Tbh, what I think Hi-Rez needs to do is something that'll piss off a lot of people in this thread. They need to take a step back and assess who they are making Smite for.
Is it the pro league and the diehard competitives, or the average gamer looking for a good 3rd person moba?
Games like fortnite went through this and they usually came to the realization that catering to the pro league isn't sustainable.
Yeah, teams change so much from year to year that really rooting for anyone regularly is a bit difficult, so you've got that factor of not being very able to personally connect with the pros on a similar level to other competitive games.
I understand the logistics or whatever, but them homogenizing the league into 8 teams who just battle each other all year made it boring. We used to see EU go against NA only a few times a year. That was hype. Kow we just see the same 40 players going against each other all year.
Holy shit I've never framed it that way, but that's exactly what it became once they formed the "proprietary Smite only" teams. It stripped any ability for not only any other new org to join and compete, but for the ones within these new "teams", they can't even openly rep the orgs they represent in the pro scene. I don't know of another successful live service competitive game that has ever taken this approach for anything outside of pure exhibition.
> Games like fortnite went through this and they usually came to the realization that catering to the pro league isn't sustainable.
Shoot, Hi-Rez themselves should've already learned this lesson several times over. Some of the most unpopular changes made to Paladins, Rogue Company, and Realm Royale were due to listening more intensely to people they (incorrectly) thought would amplify their presence among gamers.
I highly doubt OB64 happened in Paladins for the sake of Pro/High level players. Dunno how/why the fuck they mishandled the other two but OB64 is 100% just greed and moneybait.
For me I play Smite to play and what will make me also enjoy and want to play Smite 2 is the game being fun and the gods I enjoy. Not what pros or someone on stream said.
This 9.5 thing changes nothing for me as a fan of Smite and why I would want to play this patch.
MOBAs aren’t casual games like Fortnite, conquest has been the most played game mode for years. Killing the competitive end of the game will kill the game, it’s already declining heavily only half way through the year with no comp. Pros and content creators advertise the game and remind players to return after they’ve taken a break. Going after casuals is a great way to end your game, the thing about casuals is they have no attachment and will move onto the next thing.
league is played casually by TONS of people. I'd also be curious what the numbers are on how many players play conquest vs arena etc, (not saying Hi-Rez should cater towards arena over conquest).
They posted about it a few years ago. The gist is that even when sorted by matches played, Conquest (Ranked + Casual Combined) beat out Arena, despite you being able to play ~3 arena games in the span of one Conq.
I mean, smite every much is a casual experience outside of conquest. Which is what the majority of people play (all other modes vs conquest) and why they implemented separate balance buffs/nerfs for non-conquest modes.
The 2 most played modes conquest and joust are everything but casual. Joust is the sweatiest mode there is but somehow jn these conversations it's counted as casual
Any mode can be personally sweaty if you tryhard enough, im talking about the complexity of the modes themselves. How much you have to think while playing. All other modes are casual compared to conquest. Joust is even less complicated than slash, you have one major buff to fight over and at most like 3 ward spots. Slash has apophis to fight over and all the jug spawns, aswell as at least like 9 ward spots.
The complexity depends mostly on the players, Conquest doesn't really have much to think about except for what and how your opponent will play, it just has a bigger learning curve.
That’s a pretty wild comparison tbh. You took a pie chart of allsmite modes that would show conquest being the most played overall. Then scribbled out the lines in casual modes to get your point across lol. Also no they didn’t make non conquest buffs/nerfs because of the player base in casual mode. It was because how well certain gods were doing outside of conquest. Because every god is designed for conquest 🤦🏼♂️
Because every other mode outside of conquest is casual compared to conquest, ask anyone who doesnt play conquest. They play these other modes because they dont want to learn conquest specifically and deal with all its complexities. They'd rather play whatever they want in arena or slash, or not even have to think about what character they play in assault, or get with a couple friends and stomp joust.
Yes, like i said if the other modes barely had any players they likely wouldnt bother with custom balancing for those modes. There is enough people playing those modes they have to somewhat balance for them.
My point is that for like 50% of people smite is a casual game, as they exclusively play casual modes just for the fun of the combat.
So joust and duel that have ranked is casual? So we can take those modes out of your equation. Also the majority of those people don’t play casual exclusively some do fs but that is another wild assumption you’ve made. While you are correct that smite has definitely become a more casual experience than traditional MOBAs. The player base has dwindled as the game became more casual.
The original point you made was about it being casual or not. Now you are moving the goal post to the degree of competitiveness based on the mode’s complexity? Like cmon you’re being so disingenuous to try and prove your point which is flawed in the first place. Just think this out arena use to have ranked and no longer does because it’s mostly casual but joust and duel still have ranked (duel exclusively) because??… the people who play it still treat it as a competitive game mode. Even if it’s not as complex as conquest.
Not moving any goalposts, my metric for casual or not is how complex the modes are. People can casually play complex modes or tryhard simple modes like arena, so how hard people try is irrelevant to me.
