Zechnophobe

Demigod vs Heroes of Newerth

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.

30,080 views 42 replies
Reply #26 Top

Quoting obscenitor, reply 25
I'm sure HoN/LoL have done a lot of things better than DG, but I find being unable to zoom out and see what in the hell is going on extremely tedious and can't enjoy those two.

I found it frustrating the first few games I played after Demigods beautiful camera but it's really no different than playing most RTS.

Reply #27 Top

Quoting Somaz, reply 23

Quoting gkrit, reply 19
LOL! you are deluded by your love for HoN.

LOL again.. clearly biased...

Threads like these get so stupid when you got ppl like this...

 

I will now sum up what you have said and how much did you contribute to the thread:

LOL

Quoting Somaz, reply 9
This thread put a smile on my face.

How can you compare the 2? HoN is so much better. And the models are really nice! Have you tried zooming in? There are so many more features in HoN than there are in Demigod.

 

And HoN wins simply because:

HoN is still beta. And I will pre-purchase it while it's in beta. And believe me, I don't buy games very often.

Demigod has been released for several months. And I won't buy it (at least not until 2 new demi's are in and Demigod: Clan Wars comes out).

man, ur funny!

ur laughing at my contribution to the thread... ur a joke and this thread is a joke.
"HoN simply wins because..." your gonna pre order it and because you dont buy games often, its supposed to emphasize HOW much better HoN is???  .......... WTF!

"Demigod has been released for several months. And I won't buy it (at least not until 2 new demi's are in and Demigod: Clan Wars comes out)." ... hmm, so just because it doesnt have 10 demigods, it makes this demigod suk that much more? Well judging from my experience and observation once a person tries a specific character and they like that char, they will use that character 80% of the time over all other characters. Only switching chars for a bit of variation.

Dont judge by numbers, judge by the quality of gameplay and if you dont like it then thats YOUR opinion.

I love watching ppl fight over "which game is better?!?". Its a matter of opinion/preference. For me, graphics/effects play a huge role in my interest for a game (along with other things of course), but im not gonna say to someone "MY GAME IS BETTER THAN YOURS".

Hows that for contribution?

Reply #28 Top

Out of curiosity, how often is HON updated?

I'm not a fan after having watched some mates play, as the same things that I dislike in Dota remain in HON.

But i'm assuming that even if the company puts in less support after the beta is finished and th product is shipped, that it'll still be the  (only?) main focus of the developer.

Reply #29 Top

Quoting kitch45, reply 28
Out of curiosity, how often is HON updated?

I'm not a fan after having watched some mates play, as the same things that I dislike in Dota remain in HON.

But i'm assuming that even if the company puts in less support after the beta is finished and th product is shipped, that it'll still be the  (only?) main focus of the developer.

Patches look to have slowed down after a slew of fixes if you look at their twitter: http://twitter.com/heroesofnewerth#/heroesofnewerth

But that may be due to the beta becoming more stable as balance becomes the priority over minor bugs.

Hard to tell how often it will be updated post-release, but their other game Savage 2 has recieved ~40 patches since its Jan 2008 release.

Reply #30 Top

Both are very fun games.  The playerbase, number of players is very important to me.  HoN has 10 times the numbers of players playing.  I'm play HoN everyday and never meet the same person.   This is the reason why I left demigod and keep playing HoN.

Demigod peak hours has about 2,800 people.

HoN peak hours has about 28,000 people.

 

Getting a game going in HoN usually takes less than 3 minutes. 

Reply #31 Top

"Game Pace - Sorry but HoN wins hands down here, the game is constantly moving and every action counts. You think it drifts along, then were you playing EM?"

LOL! you are deluded by your love for HoN.

 

Err did you read my next post, where I said I would recommend Demigod to new players.

It helps if you actually read someones contribution.

As it stands, I have played both games quite a lot. Demigod after 60+ hours has very little newness about it. HoN after 60 hours still has heroes I haven't even tried yet.

