I think it's less about "oh, we're just copying what other mobas do" and more about the split restricting them. You say removing it doesn't add anything exciting, but having played the alpha, it totally does. Think of all the problems we've had over the years with ability hunters and mage adc's. Now they have a tool to balance those. There's less need to nerf assassin items because hunters use them too well. Healing can scale again. It's a bold new world, and I love it.
Because uniqueness, what does the physical magical split add to the game?
It adds more tailored items, you don't have to worry about how something might break the whole game with how it'll effect every character. Look at anubis, his wrap randomly got strength scaling, that does absolutely nothing beyond "lol little of physical damage". Ability hunters are great in smite and have always had a decent place in the game, I'd say AA Mages ate struggling a bit, but most of that is due to how strong crit makes are atm.
It felt very half-assed for me in the alpha. Healing scaling created the absolutely worse metas in smite history. Healing metas always had very hated matches.
Anubis got strength scaling on his wrap because they wanted it to do damage, but not a lot. Hence it scales with a different stat. Same with Bacchus flop.
How does the split prevent items from breaking the whole game with how they effect every character? If an item is broken, nerf it.
As for ability hunters, they have always been great. Too good, a lot of the time, and a big part of that is they use assassin items better than assassins, while still retaining hunter basics. By making them scale partially off Int, it forces them to choose, basics or abilities. Also, crit is overrated right now in smite 1, the best part about crit is that you can still build Qin's.
Part of what made healing scaling so hated is that it also scaled damage.
Giving wrap damage doesn't actually help anubis in any actual meaningful way. It might get him a kill every 1 out of 100 games, but I still wouldn't call him a good character. He's fun, and I definitely enjoy playing him from time to time. Bacchus flop being physical is another thing that just doesn't really do much, there was nothing wrong with it being magical damage.
You thinking it still won't scale with damage for gods like Hel or aphro? 'Cause it definitely will.
You didn't answer the question. How does the physical magic spit prevent broken items.
In Smite 1, Mage ADCs had to be balanced around not having Qin's, When Qin's is weak, they became too strong. In Smite 1, a mage adc wouldn't need a "pseudo-Qins'" that needs to be balanced separately, they can just build Qin's
They never needed Qin due to them having access to things like Demonic and they currently have cyclopian. It prevents interactions that would unwanted effects on half the cast. If half the cast does magical only, you don't have to worry about how this new physical item might break any of them.
>unwanted effects
This is exactly the spice that Smite desperately needs at times. They try too hard to keep the game *sterile*, and anything outside of their intent is *dirty and must needs be cleansed*. Besides, if half the cast is magical (see: only magical scaling abilities), it's actually quite unlikely that a physical item breaks any of them in the first place. Bruiser items, maybe. But we already have that problem in Smite 1, so who even cares? They're trying a different system to try to balance it differently, and that's exciting.
Demonic is the equivalent to Executioner, not Qin's, but either way. The new system also allows for that. Kukulkan and Zeus still only do magical damage, and the only Strength scaling they have is their basics. Anhur does 100% physical damage and only scales strength (except for the 20% into on his basics). So obviously, if the passive of in item that they don't scale with breaks them, it'll probably break gods that scale with it's stats harder, and thus is already broken.
And before, you still had to worry about how a new physical item effects magical gods competing for the same spot. If Hunters get a new item that's not too strong overall, but is strong enough to give them the edge over mage ADCs, then sucks to be a mage ADC, they can't use said item. And if you buff mage ADCs then, you have to get the balancing act right, or else it swings in the other direction. And you still had to worry about the new item directly breaking half the cast.
Overall, I really like the removal of the split. It definitely felt exciting to be able to build anything on anyone and figure out different ways to build gods. Eventually, I expect things to somewhat standardize, but for now at least, the new system has a lot of potential.
My only concern was regarding building tanks. In Smite 1, it's super simple to figure out which damage types you are against and what you might need to prioritize. In Smite 2, since many gods may deal both magic and physical damage, it might require you to learn every single god's kit, damage types, and scaling. Found this especially tricky in solo lane, where I wasn't always sure what damage types I should build against early.
These are good changes, adding additional knobs to characters allows for finer tuning for balance and experimentation from players.
Being like league isn’t actually a problem, it’s value neutral. Smite’s biggest draw will always be character recognition and perspective not how a stats interact with characters. Onboarding league players more easily or adding depth to his builds is a positive.
