It'd be interesting to see a compiled list like this for all the gods, maybe with an additional column for their place at the end of 2020.
Also, f**k Tsukuyumi. All my homies hate Tsukuyumi.
So like doing this for new gods first days but from previous years? Could do it, itll just take a while
I went ahead and updated for Danza and added your 2020 end of year state for this years gods, though!
I totally understand why people feel this way, but personally I thought it was pretty fun to watch.
Ive been comparing it to Soccer - there is a lot of tension at all times, and things happening but they dont result in points until rare instances. Its interesting if youve played joust and can empathsize with the players and anticipate the big plays. But if youre just looking for kills its not nearly as fun.
I think its been a cool contrast to show people how different modes of SMITE play, and how tactical the game can be even on a small map.
I also think the S8 changes we have planned will help mitigate the downsides we are currently seeing on this mode, we'll see!
Ill never stop loving joust, its almost as much a part of my brand as the ama hoodie lol
Lol saying "why is this getting downvoted" is such a classic reddit trope - early upvote/downvote numbers are pretty moot since it fluctuates so much on one or two /new browsers.
I get what you mean with many players being irrational/just looking to vent frustration no matter what but I feel like the sarcastic/antagonist approach to dispelling it may backfire someday. But who knows, maybe trying a unique approach to dev responses by giving sass back consistently is what is needed
On another note, it's very interesting to see Cthulu after Day 15 actually skyrocketing in win% and increasing in damage. I assume people switched to almost exclusively solo from splitting him in solo/supp at that point?
haha im sorry - this thread looked small i thought it was just gonne be me and OP discussing it
I have been a bit sassy lately, its been fun, but ill probably tone it down but im trying to be very active and more myself through worlds
What i care most about is getting yall the right info and dispelling misinformation, which reddit tends to spread.
Why is reddit not interested in this data?! Cant imagine why this is getting downvoted here.
Also - updated numbers on danzaburou from yesterday - he has climbed considerably to #2 and #3 top winning in conq and nonconq - nerfs incoming.
EDIT - obviously not downvoted now lol but was at first - glad its moving in a more positive direction!
It's not an insult to state that you think something is better than what we currently have. Sure, the title might have a bit of a negative connotation to it, but it's not like he said "The current model is shit. I wish we had this instead".
If anything, this should be taken as feedback. It's not the best kind of feedback, but feedback nonetheless.
So if i showed up to your job and said "good job snufflebox! but your coworker there is a million times better than you..." - Theres no better way i could phrase that? thats not insulting to you in the least bit?
I agree this is not a very intense example of this - it just happens all the time and its not a good way to build constructive feedback pathways.
Also never said that this was bad feedback? I specifically agreed the artwork is fantastic. Im not gonna promise we will make it as a skin and im def not considering remodeling the morrigan, but i like this artwork and the artist and just wanted to share that - while also providing a small tip on how to make our communications more positive for everyone.
Don’t get me wrong I do like Morrigan now and am not completely shitting on whoever designed her it’s just sometimes the Gods can be bigger in some aspects. I could have worded the title better. Personally I do think this art is more of my style for not just Morrigan but for the Gods in general I just like it when the hardcore fantasy aspect is pushed further but again I didn’t mean for it to come across as me totally discrediting the original
I understand. It's not a big deal. Just hoping more people here see it and keep it in mind on future posts. I don't think ive mentioned this little pet peeve before so I thought I would.
I wish people could compliment our artists without including insults to the current game art. There really is no reason to title this post like that. Not trying to call out OP... It just happens a lot and it makes me sad.
That said, I have no idea where this piece came from but it's awesome for sure. Viv is an amazing artist and I enjoy every bit of work she does for our team. I'm glad you all enjoy her work too! 😁
Read moreMy main concern is that competitive games are designed/balanced relative to the demographic that plays them. If a game's player base had mechanical aficionados then character design would look much different compared to if you had toddlers making up the bulk of your player base.
Let it be known that I think all games have balance problems, but I think Smite has some exclusive issues because of its audience. I also think you and the rest of the devs are doing the best with what you are given.
"Popularity based on complexity": Popularity can be quantified by pick rate but how can we denote what the player believes to be complex? Is it in all modes, Conquest, Ranked?" Yemoja and Persephone are consistently said to be characters who suffer a low win rate because of how complex they are. However the inverse is true because their win rate suffers in higher ranks. I interpret this to mean that the complexity in the characters is mostly present as a steep starting learning ...
LOT to unpack here and a LOT of opinion/assumption.
lets try to unpack this?
agree with you on the audience point - there isnt such thing as perfect balance - so what we aim for is optimal balance where "most" of our players who care about balance feel good about our decisions - this has been quite successful for us with increasing positive feedback and player metrics over the years
Popularity is quantified in many many different ways - and youre right that its not really ever easy to just claim any god is popular across all of them - casual arena and conquest ranked have different most played gods (but some that are popular across all) - The key takeaway about this topic refers back to my "diversity" section - and that is to say - we have different popularity goals for different gods. Sure we would like them to be all highly popular across all modes, but its just not possible. Some god has to be first and some god has to be last any way you...
