I think Unclean Beast is supposed to be sort of anti-caster.

Oh and there is going to need to be more than 2 builds per class in Demigod.

Needs to be more like 3-4 with variations on each you'll need to take depending on your allies and enemies builds.

I have a friend who creates models for video games. He's mostly does vehicles, so the animations are not exactly the same as a demigod but the cost to make a single model does not cost 1.5x a single artist's yearly Salary to make. (I'm not counting the time invested in balancing and powers and such, only building the model and animations.)

I think having only 8 demigods could be ok, but there needs to be enough build diversity within each demigod to allow for that experience to be robust.  Having played the game, I don't see that yet.

My major concern is that at level 25, much like DOTA every hero is the same, ignoring item choices.  So where is the diversity?   Skill trees need to be deep enough so players can make choices within them, and not simply choose which to max out first and which to get later.  If players were forced to focus on maxing 2/3 skills and ignoring others, things could get interesting.  I suppose I need to experiment more with the attribute tab, though.

Skill design is also pretty lacking atm.  There are only 3 heroes in game, but about 6 PBAoE spells.  Yay?

I play dota a ton, and i really want this to be a "DOTA killer". I understand that this is a unique game, but at the same time, it strongly appeals to the dota playerbase who have wanted a stand alone dota type game with an online ranking system. The fact that this game has only 8 heroes (i do also understand the argument that greater skill depth in each hero makes up for it) is a real turn-off for DOTA players who want to switch over. Just seeing your hero fight the same hero detracts from the experience a great deal. I really hope this number does increase before the release date.

Good it'll scare off the dota players that think a game is based purely on it's number of heroes.

We don't need people that think that way.

We also don't need the community slinging insults all over the place.

Well i just hope this awesome idea of a game isn't botched up by lack of initial content. I really want this game to be successful (i've already been telling people about it in my DOTA games) and i guess there's nothing i can do but wait and see how the end result turns out.

We?  Who elected you as the voice for the Demigod community?  If you were wondering why you recieved elitest insults on Sins, it would be because of comments like these.

Plenty of RPG style games don't have 80 heroes.

It's not nessisarily an insult, but look at WiC.  It has very few units, but each unit fills a roll.  any more added units would mess up the balance they've created with those units.

But do you think this game/forums are better off if every other post is saying "dota has 80 heroes so it's better!  Demigod is going to fail!"?

Do you think DotA's community is the best in the world?  I think it's probably considered the worst..  Of course it's not everyone.  Even on their own forums theres those people telling the people ragging on newbies to shut up and how the game is going to die if they keep shunning new players.

But Demigod needs those players in DotA who are constructive and analytical, not the ego-gamers who are constantly trash talking and kicking and banlisting someone because they zigged when they should of zagged and accidently "fed" the enemy, or didn't use the ideal item combination for the Hero they picked.

I don't think someone is exactly constructive and analytical if they think a games quality, competitive nature, depth, and gameplay is based purely off its number of classes.

You can pull off 8 Demigods if you can do as innociv said and have more than 2 builds per class. We're talking multiple skill trees and no overpowered tree. They say that what we have now is just a taste.. so I'm going to wait until the next beta(s) before I could make any judgement calls.

agreed with Guy above the 3 gods right now are already more then enough for me (for now at least) they just need more skill customization and i wanted to distribute my stats or at least the option of that and the option of Auto-Distribute stats for those who dont wanna take the time for it (u can do it while healing!!)

http://blogs.ign.com/Stardock_Games/2008/09/10/101124/

This answered a lot of my questions.

Are you thinking estetically or gameplay-wise? 'Cause even though there are heroes that are similar in DotA, the lot of them are highly different when it comes to skills.

I found Demigod to be alright when I first played it, none of the heroes were really my play-style. That's why I hope there will be tons and tons of demigods in Demigod.  There's nothing to loose on having many choices, as long as they manage to keep them unique. And the difference between DotA and Demigod is that the Demigod devs have so many more possabilities. Which is awesome.

8 demigods to choose from will grow tireing, fast. No matter how unique they may be. That's just the way this genre is. It has nothing to do with DotA.

    Two major facts that create enduring enjoyment and popularity of any PC game (or any game system for that matter) consists of the following: diversity and replayability. Period.

    I fail to see how any gamer, casual or otherwise, will be continually motivated to play a game system where they stare across the battlefield at the same 8 models time after time after time. This, in and of itself, will kill off any desire for long term gameplay in anyone regardless of the customizability of the few individual characters. You see, the longer a competitive match of Demigod runs for, the closer each dupicate demigod becomes like the other. This is due to the skill point system, after all, the points must be spent somewhere.

    In regards to competitive team gameplay, there will be popular combo/builds that will appear like a reoccurring nightmares ad naseum. Now this will happen in spite of the number heroes, BUT there will be diversity and ingenuity will be rewarded. However, ingenuity of comboing different abilities will be non existant without a sufficient character base to draw from. There will be no surprise in gameplay with a limited character base, only stagnation.

Rook, Torch Bearer, Regulus, Sedna, Yoshimitsu, Oculus, Oak, Jenna, Porygon

Guys tell me if I can't count...

That's 9 so far isn't it?

Bah meant to edit paragraphs before posting, I apologize for the epic grammer and spelling failures.

you missed a few annihilator x in addtion to that is: Unclean Beast, Queen of thorns, and vampire lord. so thats.. 12!

Well I have played GW for 1400 hours.

I know people that have played twice that.  It had 6-10 classes.

I played d2 for about 6k hours.  It has 7 classes IIRC.  I honestly looking back do no know how i enjoyed D2 for so long.  Acutally I sort of know.. it didn't have an competition.  Back then that game was so much better than everything else.

Like Innociv D2 has 7 Characters to choose from and people are still playing it and then if this was an RTS WC3 has 4 races kinda like 4 generals and thats still played so 8 could be alot especially since there will be more skills then what we got so far it could last long and they might add more characters later on

Not just back then, even NOW there's not much competition to diablo2.  I can see people moving on to WoW, guildwars, or other MMORPG.  I think that diablo3 will repeat and be the best FREE online hack and slash for the next 10 years.

If D2 was released now, it wouldn't be that good of a game.

It depends if D3 is going to innovate or have the same issues for nostalgia.

D2 is still amazing, even today.

It has flaws, but no other action RPG really comes close, which is sad considering the fact that the formula isn't all that hard.

the difference is, you start with level 1 each time you start the game. You will not be the owner of 12423453 different items in one game. You will not have 15+ skills. The spawns will not change each time you win a game. You will play the same game, on a different battlefield though.

I´m not saying it is not possible to have fun a long time with 8 chars, but comparing demigod to D2 ? WoW ?

Also whats rough about the (current) build of demigod there is four active skills. As in, 4to grab/4maximum. No matter what spec you do you're going to be looking at the same 4 skills (Sans torchbearer). Not so with WoW/D2.

Having 4 moves to do at any point in time is fine. Having only 4 moves to put in your circles is not, if they want to pull off 8 demigods. What some suggest is something heavy like 12 skills to pick from and you can only use 4. So when you pick your fourth one, the other boxes grey out, and you're limited to just picking passive abilities. If they don't do something like this by the next couple of betas I'll start getting a little nervous.