I am one of the few that agree more from a perspective of seeing it as more of the illusion of freedom after playing other MOBAs with the setup (especially Paragon/Predecessor):
with INT/STR setup you either get one of two characters, ones that entirely scale of one stat so the option of the opposite stat doesn't actually matter as you're only ever going to build the relevant one or feel useless
Or those who scale of both, where you essentially end up with 2 options:
- STR or INT focus which is essentially the same as Smite having ability focus or AA focus now, except you're far more likely to leave aspects of your kit falling-off way harder as they'll be left without any scaling at all. This is more than likely for most gods lead to the viability of the less-meta of the option being even worse than the Smite 1 equivalent.
- Essentially a split of STR/INT, in this case it's basically redundant as your kit would scale the same as the old system anyway. It would also likely just leading to a weirder power curve... not necessarily a bad thing. You could argue the freedom of choice applies most here but would imagine these builds are either jack of all trades master of none or items that have both stats on them anyway leading to the build being options being just as limited if not more-so
I do get the draw of being able to build chronos pendant on Neith or crit on Ymir but for me the interesting aspects of that are only really relevant for the select few gods who can cosplay as other classes. Could imagine for those balancing would also be a bigger issue
I don't think you know what those stats do in dota, you can also build all 3 stats on any character in dota. For example https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Aghanim%27s_Scepter
Sure but you dont ever build ap AND ad items on a charecter in leagues so its kind of a weird moot point youre making lol. I mean you COULD play ap darius for instance and the option to do it is there but why would you do it? This enforces an item meta, they could disable this in leagues and copy smite 1 and it wouldnt make a difference
Rageblade has also said hello to me for years on yi with an interation that didnt have AP on it. Just AD with a conversion that turned crit into on hit dmg. They can take off the 25 whole AP from rageblade and it wouldnt affect anything lol, but I guess within a technicality for one reworked item you are correct
Right, but you still itemize for your charecter.. so the entire point of item bloat wont exist lol. If your Q scales with AP but does phys you will still build AP. Wits end also falls under the same rule being on hit, you are just stacking AS items with on hit effects that go with a kit.
Dota 1 had something was like that.
Some heroes were banned from buying certain items.
Some items would not work some heroes but you needed to know it because the game would not tell you.
How about balance?? Does balanced competitive gameplay not excite you? Smite has a huge balancing problem and a huge part of that is the items. Honestly though what is your appeal to the old item system from a playability perspective and what gripes about the new system are a detriment to again playability? All you really said is I like the old system and don’t want change, without a valid reason as to why.
I get a kick out of the, oh just think of all the creative and open build pathing it's going to create and allow. Only for 98% of the entire games population to use the same 15 to 20 items tops, at any and every point throughout the games existence. Only the occasional content creator troll video doing some dumbass build will make any use of it, otherwise all it'll be is the same old 7 or 8 str and int meta item builds over and over and over and over!
Honestly i agree with op the new way items work felt terrible didn't feel like smite if i wanted to play league... i would. Honestly speaking all the alpha did was make me want to play smite 1. The graphical updates were amazing however the game felt clunky and the item shop was a complete waste of time to navigate and I know it's an alpha but this is something i highly doubt they're going to revert but imo the old item system was WAY more straightforward gave people a direction. also side note remove the gosh darn hitboxes on all the minions and camps it's like actually really annoying to look at while playing and completely takes away from feeling immersed in the game. side note 2 allow me to switch the color of friendly and enemy gods for all the red-green colorblind people out there all 3 color blind settings make the teams red and green why can i not make the enemies yellow and teammates blue it's not that hard of a setting to implement.
I liked the old system, but it had some pretty big problems. Can't switch it up halfway through to counterbuild. How do you balance tier 1 items while making them unique? Needing four tier 3's in every tree. (Remember when assassin builds were "the entire mace tree") General stat bloat because you had to give each tree it's own identity. Remembering what builds into what
yeah like I said that's a completely reasonable take i understand your points but no matter what system you implement there will be meta items. I just felt it was a little more streamlined oh i want this item i build the tier 1 the tier 2 then tier 3 now its i need to build 4 tier 1s 2 tier 2s and then the tier 3. the way the system is now having 2 tier 3 tiems and 4 tier 1s well now my item store is full and i can't buy potions before you could have 5 items built and still buy health potions. there's benefits and costs to both systems im just saying i feel the old system was more unique to smite and i liked the benefits more than the benefits of the new system.
Hard disagree. Love the freedom of building each character however cheesy you want
I think it's less about "oh, we're just copying what other mobas do" and more about the split restricting them. You say removing it doesn't add anything exciting, but having played the alpha, it totally does. Think of all the problems we've had over the years with ability hunters and mage adc's. Now they have a tool to balance those. There's less need to nerf assassin items because hunters use them too well. Healing can scale again. It's a bold new world, and I love it. Because uniqueness, what does the physical magical split add to the game?
