What Should Future Demigods Look Like?

An excellent well formed argument...

As an annotation, include in the process of demigod design, the effects the new character needs to create, how they can be combined logically into a single theme, that way we dont end up with some mutant baby of a manticore and a unicorn =|
A character that is useful but doesnt make sense might as well be moddelled after a lollypop with a handlebar moustache that giggles whenever its hit...

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You've made a very excellent point. Many people go about designing a Demigod idea by starting with the visual design, or some kind of character theme they want to fulfill, and fill in the abilities later. But really, most abilities can be given to any Demigod, you just rename it and change the style to make it fit. And once you have a few independent ideas that work together well, THEN you can combine them and start filling out the rest.

Here are a few quick ideas on what we're missing:

A trap-based DG. Reg's mines are all well and good, but that's just one ability, on a single DG. I want to see more traps, of various designs, maybe even some that are remote-detonated (for example, click the ability to set the trap, click it again to activate it.) How about traps set on a flag that explodes when you get close? An oil slick that slows down enemies who walk through it? A bear trap that immobilizes?

We already have fire/ice/earth elements, how about a lightning elemental god? Lightning strikes, chain lightning, and stun attacks are all obvious choices, but how about more unique ones, like magnetic "force"-pushes, the ability to electrify allies' weapons to make them deal damage (like a weapon enchantment), or the ability to magnetically steal gold from enemy DGs (ok I don't know if that would be fair, but it would be awesome.)

We need more spellcasters in general. Everyone has "spells," but Sedna and The Torchbearer are the only ones who I would really call "magic users." Really, one more Demigod in this class would fill it out enough.

A martial artist. Everyone else uses weapons, how about someone who kicks and punches?

I'll list some more later.

The lore says something about gods having alot of sex with all these women and now these super babies are demigods trying to be gods, so.. the gods have to be able to have sex with it in order for it to be a demigod. That leaves out what?

We're missing:

1.  A teleporting ranged kiter(see the teleporting snake thread for my idea on how to fill that one).  These guys are just micro intensive and fun to use.

2.  A stealth/ambush demigod.  Someone that'll actually make you buy those little oracle flag thingies.

3.  A hardcore spellcaster.  Something with low mana costs and cooldowns, low physical damage, and amazing spell synergies.  The sort of caster where you're constantly microing to maintain your damage output and are rewarded for it.  TB is closest to this with his deep freeze shatter mechanic but I just don't find him to fit the bill because it takes too long to unlock all the stuff and the synergies he has don't carry much depth.

4. A phase shifter type support character.  Maybe an ability that is like your standard stun but also makes the target invulnerable and stops their regens(basically freezes them in time) so you use it to stall for cooldowns on your other abilities or to get away.  His/her other abilities would be along the same lines.

5.  An artillery type demigod.  Long range abilities that have a firing arc and need to be well timed/positioned but have a significant effect when they land.  They'd need to be mana intensive or on a large cooldown so that you can't just bombard everything from a distance.  Would also need to be ineffective against towers under normal circumstances for obvious reasons.

I'm starting to have a harder time thinking of archetypes that aren't already satisfied so I think I'll stop there.

On a slightly related note.  I feel that the characters we currently have need a lot of tweaks to their abilities.  QoT's uproot for instance, is an utter joke.  There's no reason to buy it when you have alternatives like bramble shield and spikes(especially since their lines combine for a powerful bonus at level 15).  She's supposed to be good at siege but her siege build is just too lackluster.  A lot of dgs seem to have lines like this.

Thank you Ke5trel.. I have wanted to post the same thing.. as long as something else.

All kinds of threads about people wanting a dead samurai or something like that.  Like you said with Barbarian.  These aren't original.  They're cliche.

I mean seriously?  We have a god damn walking castle, a chick with vines for "clothing" that comes out from a flower carried on beatles, a badass diseased dog with exposed bone armor and you want.. a dead sumarai?  Oak could of looked more like a living weapon than some paladin, and TB isn't the most original idea though he looks awesome, but really.. people should have more original concepts than "muck guy".

They should be over the top like half the demigods are already.  There needs to be more Rook and QoT.

That said, also most of the ideas are basically slight variations of what we already have.  We already have the nuker guy(TB), the more 1 on 1 oriented DPS guy(UB), the healer(sedna), the buffer(oak), and so on..  People aren't really taking into accuont what would be the best additionals to add more to the gameplay.

