I don't understand your objection, because thats exactly whats supposed to happen. When your opponent does something, and there are a finite amount of methods of counterplay which work. If you execute one of them, you have a better chance of winning. Additionally, stacking HP is an in-game decision, not a prematch decision, which means that there is little pre-match RPS. 

Again, this happens all the time and is perfectly acceptable. AA Reg becomes weaker against any team with an Erebus. Mines Reg becomes better against melee-stacked enemy teams. Good players use this far less for some kind of pre-match metagaming than for in-match maneuvering. For example, as Sedna I try to put myself in the same lane as an enemy UB, since I can handle him easily, whereas he would have a far better time fighting against just about anyone else. 

I suppose your objection is that against certain doubled teams (say, dual UB), Sedna would become too important, and Reg would become too risky. To this I say that firstly this is unavoidable and would happen even against non-doubled teams. Sedna would still be important and Reg would still be risky against 1 Erebus 1 UB. Second, its acceptable for certain tactics to be more effective than others. You don't need to be 2x Sedna to beat 2x UB, though that would probably work. There are a wide range of build combinations that can beat 2x UB, to varying degrees. There will always be some amount of pre-game metagaming, but in my experience there is very little in Demigod in general, and I do not feel that doubles significantly increase it. 

Now heres the problem. That survivability didn't come from nowhere. It cost them several DG slots to get it. DG selection is a zero-sum affair, which means that there is no way to increase the overall number of DGDAs on a given team. A 3 man team has 3 DGDAs, period. Therefore, in your example the enemy team stacked its defense, but clearly gimped itself in all other areas (no AoE, weak offense, no stuns). If we were to rate that team they would have 10/10 in defense but very weak scores in most other areas. There is no inherent advantage in a team that goes 10-2-2-2, compared to a team that goes 4-4-4-4, or 6-5-3-2, or 5-4-4-3, etc.  

I did not coin the term, I am merely calling them by their definition. 

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

I believe it is actually you who lack understanding. You have played a grand total of 11 games this epoch, all pugs from the looks of it. 

Now that we have finished attacking each other's credibility, lets return to arguing the points. 

Obviously. But again, this is zero-sum. That survivability comes at the cost of other attributes which are equally valuable. 

I counter by stating that 3 Sednas is in fact a bad team build. Its not OP, there is no mystical magical advantage, and there is no "problem." Again, this goes back to zero-sum. They have one really good thing about their team, but everything else sucks. This is not automatically better or worse than a more balanced approach (though often worse in practice). 

This, then, is the purpose of this thread. This would be a very bad idea. For reasons I've already stated, doubles are not inherently stronger than non-doubles, and in fact are often weaker due to their singular weaknesses. Why should be ban things that are weak? 

The mentality comes from too many too often using it as a cheap tactic. And probably since no game was complete without regulus for a long time, the primary double you saw was...take a guess. People are tired of that guy, and two on the team is too many. Besides which, why would you take one and only one demigod to play, when there are eight to choose from? Talk about making the game bland, What is limiting you from choosing something else? Limiting the variety in a game with already limited variety seems like a poor idea to me.

Seriously, you're taking a game with already limited options and making it that much more redundant, why make it tedious.

briefly, the no doubles fraction complains about being forced to take a counteraction against doubles. note: this is a strategie game against human players. you will ALWAYS be forced to take counteractions against decision of your opponents.

what do you want? beiung restricted to only move your dg around?

"omg, they are focusing me. i'm forced to stack hp."

"he is stacking hp -> remove hp items, nerf them...."

let us remove items, citadell upgrades and DG levels and let just play around with what we get at the beginning?

never ever had i saw people crying for somthing similar to no doubles in any game.

i feel there's a lack of forum trolls since foreshadowed became sincere...

i'm ready to fill that gap:

i hate you all fags and doubles are just fine!!11!1!

Touch wood.

It is not even close, because there are few elements that Sedna's and Rook's abilities stack together into near-unstoppable force.