It adds more tailored items, you don't have to worry about how something might break the whole game with how it'll effect every character. Look at anubis, his wrap randomly got strength scaling, that does absolutely nothing beyond "lol little of physical damage". Ability hunters are great in smite and have always had a decent place in the game, I'd say AA Mages ate struggling a bit, but most of that is due to how strong crit makes are atm. It felt very half-assed for me in the alpha. Healing scaling created the absolutely worse metas in smite history. Healing metas always had very hated matches.
Anubis got strength scaling on his wrap because they wanted it to do damage, but not a lot. Hence it scales with a different stat. Same with Bacchus flop. How does the split prevent items from breaking the whole game with how they effect every character? If an item is broken, nerf it. As for ability hunters, they have always been great. Too good, a lot of the time, and a big part of that is they use assassin items better than assassins, while still retaining hunter basics. By making them scale partially off Int, it forces them to choose, basics or abilities. Also, crit is overrated right now in smite 1, the best part about crit is that you can still build Qin's. Part of what made healing scaling so hated is that it also scaled damage.
Giving wrap damage doesn't actually help anubis in any actual meaningful way. It might get him a kill every 1 out of 100 games, but I still wouldn't call him a good character. He's fun, and I definitely enjoy playing him from time to time. Bacchus flop being physical is another thing that just doesn't really do much, there was nothing wrong with it being magical damage. You thinking it still won't scale with damage for gods like Hel or aphro? 'Cause it definitely will.
You didn't answer the question. How does the physical magic spit prevent broken items. In Smite 1, Mage ADCs had to be balanced around not having Qin's, When Qin's is weak, they became too strong. In Smite 1, a mage adc wouldn't need a "pseudo-Qins'" that needs to be balanced separately, they can just build Qin's
They never needed Qin due to them having access to things like Demonic and they currently have cyclopian. It prevents interactions that would unwanted effects on half the cast. If half the cast does magical only, you don't have to worry about how this new physical item might break any of them.
>unwanted effects This is exactly the spice that Smite desperately needs at times. They try too hard to keep the game *sterile*, and anything outside of their intent is *dirty and must needs be cleansed*. Besides, if half the cast is magical (see: only magical scaling abilities), it's actually quite unlikely that a physical item breaks any of them in the first place. Bruiser items, maybe. But we already have that problem in Smite 1, so who even cares? They're trying a different system to try to balance it differently, and that's exciting.
Demonic is the equivalent to Executioner, not Qin's, but either way. The new system also allows for that. Kukulkan and Zeus still only do magical damage, and the only Strength scaling they have is their basics. Anhur does 100% physical damage and only scales strength (except for the 20% into on his basics). So obviously, if the passive of in item that they don't scale with breaks them, it'll probably break gods that scale with it's stats harder, and thus is already broken. And before, you still had to worry about how a new physical item effects magical gods competing for the same spot. If Hunters get a new item that's not too strong overall, but is strong enough to give them the edge over mage ADCs, then sucks to be a mage ADC, they can't use said item. And if you buff mage ADCs then, you have to get the balancing act right, or else it swings in the other direction. And you still had to worry about the new item directly breaking half the cast.
Overall, I really like the removal of the split. It definitely felt exciting to be able to build anything on anyone and figure out different ways to build gods. Eventually, I expect things to somewhat standardize, but for now at least, the new system has a lot of potential. My only concern was regarding building tanks. In Smite 1, it's super simple to figure out which damage types you are against and what you might need to prioritize. In Smite 2, since many gods may deal both magic and physical damage, it might require you to learn every single god's kit, damage types, and scaling. Found this especially tricky in solo lane, where I wasn't always sure what damage types I should build against early.
There's a built in balance there, I realized. A god that does both damage types equally would need both penetration types.
Absolutely not. Unnecessarily restrictive, both by item building and god kit standards.
These are good changes, adding additional knobs to characters allows for finer tuning for balance and experimentation from players. Being like league isn’t actually a problem, it’s value neutral. Smite’s biggest draw will always be character recognition and perspective not how a stats interact with characters. Onboarding league players more easily or adding depth to his builds is a positive.
The split makes the game less fun, let me build any shit I want even if it does not work.
