Gods of Olympus UPDATE Sneak Peek - NEW Hades Move set and New features and MORE!!!

[Dom]

Hello to all, we have just got some AWESOME news on the upcoming Update with HADES. We can now bring you his move sets and extra features which you can expect real soon.

https://youtu.be/oZ_JdTlKP0g

[Keva]

nice video, got me a little hyped for the update again

[Kristina]

Getting more and more excited about this update. I don't know how much longer I can wait 😁😁😁

[alexAus]

Hades sounds badass, summon Cerberus! Had a feeling it would be that :-)

[Jay]

Nice job, Kas and Dom! We're excited about this one too! The Cerberus summon was a daunting idea, but we tried out some other ideas for ultimates before settling and... I'm sorry, nothing was as cool as summoning a 3-headed war dog from the Underworld!

The iterations have made things take a bit longer, but seeing how well Cerberus fits with the other powers makes me definitely feel glad that we took the time to really try out these different ideas!

[Deridorn]

Sad to hear dropping down to only 5 gods at once, I think 6 was a good number - nothing to stop you from just dropping 5 and saving one in reserve if you were having trouble managing 6 and there are plenty of people who can take full advantage of all 6 gods. There's a lot of synergy between abilities with 6 active gods that will get thrown out the window with this update unfortunately. Hoping devs will reconsider this change.

[Keva]

Sad to hear dropping down to only 5 gods at once, I think 6 was a good number - nothing to stop you from just dropping 5 and saving one in reserve if you were having trouble managing 6 and there are plenty of people who can take full advantage of all 6 gods. There's a lot of synergy between abilities with 6 active gods that will get thrown out the window with this update unfortunately. Hoping devs will reconsider this change.

But with the addition of Hades there are more combinations you can try and I think that reducing to 5 gods but with 2 reinforcement gods is a much better combination. I am bias as my tactic has me leaving aphro and arte till the end anyway but I'm a fan of this change

[Aurora]

Excited to experience the new updates and God mods

[Deridorn]

That's why I disagree with the change Keva - there's already nothing stopping you from just using 5 gods and saving 1 in reserve (or soon to be 2). I understand long term they have to cap the gods that can be dropped simultaneously because of ever increasing numbers of gods. But 6 has proven to be a manageable number and to artificially force players to play with 5 after players have shown 6 to work seems poorly thought out and without any consideration for what strategies it will eliminate, as well as altering the balance between offense and defense - you're capping offensive capability without putting a similar cap on defensive capability. If players want to manage fewer gods at a time, that's perfectly fine - but please don't force players to do it, though

[Deridorn]

I could probably do a better job of being more specific with my comments, let me try this again.

One of the great things about this game is that each god performs a unique function in that there is very little, if any, overlap in abilities. If you think of enemy bases as a puzzle to be solved, each god is a different piece to solving that puzzle. Need to control troops? Need more burst damage? Need more AoE damage? There's a solution to each problem and those solutions are spread out between each of the gods.

By restricting the number of gods from 6 to 5 what you are doing, in effect, is denying players access to their tools. You need more troop control? Too bad you didn't drop Aphrodite, guess you better sacrifice a god to drop her in and hope that you don't need that god's particular, unique skill set down the road. Need that long range burst? Guess you better hurry and hope you can kill off one of your other gods so you can drop Artemis in for Long Shot.

This not only encourages a very bad type of gameplay - i.e. forcing players to kill off one god so they can get access to another one - but also actually penalizes players for using any strategy that would keep their gods alive. In other words, if you're not killing off two gods at some point, you're not playing the game correctly. As Keva mentioned, there is exactly one strategy right now that isn't penalized by this radical change in game philosophy - the strategy that sacrifices Athena, Ares, and Zeus to burst down a bunch of temples and then drops in Artemis, Apollo and/or Aphrodite to clean up the temples that are left. So by rewarding only this strategy, the developers are in-effect saying "this is the only and correct way to play." And most experienced players know I'm not exaggerating - when playing anything but the burst strategy, the difference between 5 and 6 gods is huge, particularly against more complex bases.

Now, it would be one thing if base defenses were being significantly overhauled - that is, if at the same time you were removing puzzle pieces from the attacker, you were removing the ability of defenders to make their puzzles as complex as they used to be. Yet from the details of the patch that have been released, aside from the Apollo house changes it looks like defenses are going to get even stronger than they were before. It would also be different if gods were carbon copies of each other. For example, if Ares and Zeus had identical functions and skills, then yes, it doesn't matter going from 6 to 5. Ares dies? No problem, just drop in Zeus and he can keep doing whatever it is Ares was doing. But again, the gods aren't interchangeable. If you lose Aphrodite, you can't replace her by dropping Ares or Artemis. So players end up in a "damned if you don't, damned if you do" situation - if you sacrifice Aphrodite to get access to Artemis because you need Artemis at the moment, you're now stuck without Aphrodite for the rest of the match, which just creates other problems. It was one thing when you lost a god because of poor play; now, you'll be forced to actually kill off your own gods and get penalized for doing it anyway.

You might argue that once Hades is out, you're going to have to make the sacrifice anyway to get access to your 7th god even if you keep the cap at 6, so my points are moot. The difference is that the game was designed and balanced around 6 gods out at a time, not 5, and we absolutely know that 6 gods creates a decent balance between attacker strength and defender strength. So, again, unless the strength of bases is being re-balanced to reflect the reduction in the strength of attackers, you're absolutely creating a balance problem.

[Keva]

I see where you're coming from Deridorn, maybe if enough people protest they will keep it at 6, I haven't seen any other arguments about it though.

[Aronos]

I could probably do a better job of being more specific with my comments, let me try this again.