See, the problem of doubles is that while the weaknesses of the doubled character are not so much worsen, the strengths of the doubled character are, well doubled to extreme. Or, opposite thing happens, and there is no middle, stable, balanced ground for double group.

For example, if we have double rook on 3v3 situation, while double rook team is slightly below in terms of mobility, the ability of tear down defenses is much more powerful than ever. While double Sedna team is a bit terrible at crowd control, the ability to survive and pushing gets much, much greater. Now talking about double queen; while the strengths of queens are indeed increased, the weaknesses of queens are even more exploitable than ever.

In short, the real balance problem of double is that they are either extremely overpowered or very underpowered and there is no middle ground for double group.

I remember that terrible terrible article.

Hahahah and he even quotes it as his bible.

That seems to be the biggest thing in my eyes.  I don't see a big deal with the balance of doubles, but when people are using 2 (or 3) of the same hero their builds are usually the same.  It seems a bit cheap and definitely seems boring to play against.

Well there's always "pros" with huge e-peens in almost every thread calling those who disagree with them scrubs.

People play the game how they want. It's called personal preference. Some say towers on Normal strength are too easy to kill, and play on High tower strength, and some do Normal, no one is a scrub, it's personal preference.

My record against teams with 2 of the same DG is probably just the same as my record against teams with no doubles, so it's not a matter of being OP, it's personal preference. I want both teams to have variety, it's my PERSONAL PREFERENCE, if you don't like it, gtfo and find yourself another game.

Don't bullshit about there being tons of variety in 1 demigod. The reality is you have a choice of only 4 active abilities, plus a few passives which are often ignored or are often not worth it past level 1 (eg. Sniper Scope, Diseased Claws, Divine Justice), not to mention some active abilities are often not worth it past level 1 (eg. Deep Freeze, Foul Grasp, Silence, Mist). If, for example, we had a choice out of 8 possible activated abilities but could only take 4 of them, that would mean more variety and I'd likely allow doubles, but as it stands, right now the weaknesses and strengths become amplified when there's a double so the team is less balanced. I don't care if one Reg goes AF/Mines and the other Snipe/MInes, it's the same shit.

And rofl at QoT + Sedna not being hard to kill. Well sure, if you play nothing but premades against noobs, but if all players have roughly the same skill level, you have to overcome a demigod with both a heal and protection spell that are both not prone to interrupts, and are very spammable at a 7 second recharge, AND a demigod with high movement speed, a spammable heal, massive passive healing, and 2 interrupts, not to mention on top of that you have 4 high priests among the 2 of them. Oh, and don't forget that Cloak of Night is very popular among generals nowadays so even if you get them in that tough situation, they can just teleport away from you.

Until someone bothers to make a point as to why they think any part of that article is illogical, I'm not going to bother replying further. 

I'm glad you now agree that doubles are not OP. For my part, I have said numerous times that I do not care what rules you make for your own custom games. I know that in my custom games, doubles are allowed, but I would never use them, because I honestly can't think of a single doubled/tripled 2v2 or 3v3 team that is better than my favorite combinations, none of which involve doubles. Which goes back to my point of the illogicality of banning something that is weak. 

Anyways, this discussion is not about what goes on in customs. Its now about what the standardized rules for team automatch (premade land) should be. 

The article has nothing to do with fun - the primary reason most people play games of any kind.  I'd go further but I don't want to debate that garbage article again as I have many times over the years.

Do not put words in my mouth. I think i was kinda clear - even though i never said it explicitly - that i do not believe restricting anything is the answer. At the end of all this pointless debate, it is the host who sets the rules so you can call them all the names you want, they will still play by the rules they want to play by.

Step out of write only mode for a while.. read my posts for a change.. thats exactly what im trying to get past that wall of ignorance you seem to be hiding behind. It is the host that decides the rules. Not you, not even me.

So i would like to repeat your question: whats your point? Why argue about how restricting doubles is bad, when in your games you can just play with doubles all day long? Why do you care? If this thread would have been started by someone upset about doubles, demanding that they be banned.. i would understand your arguing, but right now this is just a stupid rage-thread about how some über players believe that theirs is the only right way to go.