Like the crystal guy, Porygon, would be sweet to have something that removes enemy buffs, and an aura that when enemy demigods in range lose a buff(whether naturally or by his buff removal) they take damage, and then something that lets him form with an ally to protect them, blah blah.  Buff removal is something missing from DG.  So are some good amana drain abilities. Though some of these could be added ot current ones.

These sound annoying..  There is enough ganking in demigod, people are just too noob to know how to do it.  I'd rather have some support abilities like wards where the wards can be tele'd to just like rooks towers.

Or oculus eye's.. should be able to tele to those.

And by tele to them, I mean they should count as a friendly building like rooks towers.

Some have said being able to use rooks towers for tele'ing to is too powerful, I just think others characters are lacking something similar.

There is obviously some kind of plan for an 'invisible' Demigod.  Either he, his army, or whatnot will have some ability to become invisible.  I highly doubt permanent invisibility, as REQUIRING someone to get a ward to see him would seem too annoying.  Maybe a 'pay as you go' invisibility plan, where he pays mana per sec to stay invisible (ala ghosts in Starcraft).

There are a few abilities that seem pretty standard for a game like this, and exist on items, but not on DG's:

Critical hit: Small chance of doing extra damage is easily scaleable, ( x2, x3, x4, etc) and is found on a couple items in the game.

Regeneration: Not just a normal health boost per second effect, but something more main line.

Mana burn: Warlord's Punisher has an ability that damages mana, but I think that's the only effect in the game.  Considering it's a staple of most RPG games, especially action based ones, I'm surprised not to see it.

Short range Teleport: I guess Erebus sorta does this, but it's more of a rare long range move, instead of a common short range move.

Who will get these effects?  I can see a cloaking, high crit assassin for sure.  Maybe with a little teleportation tech.

Yeah I doubt the wards or favor tiem would see him.. that'd be too much weaksauce.

It looks like the guy with the long sword that's haunched over would be a stealth demigod.. but i'dd wish for something cooler looking.

Tons of us were asking for more mana burning abilities in beta but never really got em.

I'm not really sure a cloaking demigod is lacking, though.  Mostly I think there is a really fine line between making it underpowered and making it just good enough where people go "HOLY FUCK YEAH IM GOING TO BE INVISIBLE" and everyone wants to play him even if he isn't the best.

I actually.. would be happy if there wasn't an invisible demigod.  I like the Oculus sight range reducing idea more.

More abilities that make Generals truly act like a general and more skills that buff assassins.  Right now I think summoned units tend to be a bit more cannon fodder.  Maybe better buffs or increase summoned unit skills.  I am in favor of removing the purchasable units and incxreasing summoned units toughness and damage.

Mana Burn - good idea

Anything skill that increases skill regen time or/and mana cost

I think there simply aren't enough skills on generals.. or well all Demgiods.  There should be 20-25 minion oriented skills on the generals, 25-30 other skills on the generals.  Right now you have 7-8 minion skills on the generals and about 17-18 non-minion ones.

They could add like 3 new skills to Oak for example that would be a unique mechanic to just him, which is a passive aura where when you put a point into one of the 3, the other 2 are locked out, so you can only choose one of these(sort of like diablo2 paladin except no switching).  That'd benefit more with minions if one was a straight +damage modifier since more units you +dmg the more effect you get from it, without saying "minions only".  Plus, cooler things for the other two auras than +dmg. :P  Another could lower enemy MPS, another could give some trigger bonus to ally demigods attacks.

Dark side doesn't have anyone big, nor do they have a real tank.

Light side is missing a rapid melee dps and they don't have a pure [offensive] caster (like QoT and TB).

There are no female Assassins.

There are no heroes that are particularly designed for ambushing. This would likely involve a hero that could reduce the enemy visibility, locate enemies (like Regulus tracker), or teleport to enemies. Effectively, the hero would need a larger vision radius than the potential targets.

For dark side they should have a guy just as big as the Rook, or just about, that is a mechical wooden walker that resembles a pirate ship.  It has no head, just the deck up top with the wheel and a pirate manning it that has a sword in one hand, flask of ale in the other.

There are wooden gears and cables connected to the joints that makes it look very primative.

This is rather wrong. But I shouldn't give up tricks. >_>

Ability Schools we are missing or could use more of (some of this has been mentioned already, so thanks )

Illusion - abilities like limited invisibility, stealth, decoys, line-of-sight manipulation (Blind Target, summon cloud or barrier to block vision, etc), and their counters

Crowd Control - Brainwash Target, Convert Grunts, Sleep, Phase Out, Confuse (decreases hit chance) and AoE for all of the above

Movement - Increase target speed, auto-attack-interrupting blink or feign-death, increase own speed, location port to minions or tags independent of buildings

Building/Engineering - Sentry Guns, traps, permanent towers, mobile siege engines, teleport gates and exits, health and mana dispensers, permanent or at least longer duration destructable observation wards, ally buff totems and enemy debuff totems, area denial beyond just mines i.e. barriers, pits, etc...