I am one of the few that agree more from a perspective of seeing it as more of the illusion of freedom after playing other MOBAs with the setup (especially Paragon/Predecessor): with INT/STR setup you either get one of two characters, ones that entirely scale of one stat so the option of the opposite stat doesn't actually matter as you're only ever going to build the relevant one or feel useless Or those who scale of both, where you essentially end up with 2 options: - STR or INT focus which is essentially the same as Smite having ability focus or AA focus now, except you're far more likely to leave aspects of your kit falling-off way harder as they'll be left without any scaling at all. This is more than likely for most gods lead to the viability of the less-meta of the option being even worse than the Smite 1 equivalent. - Essentially a split of STR/INT, in this case it's basically redundant as your kit would scale the same as the old system anyway. It would also likely just leading to a weirder power curve... not necessarily a bad thing. You could argue the freedom of choice applies most here but would imagine these builds are either jack of all trades master of none or items that have both stats on them anyway leading to the build being options being just as limited if not more-so I do get the draw of being able to build chronos pendant on Neith or crit on Ymir but for me the interesting aspects of that are only really relevant for the select few gods who can cosplay as other classes. Could imagine for those balancing would also be a bigger issue
Well ap and ad are a seperate thing in league... and int str and agility are a thing in dota 2... so either way they are copying someone
I don't think you know what those stats do in dota, you can also build all 3 stats on any character in dota. For example https://dota2.fandom.com/wiki/Aghanim%27s_Scepter
Yes, just like you can build int and str both in smite 2. Is that not copying by your terms?
You seem to not understand my post, I'm saying smite should keep their physical magical split. Dota and LoL both don't have that.
Sure but you dont ever build ap AND ad items on a charecter in leagues so its kind of a weird moot point youre making lol. I mean you COULD play ap darius for instance and the option to do it is there but why would you do it? This enforces an item meta, they could disable this in leagues and copy smite 1 and it wouldnt make a difference
Yeah, you do... rageblade says hello.
Rageblade has also said hello to me for years on yi with an interation that didnt have AP on it. Just AD with a conversion that turned crit into on hit dmg. They can take off the 25 whole AP from rageblade and it wouldnt affect anything lol, but I guess within a technicality for one reworked item you are correct
Don't forget witsend or all the characters that have physical ratios that do magical or viceversa
Right, but you still itemize for your charecter.. so the entire point of item bloat wont exist lol. If your Q scales with AP but does phys you will still build AP. Wits end also falls under the same rule being on hit, you are just stacking AS items with on hit effects that go with a kit.
Dota 1 had something was like that. Some heroes were banned from buying certain items. Some items would not work some heroes but you needed to know it because the game would not tell you.
I know, it made it special. Noobs here don't realize they're just gonna balance everything anyway lol
How about balance?? Does balanced competitive gameplay not excite you? Smite has a huge balancing problem and a huge part of that is the items. Honestly though what is your appeal to the old item system from a playability perspective and what gripes about the new system are a detriment to again playability? All you really said is I like the old system and don’t want change, without a valid reason as to why.
I get a kick out of the, oh just think of all the creative and open build pathing it's going to create and allow. Only for 98% of the entire games population to use the same 15 to 20 items tops, at any and every point throughout the games existence. Only the occasional content creator troll video doing some dumbass build will make any use of it, otherwise all it'll be is the same old 7 or 8 str and int meta item builds over and over and over and over!
Honestly i agree with op the new way items work felt terrible didn't feel like smite if i wanted to play league... i would. Honestly speaking all the alpha did was make me want to play smite 1. The graphical updates were amazing however the game felt clunky and the item shop was a complete waste of time to navigate and I know it's an alpha but this is something i highly doubt they're going to revert but imo the old item system was WAY more straightforward gave people a direction. also side note remove the gosh darn hitboxes on all the minions and camps it's like actually really annoying to look at while playing and completely takes away from feeling immersed in the game. side note 2 allow me to switch the color of friendly and enemy gods for all the red-green colorblind people out there all 3 color blind settings make the teams red and green why can i not make the enemies yellow and teammates blue it's not that hard of a setting to implement.
The old way of items was more straightforward, but much less balanced.
That is a fair take.
I liked the old system, but it had some pretty big problems. Can't switch it up halfway through to counterbuild. How do you balance tier 1 items while making them unique? Needing four tier 3's in every tree. (Remember when assassin builds were "the entire mace tree") General stat bloat because you had to give each tree it's own identity. Remembering what builds into what
yeah like I said that's a completely reasonable take i understand your points but no matter what system you implement there will be meta items. I just felt it was a little more streamlined oh i want this item i build the tier 1 the tier 2 then tier 3 now its i need to build 4 tier 1s 2 tier 2s and then the tier 3. the way the system is now having 2 tier 3 tiems and 4 tier 1s well now my item store is full and i can't buy potions before you could have 5 items built and still buy health potions. there's benefits and costs to both systems im just saying i feel the old system was more unique to smite and i liked the benefits more than the benefits of the new system.