[2022] TTK Changes (Backliner’s Podcast)

We will absolutely be working to adjust warriors and solo lane as soon as possible. There are a lot of factors that are combining into this situation, so we always want to gather more data and feedback before we act.

We dont even have a full day of data yet, and we expect to see some interesting decisions from teams in the masters LAN, but we are prepared to buff warriors and their solo lane ability as soon as possible. Even with this feedback in PTS and the closed SPL testing phases - we did not want to act too quickly on it for the following reason:

casual vs competitive player perception.

Casual players perceive Warriors to be simply OP in every way, this is an extremely common sentiment and one that has been common for years. Casual warriors can 1v5 teams by being tanky and dealing high damage at the same time, this can occur in any game mode.

Competitive players see Warriors as jack-of-all-trades - meaning they can do a little of everything but actually arent that good at any one thing. And if they lose any strength in any one of those multiple aspects of performance, they fall quickly.

9.5 had a strong casual focus - we are aiming to address the most discussed and disliked features of SMITE combat. Warriors being oppressive and high-dps and high-tankiness at the same time was an important thing to touch to increase general sentiment toward SMITE.

However - we now, expectedly, see that most of the negative complaints regarding 9.5 are coming from Solo Laners or Warrior mains.

They were affected in 3 different ways

• TTK changes

• Conquest Changes (Minion HP)

• Hybrid Item Nerfs

We had multiple forces working against each other. For warriors to feel strong in competitive conquest - they had to be absolutely oppressive in casual game modes, or casual conquest to the point where they could be played in almost any role and snowball a game.

We think its clear that we should avoid that situation and move toward some new goals and shifts.

Maybe we see warriors appear more as flex picks, showing up in many roles - and maybe we see solo lane have more various classes picked there. If overall the total warrior play count is the same, wouldnt that be ok? Possibly even much better for SMITE players of all audiences?

Or, more likely, Warriors just need some slight balance shifts to help them clear and hit reasonable power spikes in times that are most relevant to conquest, which we think we can achieve, we just need more time to review the reality of the situation.

So - obviously - Warriors and Solo Lane are going to need some shifts. Each designer has their own opinions on this but it will be a team decision, not any one persons, and the player data and player feedback will always be the guiding principal for our decisions.

Aggro is not misunderstanding warriors. He is just questioning the class/role and discussing if there are any other possibilities.

I think we can both agree that in the infinite possibility world of game development - surely there are other ways that warrior or solo might be played, right? And by played i mean - viable and impactful.

Those ways might be too much change, or not enjoyable to current solo/warrior mains, or too hard to achieve via dev resources - but they surely exist right? All he was saying is that he wants to stay open minded and see if any of those options exist.

You are exactly the type of player he is asking to give it a chance. Try some new things. See what we can learn together.

Its clear that a lot of people have no interest in that, though. And Thats ok. Im not here to validate your concerns about a designers comments - but I am here to reassure all SMITE players on how we plan to handle the entire situation with Solo Laners and warriors. Hopefully my comment above eases some of your concerns on that aspect.

We havent forgotten. EVERYONE got changed this update. and we are going to be looking at every class and role for future balance.

By most data and feedback guardians look fine though. Still strong, even with less ability to kill squishies in the early game (which is exactly what a huge portion of smite players wanted)

Ive seen this kind of opinion a few times, and I dont want to invalidate it outright - but i think its intensely more rare than the opposite case.

Most people seemed very pleased with their gameplay session yesterday. Id say its extremely unlikely that we revert to where we were before. If any revert occurs, it will be slight.

No, because we just changed everything by such a huge amount.

We just made everyone 40% tankier, so wouldnt it be pretty safe to make one class deal 5-10% more damage if they clearly are the ones who need it the most from player data and feedback?

Even after that buff we are still extremely far away from where we were before. We are seeing pretty much 100% of the negative comments on 9.5 coming from warrior mains (and a small % who just dont want the game to be slower at all) So its pretty clear that warriors/solo need a buff more than other classes after 9.5

We certainly have to be careful about what items we buff to make sure we dont buff the wrong class, and we have to be cognizant of how classes compare against eachother. But the whole point of this thread is to communicate the idea that "warriors need some buffs to even compete with other classes"

lol this here is what reddit is all about

ill also go ahead and explain some more - "casual" here is not a perfect description of who within the SMITE community was pushing for changes like this.

We saw lots of feedback about - Warriors are OP, Hybrid items are OP, and Kills are too easy to get - from our top streamers and many players who clearly play at well above a silver level.

Generally the GM and SCC/SPL were less interested in these changes though.

So yea, a lot more people than this hypothetical noob youve invented wanted these changes. and i JUST said we will be looking for ways to bring back warrior strength, so you can relax :)

<3 still checking the data but in general "kill count" seems to have come down but by a pretty small amount

Overall seeing a lot of positive feedback from 9.5 - we do owe Warriors/Solo some love though

thanks!

We aren't really that concerned about "what a moba is supposed to be" but i understand why people are using that term - its a strong reference point to explain what theyre feeling in the game and why the like it.

Often in SMITE history we prided ourselves on being a bit different from the other mobas, and having more combat, more action. However, over time that seemed to push itself too far - and thats why we walked it back. SMITE is still less about farming and laning and other mobas.

Our real main goal was to deliver what SMITE players want, and deliver things that will get them excited to log in and play every day. We saw some great metrics yesterday so I think it was overall a good design - but not necessarily because its more like other mobas.

We felt that buffing minion health was important to make sure the early game was still interesting.

If minions die very fast AND everyone is harder to kill - then you get much more in-lane stalemates.

The slower minion clear gives more opportunities for pvp combat, and puts more pressure on HP and Mana management - which is a key factor in skell expression in mobas.

We might tone this down a little but in general we think it was necessary to pair with the god TTK changes.