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So first of all I have to say I LOVE the character design: her personality is really cool, her model is amazing and, overall, I thought it was pretty unique and cool to see an enchantress in full battle armor!

We were first introduced to Morgan with the 2021 God Lineup video, which introduced her with the following sentence: "Amidst the fog of war, illusions manifest; their creator instilling her authority to any that are susceptible. What is the true threat: The war on the battleground, or the war of the mind?" Now any logical assumption based on this trailer would lead the viewer to think that the character being described uses illusions, mirages, deception... whatever, to control her enemies. This was further reinforced by the teaser trailer which showed Morgan being a baddass and making Arthur see illusions upon hitting him with one of her abilities. The trailer also shows her fading away in a rather mysterious way only to reappear casting what looks like her ultimate, in which the sword is on the ground and seemingly absorbing and CCing Arthur and Merlin (who look really hot in this trailer).

So, once again, I think it is safe to say that all teasers and trailers described her, at the very least, as a control mage which relied on illusions. I was disappointed when I realized this was not the case, and, in my opinion, while her kit is really cool and well designed, I don't understand how it can fit Morgan Le Fay. I like the twist that she is kinda like a battlemage and uses her enchanted sword, and I think that is a really good twist that fits the character, but her skills... feel weird to me. The most powerful enchantress shoots a fireball, summons a dragon and just shoots waves of energy from her sword?

I like the passive sigils, however when put together with the rest of the kit they feel just like a generic mark-on-gods passive. I don't really understand why all teasers were that misleading, as they do not hint at the playstyle of the character AT ALL. To me, she feels like she's just a character with a powerful enchanted sword, not an ancient sorcerer. And why describe her as a kind of illusion / control mage who plays with the mind of her enemies when she just spawns a clone that uses autos for 3 seconds?

Was Morgan's kit design reworked during her character creation? Was the illusion mage the original idea and then had to be changed for some reason? It's not that the kit is bad, I think it's really well executed it's just... I don't see how it is connected to Morgan Le Fay's character as described in neither in Arthurian myths nor in Smite's Lore.

EDIT: Also, while I love the heavy armour design, the minimalistic design from the God Lineup felt really really unique and stands out from the rest of the gods, it really looks like a mysterious and powerful character who is an illusionist... The flowy red fog, the delicate red gloves, the crystal ball and the magical sigil behind her...

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over 3 years ago - /u/HiRezAjax - Direct link

Morgan never really changed core kit direction or thematic direction during development. What OP is describing is a pretty common effect of working with characters with pre-established back stories and themes. Especially ones like Morgan with various different depictions across times and cultures.

Additionally, our community was getting so riled up about trying to discern every god months in advance, leading to a lot of negativity and in-fighting - so we came up with a new feature to preview all of the gods for the upcoming year. This trailer is intended to give just enough information so players can get an idea of who is coming up. It is not intended to convey playstyle or final visual design.

From day 1 on the game design team - we did not want to overdo the illusionist theme with Morgan Le Fay - we wanted her to be able to use a variety of magic types that fit to her themes and backstory.

She was often depicted with a sword, so I wanted her to wield one even though we knew (and had always planned) for her to be a true ranged mage. This felt like a nice twist that stayed true to her historical imagery as well as her themes, while still giving her just enough SMITE uniqueness.

Im sorry that our early teaser materials created such strong expectations that differed from our intent. We will be spending even more effort next year to make sure that trailer shows only vague symbols, not any character silhouettes or combat. (unless we want you to see those and they match the final i guess?)

Morgans Thematic Design, Visuals, and Kit all feel aligned to her history from our perspective, but I can see now how player opinion might disagree.

I think the entire dev team did a fantastic job with her, and she met our internal goals extremely well. I hope i can better communicate those internal goals to an external audience better next time.