So nope.. as much as you would love to turn this question around, it is you who should be trying to come up with an answer as it is you who seem to be intent on proving something here.
 

Not sure what you are on, but save some for me too.. kinda funny seeing you write about how I'm imagining things when it is you who keeps replying to not my words, but my thoughts i never wrote down and didnt even knew about. 
 

What i do have a problem with is stupid / ignorant people making stupid / ignorant posts in pointless threads.
 

Watch your step. If you stumble and fall from your EGO onto your IQ, you might break your neck. You should stop making things up about people you have no knowledge of. Prejudice is a bad thing.

All of the arguments made against doubles can easily be challenged by slight variations of this argument; great post.

Funny because all your posts are you just babbling on ignorantly about how it should be for the host to decide. You offer no valid evidence for any kind of a debate, and when in the face of a valid arguement you result to personal insults and foaming at the mouth screaming "I DO WHAT I WANTZ, SO DOES THE HOSTZ".

The point of this thread is to challenge idiotic rules put in place by arbitrary reasoning. Heaven forbid somone actually question people's objections to thing's they have very little reason to object to. Clearly you would rather enable idiocy, while we choose to stop it.

As I see it, there is one very simple solution to this mess:

Host your own games and make your own decisions. Don't try to tell other people how they should use or not use their rules.

That's not a solution at all, thats ignoring the problem, and completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I would rather not have demigod be one of "those" games, where we start making up arbitrary illogical rules everyone is expected to follow for no reason.

By and far the most heard objection to doubles is balance (I would argue an invalid one), either overpowered or underpowered. 

Ideally, a game should be balanced at the pro level. A casual player has no right to say something is overpowered/underpowered simply because they can't or refuse to counter it.

The second most heard objection is that it is unfun, but even if the number of abilities is decreased the number of available tactics and strategies can increase.

Consider a 3v3 team of two rooks and one sedna. I have not had the chance to play on or against this setup, but it seems like it would be a very aggressive tower team. I can't imagine one rook capable of sustaining a tower farm against pro players, but perhaps this team could revive a tower farm strategy, at least an aggressive pro version of it. 

This discussion for me is mainly in light of a tournament or pro game atmosphere, not a casual game with house rules. 

"Ideally, a game should be balanced at the pro level. A casual player has no right to say something is overpowered/underpowered simply because they can't or refuse to counter it" - That is total Bullshit. in all seriousness, if you propose that every player undertaking a game of demigod or any other game for that matter should be subject to the opinions of of overly serious twits then you're stupid. Putting people through narrow apertures for success takes the game out of the game, that is, it loses it's fun quality, and loses it's quality of being a game. Having all of the say in the hands of people who don't play at a nominal level of gameplay is preposterous and literally idiotic. You're dismissing people as unintelligent and incapable of criticism and praise, and that only the elite are meaningful portions of the community. I can't believe someone said that crap.

I don't see how.

Its not BS, its completely correct. Balance only takes into consideration the potential of players in the highest level. I can't believe you or anyone else rationalizes disagreement. 

I think it may work better if only one of each demigod were allowed in a game.  Quite often, the only counter to doubles is to avoid confronting them altogether, especially if they both have stuns, shields or heals.

If both doubles are competent, the game isn't fun at all, and frequently feels hopeless, it's like one super demigod with neverending skill use.  

If neither one is particularly good, (or the demis they chose are very weak) then it isn't much different than playing any other combination of poorly played demigods.  It's as simple as that. 

Lets get a couple things straight before we move on with this discussion:

Let's define "counter"

As Soffacet said before, several pages ago, each demigod has multiple builds. So with demigod X, you have Xa, Xb, and Xc.

(For example, Spit Beast, Ooze Beast, and Hybrid Beast. Which one is better overall is moot to this discussion.)

Xa, Xb, and Xc all do well in different situations, i.e. Xa may be good against demigod Ya, and Xb may be good against demigod Yb. This holds true for a good percentage of situations in demigod. But there is a problem, demigod is not as simple as 1 v 1.