Anything need elaborating?

I also like active mana-affecting abilities already mentioned..I could see interesting effects that drain xp, gold, and war rank as well

We'll look at some more mechanics I'd like future demigods to alter when I have a bit of time ^^

Personally, one of my favorite things from certain AoS maps (Not DotA, more like Age of Myths Desert of Exile etc) Was that some Heros had the power to manipulate their opponents position. One example was a Hero that could push a target back, force all enemies in an area into a select point, (Best example I can think of at the moment is when you use your hands and cup a bunch of change together).

Those were my favorite types of heros due to their unpredictability and potential for support and Killing. I recently posted one idea of such a thing around here somewhere .... Ah, (Shameless plug)

I'd much rather see something where you squeeze in someones LoS to be tiny, and posibly disable them seeing ally/minion/building LoS, than invisibliities.  Oculus can do something liek that.  We don't really need an invis-centric demigod. it could always be an item.

And convert creeps would probably be too strong with giants and catas.  Otherwise.. should of had erebus raise dead instead of nightwalkers.

Then again... they could of given Erebus a raise dead that effects Minotaurs/Archers/Priests/Angels(meaning at lvl 1 you can convert Minotaurs by killing them, at lvl 4 you can convert all 4 of hte early ones)

And the engineering stuff.. could just make too much turtling.  MAYBE weak sentry guns or traps.  But permanaent towers, siege engines, dispensers?  Ehh I don't know.. Maybe totems/wards.

Overac's is good with the mentioning of pushes.  I always loved the pushes in Quake and UT too.  I hated when UT3 first came out all the weapons pretty much had no push.  It was annoying as hell.  They increased the push of some weapons in like the first patch.  But it was quite sad that they overlooked such an important gameplay aspect initially.

Two abilities I'd come up with are

• A flag you can plant which redirects tower lasers to it, preventing yourself as well as your minions/reinforcements from taking damage from it.  It could also be detonated after (say) 4 absorptions in an AoE, but breaks after 6 absorptions.  Of course this ability would have to have a weighty cooldown and likely be put on a demigod that's melee.
• An attraction spell, which would cast like an AoE but instead of doing damage, it pulls any and all units within the affected field to the center of the circle.

Ghost-like invisibility sounds like a lot of fun, but unlike ghost, it would have to either cost a LOT of mana, or (most likely) break upon attack.

The Faerie Dragon in DotA also had a great ability where he shot a slow-moving damage projectile (like Rook's boulder) and then had a 2nd ability that allowed him to teleport to the projectile's location.  It was a great one-two punch: shoot the projectile and let it hit your target, then teleport to it and finish them off while they're trying to retreat.  Made it really hard to keep track of his movements.

Reducing LoS sounds like a fun debuff, but it could get really frustrating if it was usable too often, and also would likely only be able to be given to a melee-type, otherwise it would grant him effective invisibility.

I never liked demigods who could switch places with enemies.  It's REALLY disoeriented for the opponent and is a bit of a catch 22: either the range is too short and its worthless or the range is too far and its too powerful.  Someone might be able to convince me of otherwise on this but my experience is there's no way to make this paticular ability work right.

I also wanted to point out that the Forces of Darkness have no real team players right now, aside from QoT's shield.  A few have auras which are kinda nice but nothing like Oak or Sedna.  I hope this gets addressed when the new demigods come out.

future demigods should look like man n00ds. we already have 2 womenz demis that show a good amount of skin.

So I had an idea for a water demigod.  So have a girl or mermaid riding a turtle that has deffensive spells and offensive spells.  Maybe give her a fog abbility to blind the other team for a set amount of time and maybe have a healing rain to heal units around her.  Have some splash attacks or something along those lines.  I was also thinking of a dark one sort of  modeled after the goddess Nyx and have a darkness effect around her.

lol that is the weirdest post I've ever seen teehee

No kiddin!  Who's to say what a god can and can't procreate with?  Apparently though he's F-d faeries, flying people, englishmen, inuits, norsemen, demon dogs, and vampires. There's more on the menu, I'm sure, and this guy's ordered the lot.

