Wait what, so mechanics that punish good players are good? How? If you really want something like that, make it so that you can turn it on/off in custom games, but otherwise it's a horrible idea.

If both teams are of equal skill and actually coordinate, neither is going to get a lot of kills, if any, for a long time.

Really, a few early kills don't matter nearly as much as people say it does. Usually it just tells that there's a player in the other team who isn't all that good, since dying early is actually pretty hard if you know what you're doing.

Viisari, if you are playing a 4v4 (entirely likely now with the improved connections), and one guy on your side is a newbie, the other 7 players are good. He is going to get slaughtered and feed the opposition so bad that they become unstopable. Making it so farming this player nets less gold over time could help the other 3 stay competitive. Thats why I think it is a good idea.

 If you mean from the other side, elite player owns half decent player, well, he is going to win anyway. Again, reducing the gold for repeatadly killing the same player just means it takes longer to get super-uber-weapons-of-doom, so the game remains interesting for a bit longer. Same outcome, but less of a slaughter fest.

 I like that idea but can understand why you want to reward the better player, of course, I agree with that concept on principles.

Well tbh, it won't make much difference in a game like that since it's basically 4vs3, and even with your system the good team would get a very big gold advantage in addition to the one they already have. And on that second point, I don't see why you'd want mechanics that just make games longer even though they've been decided a long time ago. I'd rather just finnish it quickly and go play a new game.

So it's not a 'terrible' idea, but it'd just drag the games needlesly when you could just use the time it'd take to finnish your current game to play a new a game that isn't already decided.

1000 gold from creep killing? Have you played this game?

Fact is, the early game is very important in any resource-based competition (be it Starcraft or whatever), and as soon as one team gets the ball rolling, it will work in their favour. Trying to balance the game with regards to unskilled players (playing with skilled ones) or AI is pretty dumb, since it's not what the game should be about, or at least nothing that can be taken into consideration without affecting legit same-level play.

Those ragequitters should drop the notion that they should be able to run anywhere they want on the map without risking the entire game. Because they do, and you have to play with that in mind. Since they appearently dropped knowing this, I'm confused why people won't adjust their gameplay accordingly and play more defensively early on.

If the overall meta-game in Demigod subsequently devolves into a turtling zerg-fest because of this, where every DG team constantly has to stick together behind towers to even have a chance of winning, and every match in decided when the first DG dies, then so be it. That's when the devs should reconsider if this is what their original vision looked like.

Even so, no matter how much you nerf certain aspects of the game, there will always be players so skilled that killing the first DG still gives them an advantage.

In a 3v3 I agree with you, theres little reason why you should die, but in a 4v4 an early coordinated nuke on one player will get a kill in most cases. Consider tb/Sed go up one lane, fireballing and pouncing one player, then Oak who is slightly behind casts penitence and a Reg from the other lane casts snipe. That's a kill in a lot of cases and tbh the player who got hit probably hasnt done anything wrong. His entire team could be sitting right next to him and he would still die.

So I don't agree that coordinated teams will result in less kills, if anything they will result in more since in order to block an attack like that at any point in the game you will need split second reflexes from someone to interrupt the pounce, or shield, heal, or bramble shield the target to prevent the kill.

EDIT: Oak should penitance first for the debuff. Silly me.

I personally think that gold from killing demigods should be lowered (a bit), but the main issue is the gold assist distribution. For instance, if you kill a DG, the person who did the last hit will get the full cash cow, while potentially all the other players who tapped the dead DG prior to death will get half of that amount. Some math:

Case 1: 2 players gang up on one DG = $ (killing blow) + 0.5 * $ (assist) = 1.5 * $ (total)

Case 2: 5 players gang up on one DG = $ (killing blow) + 0.5 (assist ratio) * 4 (number of assisters) * $ = 3 * $

Twice the gold is handed out for killing the same demigod to the opposing team (another reason to always "hunt in packs"). Cash should be distributed in a different manner. I know that %damage dealed would mean %gold gained but this is hard to implement with heals/shields and other factors.

Maybe something in the whereabouts of:

$ = total cash gained from killing demigod (according to level)

Demigod dealing the killing blow = 0.33 * $

A demigod who dealt damage (includes killing blow dealer) = (0.66 * $) / NumOfDamageDealers

That way, for 900 gold bounty for killing a demigod by 3 players you would get:

Damage dealer = (0.66 * 900) / 3 = 200 per demigod

Killing blow will receive an extra 300 cash. Just an idea

The formula for gold/kill seem to be 500+100x where x=level of demigod dying atm.