I guarantee all of your metrics are skewed toward a 50% win rate for newly released gods because you include W/L for mirror matches. During initial releases, almost every game of Conquest has the new god on both teams. This inherently comes with an automatic 50% W/L because one always wins and loses.
The number of games with the god only on one team is small enough that when those games have an overwhelming number of Wins, the win rate is watered down by all of the 50/50 matches.
Maybe consider parsing your metrics to accurately convey the state of the god by removing mirror matches.
Every stat I shared in my tweets recently about new gods has mirror matches filtered out.
Its written in the stats image and in my previous tweet
Every stat i show my balance team weekly internally has mirror matches filtered out too.
I only include them when looking at raw popularity.
Maybe consider reading my replies, this might help prevent you from spreading misinformation in the future.
One big thing though. You said you guys are constantly designing these new gods to implement new types of abilities, features, and experiences. This is great. However it is essentially making some older gods completely obsolete because next to nothing is being done for them. It seems like maybe one older god gets a rework each year to bring them kinda up to snuff with the newer ones, but I dont think its fast enough at all. You have over 100 gods and at least 20 have abilities that do nothing but damage and feel lack luster, especially when compared to gods released in 2020. So maybe take next year to just focus on buffing and reworking older gods to be what they need to be instead of expanding on a already very large roster.
We have no plans to stop making new gods. I believe (and much of the SMITE team does too) that this would be catastrophic to our playerbase.
New gods are the most exciting thing in our release schedule for most players. Meaning this is a huge factor in people finding the game staying in the game, or returning to the game after taking a break.
We reworked Loki - possibly the most hyped and exciting rework in SMITE history and it only just barely felt like it matched a weak new god launch.
Also, Many of these old gods just dont need reworks or updates. Kukulkan is one of the most popular gods in the game and his kit is a closed beta kit. Ra recently had small buffs and has become #1 in the meta. Most old gods who feel lackluster can be solved through our minor rework process or balance processes.
If you are suggesting we completely remake new gods in the name of old gods - aka LoLs "VGUs" where they make essentially a new character with the name/them...
Read morehow do i read the launch data? i’m confused how you do the percentages
They are rankings out of the 110+ gods
so: Cthulhu was ranked #57 in win% on day 1 then rose to #6
Meaning 56 gods won more than him on the first day, but he was top 6 winnigest after 2 weeks.
All numbers displayed are "rank" in this regard - this makes it easier to see how gods relate to each other.
Read moreHeya Ajax, it's good to know that you guys keep us in mind :P
Still, I'd like to mention one of my biggest irks so far with new kits is just the raw damage output they do. A lot seem to well, have a lot of things that total up into just more numbers. Like Cthulhu and Arthur having many damaging abilities, Tsukuyomi always throwing something that hits like a truck, Merlin throwing out a crazy amount of fireworks, etc. Or the lack of counterplay on some kits. I.e. Tsukuyomi able to hit air targets, Arthur not being affected by roots by auto attacking out from it, Cthulhu being immune to CC while in his ultimate, Danza being damage immune, etc. It might have been okay if they had like 4 flat abilities and then sort of had these addons to then work around, but it's like I'm seeing a pattern of "extra" so to speak (more so if they have stances, multi-shots or transformations).
If there's one thing that I think would be my 2 cents towards the process it's that I think god...
I mean im not gonna go through every god with you but..
Danza has no leap/dash or stim - this seemed like a pretty big downside for the god, especially given how most high tier hunter picks look.
Odins downside was his transparency. The kit was quite predictable - i suppose the rework lost a bit of that but after some nerfs he has dropped off hard so the kit is certainly balance-able.
This "hard downside" concept tends to be applied in much too extreme of ways when discussed hypothetically. In real gameplay upsides and downsides are more subtle and counters are more soft. Id say this concept is intentional and proven to have its benefits after 8+ years of SMITE.
The same visual glitch happens with cabracken. he does the animation for his single target stun for each auto attack
Yes this is known to happen on other gods - and the fix we are looking at will address all gods who can produce the bug.
Replying to ya bc I just want to make sure it's being seen; there's a bug on xbox w/artio that I've encountered where she becomes unable to use any abilities or basic attacks while in game. I've sent in a support ticket but again, just want to make sure bc it genuinely breaks the game if it's replicable. Lost a ranked game bc of it the other day.
i think you are referring to an old bug that can happen to all stance switchers - i feel like its been reported before on merlin or ullr - we have never been able to replicate it
It seems very rare or based on connectivity
any information about how exactly to get into this state would be much appreciated
Read moreJust want to pick at some things here and hopefully you have time to respond. I know you have a small Ajax to take care of now.
Abilities have multiple components to add to the gods theming
I get this but also it seems like sometimes the theming takes more priority over the balance. An example being Tsukuyomi, why did he have such an immense amount of stuff tacked on to the end of his abilities? Like his bonus ranged basic attack having true damage...???
like Persephone and Yemoja having some of the lowest winrates in the game while still being regarded as OP. These gods have low winrates because most players cannot play them well.
