boring/weaker style.
Well time to clear things up right here. The sad thing is - the game DOES NOT ALLOW you to play as a general NORMALY. The gameplay in this part is so INCREDIBLY LACKING I just...
Let's talk about it. I was very surprised (in a bad way) how little of detail developers have put in the general gameplay. Let's look at the assasins: All the skills say what they do, how much damage they deal, you have ALL the info about your demigod, you must only control your demigod, you see how items benefit you, it's pretty easy.
Now add minions to that and it'll suck! Oh yeah...
Let's look at the minions. Minotaur - the melee minion.
First level minotaur: Summons 2 minotaurs. Can have a maximum of 2 minotaurs.
Ok?... Let's look at level 2.
Second level minotaur: Summons 2 minotaurs. Can have a maximum of 2 minotaurs. Stronger than first level minotaurs.
Ummm... what?
Fourth level minotaur (last level): Summons 2 minotaurs. Can have a maximum of 2 minotaurs. Stronger than third level minotaurs.
Wait... Did I miss something? What damage they have? What hit points have they got? What about armor? Speed? Hp regen?
Some items give things like +300 minion hp, + 5 minion damage.
But... What hit points do minions have and what damage do they have? Is 5 damage much?
I summon the minions. I find they have 1210 hp. Ok... What about damage? Anything else? Nope...
And that's how it is. Absolutely NO INFO about anything. The gameplay tells you: "Hey, chill man, just play. You don't need to know their damage. They deal some damage right? That's all you need to know."
People were asking what are lvl 1,2,3 idols (the thingies that summon minions) for if you can buy 4th level right away? Well I found a couple of uses for the all the minions in general, like you can get lower level minions to let them die quickly and get your own minions with skills of your General Demigod. You can get lower level minions combined with a +minion damage item to get more "damage per gold" out of your minions and items.
But the game DOES NOT ALLOW you do see how much damage per gold you will realy get. Is it SO hard to give a bit more info about the minions?
That aside the way you control your army is just awful.
Compared to DotA, which runs on the Warcraft 3 engine, you can easily select your units, send them where ever you want to, see their stats, create groups etc.
In Demigod you clearly can't do as much. There are buttons to select "all minions", "all minions + demigod", or simply demigod. What the "Select all minions and organise them" button does will remain a mistery to me, as the button doesn't work. I press it and all minions do NOT get selected. Nothing happens to be clear.
Also, the minion Idol says "Right-click to drop item" and that doesn't work as well. I think it's a bug, it shouldn't say that.
What I would REALY love in Demigod is to have the minion count displayed.
Right now I just don't realy see which units I have got and what units are dead. I just try to summon everything I can and it either:
a) summons the minions
tells me that I already have max ammount of minions (well SORRY FOR ME NOT KNOWING THAT).
A display on the left would be realy helpful, like showing the icons of every type of minions I have got and their ammount. Their ammount in green if their count is not maxed, and in red if maxed. + I should be able to ctrl/shift + click them to remove some minions from my selection or select a certain type of minions. That would help a ton.
And lastly about the lack of detail:
The well know Oak has the ability that increases his damage based on the number of spirits he has (minions he can summon with a death ward). The death ward skill says the maximum unit limit, but that's about it. The tooltip of the skill that increases damage in your status just says something like: "You have some spirits, you have your damage increased". So do I have to count my minions on the battlefield to know their count ?
Thank you for reading...
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