May seem like a good formula at first glance, however since every demigod easily reaches level 4-5 in just a few minutes, when each kill start giving 1000+ gold, having a ai/bad player who dies alot on your team can quickly turn the tides on you. I propose the formula be changed to either 250+50x, or 125+75x, which would approximately halve the amount of rage quitters as well as making the games longer and more interesting.

Well that's true, but personally I wouldn't go near if I saw three DG's on a flag, I'd just harass them just outside their range. Plus if all three of the four are in the same place, that makes it pretty easy for the your team to take control of the map, which will probably just end up hurting the would-be gankers. So imo if they can get all their nukes on you you've already screwed up somewhere. And even if they can get them all to hit you, at lvl 1 they're not enough to kill any dg, even though you'll be left with very little health (in which case healing potions/universal gadget can save your ass).

But sure it is possible to get early kills even if both teams know what they're doing, but one early kill will hardly change the course of the whole game, and getting a second kill will be a lot harder since the guy they killed (and his team) will be on his toes now.

Dieing early game does not mean you are going to lose. I think they disconnect more out of emberassment or rage than figuring they can't win at that point.

I don't think the amount of gold you get is really over the top nor does it make it game breaking.

Diminishing returns on DG kills? Screw that. I don't want to be gimped for being the better player, thank you. That is along the lines of martyrdom in Call of Duty... it helps noobs do better by sucking. Bad idea, especially for competitive play.

Both good points.

But I think that the problem is not in fact the gold gained from Demi kills, but rather the skill level differentiation between players. Perhaps we should be worried less about how much a free 'noob' kill warrants, and more on making sure the players are all on the same level? Matchmaking systems are key. Right now, we need to improve ours.

You can only come back from it if the other team is shit.

Just stop trying to be Rambo. The game is fine without noobs.

I agree that something needs to be eased up when dying early. An early death sets you so far behind that it is very difficult to recover from it. Not only does the enemy now have better items, but the time you are sitting on the sideline (this includes getting yourself back to the action) can often put you a couple levels behind. The makes you the automatic focus target from the enemy team, pretty much eliminating you from ever getting back into the action.

It is true that in a traditional RTS, you get an advantage by succesfully striking early, but the team that is behind has a large number of ways to outsmart, trick, or trap you that really doesn't exist in this game.

/this

Gold per kill is fine, one kill mean nothing.

If a team stack a lot more kills the other team is inferior, but, since the game is so awesome, you can still pull it off if you ouplay them with flags and portals

You would only be able to see the Sedna for sure, TB and Oak may be outside the fog and Reg could be miles away in the other lane. At the very first level you would be ok so long as you suffered no more hits, at level 4 you will take ~1900 damage from the nukes which is more health than some heroes have, and within an autoattack or two of the others. This is approximate of course, but you can surely appreciate even a good player could die very easily to a coordinated nuke in the eaerly game. As for covering the rest of the map, this would take, what, 5 seconds? I don't think the consequences of the enemy having map control for a creep wave are as dire as the other team getting a big sack of gold.

You have a minimap, you know. "Hey, four enemy demis are missing! That sounds like a -gank-!."

I love this idea, seconded a billion times.

This is really the core problem behind the main issue in this game, which is that noobs and AIs "feed" the enemy and provide them with an insane advantage. A great player, a competent player, and a noob/AI vs three competent players will get FUCKED, no question. That's not good, the great player should cancel out his worthless teammate. Otherwise you're breeding hatred for noobs, which is obviously not good for the community.

Make acquiring gold less about being a greedy twitch FPS-esque killstealer and more about providing a decent but not necessarily game-winning by itself bonus to your team.

I don't think it would "punish" good players.

Some games use similar pratices to dissuade players from using very obvious advantages to expliot easy kills. WoW as one example has (or had) dimishing returns on honor gained from kills or elimated honor gained completely if the oposing player was a low enough lvl.

How much skill does it take for a good player to kill an AI opponent that basicly suicides itself into other players half the time? Or to kill a players 10 lvls below him/her? If the lvl diff is high enough you can pretty much butcher someone even if they are standing on thier regen crystal (the brothers map is a good example).

Granted noobish players are going to get beat badly and everyone needs to learn eventualy, but in a 4v4 the other players will have a hard enough time trying to pick up the slack let alone have to deal the other team having a cash cow advantage.

Its just a sugestion anyways

Yeah even with best intentions kill "stealing" happens alot, a passive increase for your team does sound a little better than ammount per kill.