In the realms of Mythology absolutely nothing as even Centaurs and Minotaurs exist from some coupling of Zeus and a horse (speculation) and Minotaurs were a punishment of a king hoodwinking:

Poseidon was very angry when he realized what had been done, so he caused Minos's wife, Pasiphae, to be overcome with a fit of madness in which she fell in love with the bull. Pasiphae went to Daedalus for assistance, and Daedalus devised a way for her to satisfy her passions. He constructed a hollow wooden cow covered with cowhide for Pasiphae to hide in and allow the bull to mount her. The result of this union was the Minotaur. In some accounts, the white bull went on to become the Cretan Bull captured by Hercules for one of his labours.

The Minotaur had the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. It was a fierce creature, and Minos, after getting advice from the Oracle at Delphi, had Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth to hold the Minotaur. It was located under Minos' palace in Knossos.

Lugh... while Greek mythology I'm sure was called upon for inspiration for the Demigod game lore, the 'rules' may not be identical -- that being said, centaurs and the Minotaur were never considered gods or demi-gods by the greeks, but rather supernatural, legendary beings.  Hericles was a demigod who was, yes, sired by Zeus and birthed from a mortal woman.

So even by Greek standards, it seems to be that for it to have a status of "demigod" it must have one divine biological parent.  Note that these supernatural beings put up good fights to demigods like Hericles, but as the story goes -- Hericles always wins.  Makes a great argument for them to be minions in the game, don't you think?

Very good thread and post, you sir have +1 karma from me.

This is exactly what we need, a brainstorming thread about future abilities. I'll post some of my ideas at a later time. But in general, i think we need some crazy abilities, not just direct dps dealers.

Mechanics Abilities -

With the idea that mechanics we are missing could be made up in DG abilities - balancing these would be tough but gameplay would get pretty deep

- upgrade items
- upgrade buildings
So a DG like "The Smith" can combine two items + gold + warscore for you to create a custom item, or can upgrade a given building to deliver more damage or have higher health, etc.  These would be skills earned by levelling just like Fireball or Shield and they would have a cost to the receiving player

- upgrade abilities
- upgrade stats
So a DG like "The Tuner" can tweak your abilities to design, increasing a given stat at the expense of some other...Again, earned through levelling and at cost

- Additional Buff and Debuff layers - take it beyond health, mana, speed, attack speed, and armor.  Let's start bringing in auras and targeted spells that enhance "Fire Magic" or debuff "Ranged Attacks."  The traditional way to look at this is to give every spell and school an elemental affiliation (Fire, Water, Earth, etc..) but I know we can do better...So if you brought something like Sentry Guns in (as designed by The Smith), make them fairly weak but with the potential for devastating attack speed when matched with the DG Mercury's "Mech Enhancement Aura" or much higher armor penetration with Regulus's Angelic Fury Buff...Every DG should have multiple aura choices that can benefit and stack in multiple ways..

- Movement variation - beyond running, flying, porting, and blinking let's get some tunneling, some portal-creation, some summoning: A digger who can tunnel down and lay in ambush or gnaw at a tower's foundations, a mage who can gate his allies across enemy lines, a warlock who can summon them back again.  Make movement variation synergize, make coordination as important here as in killing an opponent.

- It's already been mentioned, but we should go over it again because it's the biggest deficit in gameplay imo - ambush/evasion needs a bunch of love.  We can't do it through terrain variation so lets do it with abilities

- ambush/evasion abilities that are environmental/endemic - Occulus is a good start but I'd like to see every DG have something along these lines or have a few abilities that project them onto the environment so that allies can use them like generating minions or buildings that have "Blind" effects within given radius...Don't give us straight invisibility - it's a cop out.  Allow us to use our skills to become effectively invisible, but make it very much more complex than toggling the spell or popping the pot, please...

When time comes along I'll be looking at character classes...

In the meantime, what are some mechanics you would introduce as abilities or ability schools in future updates?

I think this is wishful thinking, as Frogboy said in another post on this forum that 12 demigods would be enough. Two of them are are already know and are almost complete, so we will have only 2 demigods left in the far future...He also said that he wishes this game would stay away from DOTA.

This was a very disappointing, to say at least. I had high hopes for the future of this game, now it's almost dead in my eyes. 

You can see his replies here and here .

That's just Frogboy's opinion; inevitably it's up to GPG and not Stardock, as to how many Demigods are available. Personally I think the game would be fine with a number of Demigods, but I think DoTA is just excessive. I want to see a variety of Demigods, but after a while I want to see current Demigods expanded even further. More skill options would go a long way to making matches more interesting... more so than even adding more heroes. Currently it's not hard to guess a hero's build at first glance, but with more options it'd be far more difficult to predict one's build.