Ok, seems i didnt get one thing.

Right now, we just have the 3 Demigods Rook, Remulus and Torchy. And.. there will be a opponent faction, thats what i thought already. But.. which number is now correct? 8 per side? 8 total?

8 per Side would be more then enough for the retail imo. Since there will be 1 year of updating, there will be eventually more heros later on.

Awesome find! They all look so... amazing. Now I really can't wait for beta 2.

the problem I see with only a few demigods is following thing:

even if you can buildup them differently, one built will be proven to be the best anyways (like in dota, you CANNOT balance it perfectly). Additionally, the demigods won´t have that much abilities, and they will be coupled with fixed base attributes like base stat, stat growth, size and attack range.

So here the effect: Even if 1 demigod had 12 abilities, this would only be equal 3 dota heroes (due to the fact that you can combine the abilities very differently), but not more. You als have to take into account that abilities themselfes are fun to use, not only fun to build. So if you got many roles your hero could fit (which will happen, at least in not-very-high-skilled-games), in the end you will remain in using the same skills (demigods havent got 12 abilities, as far as I know). And last but not least, heroes got different models, animations, stats and stories.

That´s maybe a pessimistic point of view, but I think it wouldn´t be a good idea to have a too big focus on quality. Better don´t underrate quantity, especially not in this type of game. But after all I think I first got to get a beta-key

With the way things are currently going (8 demigods at release) I like the idea that the demigods be unique per side.  In other words, both light and dark sides may choose from the same 8 demigods but there cant be repeats in the same team.

For example, I'm playing on the light side in a 4v4 match.  My teammates choose regulus, torch, and unclean beast.  I can play any of the other 5 Demigods but not one that has already been chosen.  The dark side may choose the same heroes we choose, or a whole new set as long as there are no duplicates in the same team.

This will prevent stacking abilities on the same team (i.e. 4 rooks come down the lane, boulder, boulder, slam slam, boulder boulder, slam slam, TKO push and finish base, gg).  This will also preserve some form of uniqueness.  It is conceivable that there be a light and dark rook (good/evil perchance) on the same battleground, but less crediable to have 2 or even 4 light rooks.

My 2 cents.

Devs said it.

They might be doing some enron-style accounting there, though.

The problem with using a low number of heros with various "builds" is that it is much harder to balance than many heros with 1 or 2 builds.

Because when one hero can build himself many different way, certain abilities will synergise so well as to turn out overpowered. But if the hero only has a few abilities, it is easy to control this.

That is why DotA works well and is as balanced as it is now, because it is easy to see what is overpowered and why it is, because the variations of each hero is limited.

Plus, in high level play only ~25 Heroes are balanced, i can post you a List of the Hero pick of the last season.. Why do you think there diffrent Tiers of Heroes?^^

Top Tier = 10-12 absolutley mosthave-picks for your team. But 8 of them will get banned in ALL high lvl games, because they're dangerous. Aka Gamebrakers.

Good Tier = 15-20 heroes which are not first pick but mostly 2/3 picks for your team and got a high power lvl.

Medium Tier = again 15-20, can be alternative pick to counter one good/top hero of the opponent team - or just syngerize well with 1-2 of your heros.

and then there are like 40-50 hereos which get picked mostly 0 times.

--------

Seems to be pretty unbalanced, but the diffrence between a Top and a Medium hero arent MEGA huge, but still every single factor counts. If you play dota on such a high lvl, it wont look that unbalanced to you.

Anyway, i dont hope Demigod will be like this - but i dont think its inevtiable for high lvl gaming, since there will always be a "best" build for some Demis.

So long, Aspartem

Sirpent, you're not going to convince GPG.

Please only give feedback to actually improve to game, not whine like a child.

-Brad Wardell, interview @ Shacknews: http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=995

Read the whole interview if you haven't done it already, there are more points than what I have quoted, but I didn't want to make this post a text wall. What he is saying, is that it doesn't even matter that there are only 8 Demigods instead of 100, because there are so many other areas where the game gains depth. And goes further on to say:

..which translates to: we haven't seen anything so far. We'll probably get to see alot more by beta2. I'll be joining at the second phase anyway because that's when I'm buying a new pc, my desktop is 600 miles away, and this one is a laptop and I don't have Windows installed  (where's the geek smiley! I want a geek smiley, wearing a linux hat, NOW!)

Allright, The plan is to make the 8 to 10 Demigods (as sited in latest shack interview) customizable by skill/ability choices.  Thats all fine and dandy.  There could easily be 2 or 3 typical builds of each Demigod with a number of mixed builds to cover inbetweens.  Normally min maxing has the greater competetive payback, but I diverge.

If there is to be nice Demigod Customization, Please continue to show these visibly.  I don't mean mouse over, or selecting the Demi to see what they are going, but rather deck the Demigod out appropriately.  A current example is the trebuchet on the Rook.  You can see very clearly that he has that ability and whether he has upgraded it to a tower of light. 

So, if there are customizable builds for each Demigod, please reflect the players choices in the Demigod's model/animations so as players we can identify and weigh up our allies and enemies.

You can make different Dwarven Snipers in DotA also based on items, its not some original idea he came up with... In fact Sniper has some completely different builds, Scattershot + mana regen build for super efficient creep farming and the ability to spam assassinate, or a physical damage focused build (headshot + range + stats) with items like Buriza's, with assasinate used as a finishing move, etc.

Is this the norm or the exception in dota?

More the norm rather than the exception.  Each type of hero iusually has 2 or 3 build routes. By type I mean:

Ranged Int

Ranged Dex

Melee Dex

Melee Str

and there are a few heroes that are Melee int, and ranged str.

For each of those types, there are good item paths.  For example, a Ranged Int could go disables/int items.  This captilizases on their spell casting abilities.  However, depending on their base skills, they could focus on damage only items and build a "battle mage" relying on their base intelligence score to be sufficient for the spells to suplement their damage.  .  Items builds for 1 melee strength guy are usually going to be well suited for another Melee Str hero.

Dwarven sniper is a ranged dex.  As indicated, he can go all damage, selecting headshot, ranged, build dex/damage/attack speed items.  This makes him really good to kill single targets fast with his ult (similar to Regulus's snipe) to finish off the target.  Or he can get some mana and mana regen items, spam his ranged AOE spell and push down wave after wave of creeps.  Its a trade off.  Some people will focus on making him stealthy giving him a wind walk (temporary invisibility), and picking hiding spots in the woods to initiate attacks. 

Many of the heroes in Dota have 2 or 3 paths they can take.  The paths usually merge back when the hero gets to level 25 (all skills are maxed) and they have had time to invest in the core items. 

Now, for Demigod, we don't really have the same classifications as DOTA.  First, there will only be 8 Demigods.  The 3 available Demi's can be sorted as melee tank, ranged DPS, and Ranged Caster.  We'll see a melee DPS (unclean beast), and a few generals.  It will be interesting to see how they all interact and whether they have singificantly different "builds" as indicated by the developers.  I'd love it if each Demigod has 2 to 4 viable roles/builds they can work towards, each one having a significant impact on the overall strategy of the light and dark teams.  Not only that, but that the 2 to 4 builds per demigod are fairly unique from those of other demigods.... Thats a tall order.