One of the great things about this game is that each god performs a unique function in that there is very little, if any, overlap in abilities. If you think of enemy bases as a puzzle to be solved, each god is a different piece to solving that puzzle. Need to control troops? Need more burst damage? Need more AoE damage? There's a solution to each problem and those solutions are spread out between each of the gods.

By restricting the number of gods from 6 to 5 what you are doing, in effect, is denying players access to their tools. You need more troop control? Too bad you didn't drop Aphrodite, guess you better sacrifice a god to drop her in and hope that you don't need that god's particular, unique skill set down the road. Need that long range burst? Guess you better hurry and hope you can kill off one of your other gods so you can drop Artemis in for Long Shot.

This not only encourages a very bad type of gameplay - i.e. forcing players to kill off one god so they can get access to another one - but also actually penalizes players for using any strategy that would keep their gods alive. In other words, if you're not killing off two gods at some point, you're not playing the game correctly. As Keva mentioned, there is exactly one strategy right now that isn't penalized by this radical change in game philosophy - the strategy that sacrifices Athena, Ares, and Zeus to burst down a bunch of temples and then drops in Artemis, Apollo and/or Aphrodite to clean up the temples that are left. So by rewarding only this strategy, the developers are in-effect saying "this is the only and correct way to play." And most experienced players know I'm not exaggerating - when playing anything but the burst strategy, the difference between 5 and 6 gods is huge, particularly against more complex bases.

Now, it would be one thing if base defenses were being significantly overhauled - that is, if at the same time you were removing puzzle pieces from the attacker, you were removing the ability of defenders to make their puzzles as complex as they used to be. Yet from the details of the patch that have been released, aside from the Apollo house changes it looks like defenses are going to get even stronger than they were before. It would also be different if gods were carbon copies of each other. For example, if Ares and Zeus had identical functions and skills, then yes, it doesn't matter going from 6 to 5. Ares dies? No problem, just drop in Zeus and he can keep doing whatever it is Ares was doing. But again, the gods aren't interchangeable. If you lose Aphrodite, you can't replace her by dropping Ares or Artemis. So players end up in a "damned if you don't, damned if you do" situation - if you sacrifice Aphrodite to get access to Artemis because you need Artemis at the moment, you're now stuck without Aphrodite for the rest of the match, which just creates other problems. It was one thing when you lost a god because of poor play; now, you'll be forced to actually kill off your own gods and get penalized for doing it anyway.

You might argue that once Hades is out, you're going to have to make the sacrifice anyway to get access to your 7th god even if you keep the cap at 6, so my points are moot. The difference is that the game was designed and balanced around 6 gods out at a time, not 5, and we absolutely know that 6 gods creates a decent balance between attacker strength and defender strength. So, again, unless the strength of bases is being re-balanced to reflect the reduction in the strength of attackers, you're absolutely creating a balance problem.

Great video Dom, you beat me to the punch!

I do agree with you though. It seems that by having too many gods in play at once it can be tricky to control, though in time the skill to individually control each god simultaneously is what will eventually separate good players from great. Each god having it's own unique set of skills means they can be used in many different ways in unison. By not having some of those tools available until one god dies, the tools you have at your disposal are limited. I'm curious if the reduction from 6 gods to 5 gods in play at once was done to make controlling the battlefield easier or if it was done to balance the strength of the attacker. It seems it's in an effort to balance the strength of offense.

It's difficult to say for certain how it will play out until we see it all in action, but you make some great points.

[Deridorn]

If this was just a quality-of-life improvement, it's a really bad idea. So I'm hoping you're right that it was an effort to balance the strength of attacks - assuming it is, I agree it's definitely a nerf to attackers Aronos, but if the problem was that attacks were too easy to win (which I don't think very many people find to be true given most people only do easy attacks) this isn't the right way to fix such a problem, nor is it really a long-term solution.

Like you said, not only are the abilities of each god unique, they fit together in unique ways. So it diminishes the game when you take away the ability of players to creatively use those interactions and makes the game less fun as a result, particularly after players have already seen how great the game can be with 6 gods. If there is a particular god or ability causing a problem, the solution is to either nerf the ability (like they're doing with long shot) or buff/add something to base defense to counter it - it's not to effectively get rid of the ability altogether or force players to sacrifice one for another.

I also had an additional concern, which might be premature (and unwarranted) since it's unclear exactly how they're handling the ability to drop gods with the proposed reduction to 5 and the ability to reorder your gods. My worry is that they may be locking players into which of the 5 gods they can drop at the start - that is, when you order your gods you lock in your "starting roster," so to speak, before you ever even queue up for an attack. If this is the case, you could drop those 5 gods in any order but if you "benched" Ares and Hades, for example, you couldn't change your mind and drop them instead of one of the five. Fingers crossed this isn't the case, but if it is, it limits player creativity even further, since it would force players to give up tools before they even know what tools they need to crack a particular base.

[Keva]

I also had an additional concern, which might be premature (and unwarranted) since it's unclear exactly how they're handling the ability to drop gods with the proposed reduction to 5 and the ability to reorder your gods. My worry is that they may be locking players into which of the 5 gods they can drop at the start - that is, when you order your gods you lock in your "starting roster," so to speak, before you ever even queue up for an attack. If this is the case, you could drop those 5 gods in any order but if you "benched" Ares and Hades, for example, you couldn't change your mind and drop them instead of one of the five. Fingers crossed this isn't the case, but if it is, it limits player creativity even further, since it would force players to give up tools before they even know what tools they need to crack a particular base.

I hadn't thought about that but I'm hoping thats not the case and I don't think it is sinces you don't know what base you are facing until you are in game