Demigod vs Heroes of Newerth
Right up until the point when the game starts, HoN blows Demigod out of the water. But once in game, there are very few redeeming qualities to it.
| Demigod | Heroes of Newerth | ||
| Models | Very detailed, easy to tell apart from one another | A lot of them are very similar in look, and all are low detail | |
| Animations | Very good, as has been shown in slow motion videos, and gameplay | Fairly Decent, however often not obvious what an animation is communicating | |
| Camera Control | Good when you want to follow a DG and great if you want to zoom out | No Zoom control, small field of view. However, does have a 'go to last event' button which is very good. | |
| Unit Control | Better since release, cannot assign hotkeys to unit groups, but all possible variations pre exist and are bindable | Has the strong 'tab between unit groups' effect, and location based hotkeys, hard to select units not on screen unless a hotkey is bound | |
| Character Development | 8 different skills, and a pace that generally allows you to get only about half means that | 4 Different skills, + stat boosts make builds very similar, skill wise, after 12 levels of play (which is halfway to level cap). However, increased diferences in item choices makes up for this to a certain extent. | |
| Magnitude | While Demigod has a lot of maps, only 2 or 3 are commonly played. Demigod's item selection is comparatively limited, as is the number of different DG's to choose from. | The clear winner if you want a game with a lot of variety, somewhat limited info though as there may be more maps than listed in the beta. As it is, character/item combinations are vast, while maps are very small without even a chance at variety | |
| Balance | Good 'external' balance. That is, each Demigod is pretty well balanced with the others. Only one in 8 stands out as weak. Internally though, item vs item balance is pretty poor, as are many skill choices. | Not enough information to go by, but it seems a lot of Heroes are played only very rarely. | |
| Game Pace | 80% Awesome on most maps. Citadel upgrades, flags, and warscore give the game a very solid rhythm that is easy to follow. Games can feel like they end 'suddenly' at war rank 8 if you are not used to this beat however. | Lacks in rhythm pretty significantly in two areas. First the general progress of the game plods along without much interaction. Secondly, hero vs hero combat can last less than 5 seconds before someone is killed. Imagine DG but with only AA Regulus' | |
| Match Making | Very poor, pantheon is poorly populated, and custom games have very bare bones lobby system working in it. | Extremely good, stats for players easily viewable, projected victory chance, 'points' at stake in a match, options to limit or alter game settings that are meaningful (No dup hero's, no respawn timer, etc) Replay options, remake options, and well integrated consequences for quitting a game early. This is the reason you play HoN. | |
| Learning Curve | Demigod adds new concepts to the idea of a 'dota' game, in flags and citadel upgrades, and warscore. In addition to learning the ins and outs of abilities and items, you must also learn these 'meta' skills on how to help your team as a whole. The in game UI however is fairly poor at communicating information at times however, and surely doesn't go out of its way to help you. | On the other hand, HoN has less new things to learn, but significantly more possible game scenarios to be in. With 40 hero's having 4 skills each, you need to know how to play against 160 different skills. The deep amount of items, and recipes (Some recipe's require other recipes) also will put you up against the wall. All that said, however, the in game UI is very well geared to give you all the info you want. You can see an opponents items, and allies to help you learn, and recipe's allow you to purchase items for it from the ingredient list |
Match making and game Magnitude are definitely the domain of HoN, but I'd say that DG is at least on par or better everywhere else. Just my little analysis.