Would it not also be a factor that these gods are/were banned quite a bit in ranked matches, or people just not picking them at all and therefore skewing the "winrates" a bit?
balance is constantly considered alongside theme and gameplay and tweaks ...
Theme is very important - and you asked more on that so we will come back to it soon. Tsuku has more components in order to make his passive design feel complete. Has has the light and the dark basic attack, each are ranged, each with different shapes, and a different effect. The dark bonus attack also has a bonus effect, as does the light one youre referring to. You could argue that neither needed this extra bonus attack - being ranged and a different shape is enough - but we felt like the attack should have something additional and unique to diversify them.
ah the old "winrates being skewed" discussion - the answer is no - persephone and yemoja still get thousands of matches - hundreds of thousands in non-ranked. This is a lie reddit tells itself to make them feel better when their opinions have no basis in stats. Persephone and Yemoja have proportionally just as many "mains" as any other god - and their normal vs ranked conquest stats track well to eachother. ...
Read moreRead moreJust want to pick at some things here and hopefully you have time to respond. I know you have a small Ajax to take care of now.
Abilities have multiple components to add to the gods theming
I get this but also it seems like sometimes the theming takes more priority over the balance. An example being Tsukuyomi, why did he have such an immense amount of stuff tacked on to the end of his abilities? Like his bonus ranged basic attack having true damage...???
like Persephone and Yemoja having some of the lowest winrates in the game while still being regarded as OP. These gods have low winrates because most players cannot play them well.
Would it not also be a factor that these gods are/were banned quite a bit in ranked matches, or people just not picking them at all and therefore skewing the "winrates" a bit?
balance is constantly considered alongside theme and gameplay and tweaks ...
I do have good replies for all of those but cannot share them now with a baby in my arms lol
Ajax I gotta be honest you sound like you haven't even played him to think those things about him. And you aren't just some random commenter to get a pass. With all my eager playing of him it's been beyond clear from the start that his ult is one of the quietest in the game, is no where near slow, has some of the best range and control while manually guided, and it's wind up can only be considered long enough that it's not a good thing to use when someone is already right on you.
It's basically a free pass to 100->0 an enemy squishy and given the extremely long duration I've been able to circle people up to 4 times to finally hit anyone able to actually evade well at first. Most movement skills don't do much in the way of helping to avoid it.
Do not imply that the devs of this game "havent played" - its absurd and rude.
Im not denying the fact that the ability is strong. I was describing how its nothing like Loki.
Ive also done a lot of extensive testing on the timing of this ability and how easy/hard it is to evade the taunt - I agree with you that I still think its a little on the strong side.
Just as an FYI Ajax, idk if you'll se this but your 100% correct here. You can compare Danza's play style to old Loki in the one shot aspect of it a bit (if your looking to use ult right into your one) but otherwise danza is a well designed character with nowhere near Loki's frustrations.
Thanks!
Yea I agree - you can compare these gods at a surface level pretty easily - they both have similar "trickster" themes so thats an obvious result of our design process.
We pushed ourselves to make Danza unique in many ways, especially from Loki, and I think we succeeded.
The god is a little OP - which im not afraid to admit - which is bringing about more of these intense emotions. We will continue to aim for balanced and when we miss it, make adjustments asap.
This change is purely visual. It makes Serqet LOOK like she is leaping - it does not do repeated leap damage, nor provide her untargetable states.
The nature of this bug is that certain animation states will continue to play even after the god has left the state. The Serqet player will see themselves acting normally, their leap will go on cooldown, but other players will see spammed leaps as they attack.
We are actively looking into this bug and are already testing a fix. I cannot promise a hotfix release yet, but as soon as we feel safe we will launch it.
How is Danz not just a hunter Loki?
An ultimate that is almost undetectable doing a large amount of damage and a mini-stun placing them right next to you. Or, its the opposite of a skill-shot heat seeking missile.
An AoE taunt only this time it affects gods and not minions
And Stealth, albeit not Loki level stealth, but stealth none the less. Have you guys not figured out that stealth and mechanics that have little to no counter-play are the most hated things to play against?
Danza ult is much more detectable? It has a very long warm up - moves rather slowly - and is easily avoided with a movement ability. It certainly can get lost in chaotic fights, but not much more so than other god abilities. Dealing with the inundation of information during team fights is a unique challenge for Mobas and a different discussion entirely.
It doesnt taunt towers - and it has a considerable warm up time before it CCs anyone. Its also counterable. This is a very shallow comparison and not the same problem we saw with old Loki at all.
This "stealth" is easily broken by any damage and even gives you many indicators as to where it might be worth attacking to reveal the god. Comparing this to Loki stealth and claiming "we havent learned our lesson" is just kinda of straight up rude. We clearly implemented a series of new counterplay options to this "stealth" as well as created a unique ability with strong themes fitting the god. Im ...
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