The only serious games to consider are games 2 v 2 and above, and below 5 v 5. Doubles at 5 v 5 is far too frequent, as there is only 8 demigods, plus the existence of 3 other demigods on the team offsets the "doubling" i think.

Xa may beat Ya flat out, but there are an astronomical number of other factors that go into each engagement between demigods. There are teammates, items, experience levels, citadel upgrades, creep presence, etc. So even though Xa may beat Ya on the open field with no flags, items, creeps, etc, no single engagement will ever be like that.

There are so many ways to fluctuate the "balance" of the engagement that one can say that there is no solid counter to any single demigod out there (again, barring a pure 1 v 1 nothing else engagement). So essentially, even if you have Xa, Ya shouldn't be ready to hit the concede button the first time he fights.

Ok, so hopefully i made sense in showing that no single build can guaruntee a defeat of another build 100% of the time. I do grant that builds do have strengths over others, but high level players can work around these.

The other thing is that doubling up Xa, so essentialy Xa + Xa, does not net you some "extra" demigod power. Adding together two Demigod Defining Abilities (DGDA's reffered to earlier), does not give you some magical multiplier in their strength. Also, adding together two strengths leaves the other team open to 2 times their weaknesses. For example, if you went up against a double spit beast, they would have twice the harrasment power! But, they would also lack the close in melee damage that ooze offers, and they would be far squishier. Versus twin ooze beast, which would leave them very very weak to range harrasment.

Xa + Xa /= nXa where n > 2

Xa + Xa = 2Xa always.

Twin sniping regulus, for example, grants them insane sniping damage! but they BOTH lack what the other builds give them.

Essentially you become twice as powerful against what you already were good against as that 1 reg, but you become twice as weak against what you were already weak against.

Also, people, you cannot say that "OMG. TWO LEVEL 15 SNIPES DOES INSANE DAMGE!!! ITS SO OVERPOWERED!!!" Well shit. Its two level 15 snipes? wtf do you expect? Hopefully you have some level 15 skills of your own that do good?

So, double demigods? Should they be banned permanantly? No, of course not.

Double demigods, can you ban them from your custom games? Sure, go ahead, its your game.

Double demigods, are they overpowered? Sure, if you pick the things they are good against, and fail to realize it and adjust your strategy.

Please, do not flame here. We are trying to have a serious discussion. lets keep it friendly

Can't quote, so I and you will have to do without. No, you did not say that being a casual player was a bad thing, but you do dismiss them as thinking people. People's ability to observe things is not limited to long term play in a game, in fact, fresh and newer impressions are frequently crucial to any sort of meaninful change.

Everyone is concerned with winning, people enter into games to play a game, but frankly noone goes in planning on losing, they may be ok with losing, but they're trying to win. Even if the odds seem against them, unless seriously depressed or simply indulging someone else, noone goes into their games planning on a loss. It's considered on every level of player, (except the most inexperienced, who are hopefully are looking to learn about the game, and even they want to win, though more in the long term). Every person who plays the game is going to be pursuing a victory in the game, and their musings and considerations on the subject are every bit as valuable as any "pro" this game will ever produce. More so in fact, because they represent a larger portion of the population...unless it degenerates into only a small community of pro players.

And Counterpoint: Those who lose the most would know the most about balance. A glaringly obvious flaw is a glaringly obvious flaw, especially when people have become acclimated to a broken system.

SoFFacet: Pose a whole argument, not a dismissal.

btw: Your attitudes are so Egalitarian they make me sick, luckily demigod doesn't matter in any large scheme. It's a little pond...

Your attitudes are so Egalitarian they make me sick. - that word doesn't mean what you think it means 


And yes I totally disagree, I think if you observe high levels of play a lot more is involved that a casual player is not aware of and cannot acount for. If balance was majority rule tower rook would have been nerfed into the ground long ago despite being easily counterable. Some players consider tower a rook "a glaringly obvious flaw" to this day.

And yes I am an elitist in the sense that I think both an airplane pilot and a taxi driver are looking not to crash, but there is only one I want to fly the plane when I travel.