QFT  It has only been a couple of days. Give this issue some time to work itself out. We can revisit this subject after a reasonable period of time.

One thing that needs to be addressed ASAP is the multiple idol bug. I believe that most of the ire that I am seeing is a result of exploiting that bug. Get rid of it, and leave the generals with their 6 minions as intended, and this should become a non-issue.

I find this whole conversation funny because gamefaqs.com had a similar post about how OP the Assassin demigods were and how they SHOULD be balanced.  There is no legitimate and objective difference that gives one an advantage over another, players just simply see one or a few instances and create facts based around them.

If you give gold or experience for minions they'll be targets for a quick couple of levels or some nice item upgrades.  As mentioned before they'll be viewed as a hinderance for the rest of their team.

There should be no change to a General's minions at all.  Generals don't dominate the boards, they don't run maps unopposed, and they're not the center of teams.  The day Generals run rampant over the boards and online world, unchecked, with no one able to defest them due to their superior default build, stats, and unfallable tactics we can nerf them.

Despite the tactics described for using minions as fodder, I can tell you from skirmishing every type of computer AI and human players, that they pose as great a threat as the gamer has skill and understanding.  If you're getting owned by a demigod and you don't do anything to adapt your tactics or strategy, they'll outlevel, outmatch, and outplay you.  Don't blame the game balance for your shortcomings as a gamer.

I plan on trying this tactic to see how well it works.  I'd also love to see some large scale orgainzed 5 QoT's for example try this as well. 

Definitely need to play quite a few games/test cases to see if it's an issue every game or just some games.  If you're level 20, it might be a great idea, but if you're not max level to me loosing experiance/gold is just not worth it.

But I'll try to do some testing

At the moment, this seems to be the case.

dota is dota..demigod is a game

We're really making weak fodder units (idols) into superweapons via this conversation.  Unless you have enough money and enough mana and enough regen (which takes leveling and some combat) you can't spam anything beyond level I or II idols, which are weak anyway. 

As the demigods level, experience gives diminishing returns and at some point killing the masses of portal spawn doesn't mean much - no different from killing the maximum of 6 idol spawn per general that give no experience.

I have yet to be in a match where my opponent had an issue leveling because of the lack of experience from idol spawn, thereby crippling his/her combat prowess and growth potential.  Too much of this argument is based around such isolated and unique "perfect hypothetical example" situations.

The facts still remain:

-if you sit in camp and throw your minions into distant battles you'll only be using idols

-you'll stagnate your leveing (crippling 2/4 generals spawning abilities and forcing the above^)

-2/4 general's minions can't be utilized because they need to be in the front line (need dead bodies)

-fog of war will impede any real versatility with the neverending idol spawn argument

-idol spawn are glorified portal spawn (without their general, the effectiveness of idol spawn is diminished and any General specific minions are stunted due to the above)

As far as I've seen, there's no problem with minions and idols, aside from the bug with 2+ of the same type, ofc. I've been playing QoT most of the games, and the minions get countered pretty easily. Newer players (as in, first game or so) seem to have problems with them, but mostly players can just ignore the minions and go after the DG. It's harder, with the minions blocking and doing damage, but doable. It feels pretty balanced, as at least with QoT minion build I can barely kill DGs. I can assist teammates, push the creeps and destroy towers, but I can't chase or burst DGs. Which, among other things means, I don't get that much gold, and buying/upgrading idols is often away from survivability, mana regen and damage. Mana isn't that big problem normally, but resummoning minions is a strain till late game.

Should minions give exp/gold when killed, I'd pretty much go for other builds. Killing minions isn't that hard for many DGs, and when there's incentive for doing so, minions would end up dying all the time, while fattening up the opposing team. One fix might be adjusting the cooldowns, 25s is pretty low. On the other hand, if the minion army has just been killed, the DG is pretty much useless until it can summon more. Could be good thing, though :/

Also, on late game, when mana isn't that big issue for summons, assassins and minionless generals tend to get pretty strong. Using minions should also scale all the way till late game, and not become obsolete at some point, when the DG controlling them can just be killed and the minions ignored.

Some kind of aura solution sound nice, I don't see any big problems there.

Ofc these are just my feelings about this, and it could be that I'm simply not very good at the game, or at using minions. But it's pretty early to say much about the balance anyway, as so many people are new to the game.

And Marikir, summonable minions didn't exacltly lead to last hitting in DotA, it's present all the time. And it's micro hell, especially on melee heroes. Generally, summonables in DotA aren't worth killing if it's just possible to go for the hero, as they aren't that dangerous, but if one wanders conveniently near, free gold. Except Necrobook summons, summons in DotA don't really need that much micro. Pretty much because of control groups, and summons not having their own minds

Whoa, now this has become an opinion of the title post-release, not a legitimate and objective appraisal of the game lacking your input and advice via beta feedback.  You've also made your opinions numerous by making "I" into "WE" and although there are some who agree with you there are those that don't, some of which may be developers.

And what's this--->"to make it much better than what it has turned out to be"

Who are you to discern whether this game, which has really only been out for a week (I'm not counting the Gamespot mistake) as a success or not?  So if they would have taken your advice and taxed the Generals more than they already do this game would have taken off and hit platinum sales?  Unless I'm mistaken the only real complaints were with connectivity to servers and other multiplayer issues - these are the constants and are legitimate and universal complaints.

I'm all for balance, but if nothing is broken why alter the game?  No complaint on this thread is beyond personal interpretation of a personal experience.  General's spamming minions isn't even exploited, so why cripple the 99.99% of demigod players who utilize Generals just as legitimately as any Assassin player?

Cripple the General's and then that portion of the community will complain when they can't effectively combat a tower Rook or Torch Bearer, then they'll beg to nerf Assassins (just like they're already doing on gamefaqs with Regulus - which is another good counter to this argument).

Is no one able to admit their lack of tactical adaptation to any in-game situation?  Because there's no possible way the complainers are really to blame.  There's no possible way they simply refuse to adapt and grow beyond their tunnel vision tactics to adapt to the ever-changing battlefield.  You're right, we need to nerf the whole game and 1/2 the demigods because of poorly elaborated and supported theory that Generals are the end-all be-all in diverse and cheap warfare.

Well if we change the Generals let's change the Assassins as well.  The Rook was mentioned 1 or 2 posts prior, comparing his hammer to the minions.  Let's run with this...the Rook's hammer strike mana cost and cooldown will be determined by the # of units hit to prevent spamming of this large and powerful attack.  Few units hit will grant and smaller cost and cooldown, many units hit will mean the opposite.

Well, it just makes minions obsolete. Atm pretty much any general can be just as effective, if not more, when just skipping minions. Add to that minions making opponents stronger, and there's no reason to use them.