DG is a great casual player game. The mechanics are solid and there are many things I prefer about it, I like the strategic emphasis. It does have a great hole in content, only having 8 DGs for me, really hurts the game. It limits the combinations in teams and strategies.

Why am I deluded by my love for the game? HoN is always active, there is always something to do. I don't see how the game can drift by. When you are a new player, it may seem like that, because you don't know what to do and there is a lot of choice. The default map is huge compared to DG, DG is very immediate, you know that you head straight to the lane or cap a flag. In HoN, you can run around the map doing nothing. You may think the game just drifts by, especially if you are carried by some good players, however, it is not, you are just playing badly.

 

The next point for me as well is the frustration of PUG teams. HoN/DoTa is a lot more forgiving, yes a feeder makes it harder, but doesn't completely destroy your chances. A good player with a carry type char can still pull it off for the team. The game goes back and forth a lot. DG doesn't have that at all. You have a feeder = game over, a good player in DG cannot carry a team, the whole team needs to be at least a decent standard.

Both games are not perfect, I would give both a solid 8 out of 10. They are different aspects of the same genre. HoN will win out in terms of longetivity IMO.

Reply #32 Top

Quoting kitch45, reply 28
Out of curiosity, how often is HON updated?

I'm not a fan after having watched some mates play, as the same things that I dislike in Dota remain in HON.

But i'm assuming that even if the company puts in less support after the beta is finished and th product is shipped, that it'll still be the  (only?) main focus of the developer.

 

There's usually a new hero or some other pretty major changes every 1-3 weeks. (New heroes/hero ports, new items, new maps, enabling game modes etc.)

Reply #33 Top

Quoting Blitz64, reply 30
Both are very fun games.  The playerbase, number of players is very important to me.  HoN has 10 times the numbers of players playing.  I'm play HoN everyday and never meet the same person.   This is the reason why I left demigod and keep playing HoN.

Demigod peak hours has about 2,800 people.

HoN peak hours has about 28,000 people.

 

Getting a game going in HoN usually takes less than 3 minutes. 

HoN is still free.

 

Reply #34 Top

Quoting Polynomial, reply 33

HoN is still free.

So are many other things, that doesn't automatically mean people devote a lot of time to them. That the DotA crowd has seemingly migrated to HoN and not gone back after seeing what it's like is significant, I think to dismiss the player numbers HoN boasts due to it being a free beta is premature. There has to be quality there in order to keep the consistently high numbers playing, otherwise people would go back to playing whatever it was they were before the HoN beta.

Quake Live is free, but there's still not very high player numbers because the gameplay is stale and the world has moved on from that style of game.

Reply #35 Top

sinzor - i only said that coz i completely disagreed with you on that aspect of gameplay.

The default map is huge compared to DG, DG is very immediate, you know that you head straight to the lane or cap a flag. In HoN, you can run around the map doing nothing. You may think the game just drifts by, especially if you are carried by some good players, however, it is not, you are just playing badly.

is this a good thing or a bad thing? if you r for huge maps, im against you on this aspect aswell. Why would you want a huge map? does it rlly enhance the "fun" factor of the game? are you having fun running around the place? if im missing the point lemme know.

Reply #36 Top

Quoting gkrit, reply 35
sinzor - i only said that coz i completely disagreed with you on that aspect of gameplay.


The default map is huge compared to DG, DG is very immediate, you know that you head straight to the lane or cap a flag. In HoN, you can run around the map doing nothing. You may think the game just drifts by, especially if you are carried by some good players, however, it is not, you are just playing badly.
is this a good thing or a bad thing? if you r for huge maps, im against you on this aspect aswell. Why would you want a huge map? does it rlly enhance the "fun" factor of the game? are you having fun running around the place? if im missing the point lemme know.

 

You think the completely featureless Demigod maps are fun? They're one of the biggest letdowns in the game...

Reply #37 Top

I don't understand why ItchyDustbin posts here anymore.

Reply #38 Top

Quoting RapierX, reply 17

http://hon.slawed.net/view.php?nick=Zechnophobe&View+Stats=View+Stats

If that's his stats he really doesn't know anything about the game yet other than what it looks like. :/

I'll put it simply like this: If you want a fun game to play, then enjoy demigod. If you want a game with a lot of depth to it (and competition to go with it) then play HoN.

Uh, I think I am going to have to assume the OP is correct that HoN has a toxic community if no less than two players have called the OP out on his stats on the first page  in a forum that ISN'T EVEN DEDICATED TO HON.

Sorry, but I'm tired of the "you need to have played 500+ games for your opinion to matter" crowd, so I won't even be looking at HoN.  If this is the way the community behaves, I'm much happier sticking with Demigod.

Edit:  If competition over gameplay is your thing, that's all good.  But you should understand that when Frogboy says that "this might not be the game for you" then he is probably right - DG is not the game for you.

Personally I'd rather have fun than play an e-sport.

And just as an aside to all those saying HoN is free - isn't HoN a microtransaction game, or am I confusing it with LoL?  I can't see a game in which the players who pay the most money get the coolest items being considered "competitive."

Reply #39 Top

Quoting Lord_Ryptos_The_Green, reply 38

Quoting RapierX, reply 17
http://hon.slawed.net/view.php?nick=Zechnophobe&View+Stats=View+Stats

If that's his stats he really doesn't know anything about the game yet other than what it looks like. :/

I'll put it simply like this: If you want a fun game to play, then enjoy demigod. If you want a game with a lot of depth to it (and competition to go with it) then play HoN.

Uh, I think I am going to have to assume the OP is correct that HoN has a toxic community if no less than two players have called the OP out on his stats on the first page  in a forum that ISN'T EVEN DEDICATED TO HON.

Sorry, but I'm tired of the "you need to have played 500+ games for your opinion to matter" crowd, so I won't even be looking at HoN.  If this is the way the community behaves, I'm much happier sticking with Demigod.

500? You're funny. Missing a few zeroes.

Reply #40 Top

Quoting Lord_Ryptos_The_Green, reply 38



Quoting RapierX,
reply 17

http://hon.slawed.net/view.php?nick=Zechnophobe&View+Stats=View+Stats

If that's his stats he really doesn't know anything about the game yet other than what it looks like. :/

I'll put it simply like this: If you want a fun game to play, then enjoy demigod. If you want a game with a lot of depth to it (and competition to go with it) then play HoN.



Uh, I think I am going to have to assume the OP is correct that HoN has a toxic community if no less than two players have called the OP out on his stats on the first page  in a forum that ISN'T EVEN DEDICATED TO HON.

Sorry, but I'm tired of the "you need to have played 500+ games for your opinion to matter" crowd, so I won't even be looking at HoN.  If this is the way the community behaves, I'm much happier sticking with Demigod.

 

Or it could be that since I never played dota, my opinions of HoN differed greatly between the first 10 games and the first 100 I played? There's a lot to the game, you don't understand all that much only playing 4 games.

Reply #41 Top

"You think the completely featureless Demigod maps are fun? They're one of the biggest letdowns in the game..."

urhhh .... WTF once again!

u think the maps are featureless? you sure you're playing demigod?

Quoting Polynomial, reply 37
I don't understand why ItchyDustbin posts here anymore.

LOL. good to know you got my bak :P

 

Reply #42 Top

Quoting Lord_Ryptos_The_Green, reply 38

Uh, I think I am going to have to assume the OP is correct that HoN has a toxic community if no less than two players have called the OP out on his stats on the first page  in a forum that ISN'T EVEN DEDICATED TO HON.

Sorry, but I'm tired of the "you need to have played 500+ games for your opinion to matter" crowd, so I won't even be looking at HoN.  If this is the way the community behaves, I'm much happier sticking with Demigod.

You don´t need to play over 500 games in order to get an opinion about HoN.

I just wanted to say with my post, that you´re not able to talk about balance stuff if you played 4 games in a game. Except if there is maybe a "+1 Win for me" skill on a hero/item :D