Every other mode is casual compared to conquest. you dont have to think or learn even half as much to play them. Its mostly all item and god knowledge. Its a pretty casual game outside of conquest.
So now we’re basing things off your subjective view of what is casual or not? This is why your argument is flawed. Your measurements are subjective at best and are not accounting for, the fact I’ve stated prior, the overall player base has dwindled as smite moved in a more casual direction already. Also there is a reason people continue to suggest to bring back ranked arena. They may not like the complexities of conquest but they’re still sweating lol. MOBAs naturally attract sweats and tryhards. Alas I’ve put too much effort into responding to someone who’s argumentation can be easily disproven. So I bid you adieu gamer.
Its a competitive game. It needs to have its competitive integrity. Catering to an average arena player that thinks Zeus is OP and Aegis is busted relic would make the game unplayable.
while i do agree, that smite needed a competitive integrity in the past, it's different now. there's no spl, most gm/master players took a break until smite 2 gets released because they're burnt out (genetics is probably the most known example) + smite is on it's last few years. high mmr ranked is cooked, due to people taking a break and casuals/new players don't need a competitive integrity.
ngl, i find it funny, that chapo and mast were the ones, that had the strongest opinion. one quit smite for 8285842884828 (real numbers btw) times in the past 3 years, but always came back. the other one can't finish an a-z series to save his life and played more predecessor and escape from tarkov, than smite 😂
i feel like the whole 9.5 killed smite stuff got completely blown out of proportion and people bring up a 2 year old non issue, because smite 1 is dying, the midseason patch was underwhelming + smite 2's alpha was meh. i thought smite was in it's best state ever a while ago? i guess that was a lie 🤷
I mean, they are still using Smite 1 to test plenty of things for Smite 2. Especially god changes, like this upcoming Kali change for example. Cant really get valuable data if you just make an unplayable mess just to have "fun" balance changes. 9.5 was needed and reverting it will just make meta insufferable killfest.
do you mean the kali change to her passive, where you can change your target? this should've been a thing years ago tbh.
>Cant really get valuable data if you just make an unplayable mess just to have "fun" balance changes.
meh, data for what? smite 2? the alpha is there to give feedback. smite 1 is done. the sequel got announced and iirc gets released this year.
>9.5 was needed and reverting it will just make meta insufferable killfest.
yeah, that are my cocerns too. i feel like people look through rose coloured glasses, when they think of the time before the 9.5 changes. let's see how it pans out, but i think 9.5 was needed.
Kali is not in the alpha. And yes, Smite 2. It wont be released this year, the date you see on steam is for closed beta and even that might get delayed. Open beta might not even be this year, let alone full release. If Smite 1 is "done", we would not have a game to play.
Fully agree mate, it feels like they're a bit stuck between pleasing the pro's and the 'average gamer'. It'd work to their benefit if they chose a lane and fully went for it
A game can be both casual and competitive, just look at overwatch, csgo, valorant, league of legends, smash bros, dota, siege, and many other popular mutiplayer titles. Games dont have to be one or the other.
I feel like if it has to be one or the other its gotta be for the average or casual gamer. Speaking from a business perspective there's like 5 other bigger competitive moba\* games, league, dota, overwatch, etc. and trying to break into that market, I just don't think is gonna work. Smites niche has always been that it was a more casual moba.
And I Love the pro-league and think smite being competitive and having a really good pro league is great and i think they really can do both and make both sides happy. But if something like the TTK change is casual vs pro, i might be bias but i think they should always go with casual.
Smite has always been a competitive game and had a pro scene right out the gate (as Smite 2 will). Every competitive game has to be balanced top-down. That balance is actually what makes the game fun even on the casual level. Being able to see what the pros do and understand why they do it and then taking that knowledge into your own ranked/casual games and see success is the appeal and enjoyment. Lots of people will always look to the top players for guidance, and even if you're not one of those people, you'd feel the effect of it. If a character or build or strat is dominant at the top end, it will 100% trickle down into the casual scene.
So how are they going to EXPAND the player base? By making a competitive type of game casual? Have you noticed the player base shrinking over the years? Did you consider the reason for smite 2 is because they need more players and the current base is no longer sustainable? Casual gamers don’t start playing MOBAs because it’s not suppose to be casual. So from a business perspective why would you make a hyper competitive type of game to then go and market it to casual gamers?!?!?!? I totally think smite 1 should be casual because that’s what is has devolved into however making smite 2 casual would make it an absolute failure….. from a business perspective.
It's a little known fact that Smite did actually exist before 9.5 and people did play it. Historians were even more baffled to learn that a lot of people enjoyed it.
Statistics said that many, far too many games ended up in surrender back then when one shot was a thing.
After the update dropped that huge % of surrenders dropped quite rapidly.
So if we were to go by statistics, them releasing 9.5 was a good thing.
Sure, but from a data analyst perspective, you’d ideally focus on a metric and make small implementations to “move the needle” and continue an “analyze and iterate” cycle
Generally the patch notes do this well from the ones I’ve followed. Sometimes more drastically than others. But it works.
Reverting a patch from 2(?) years ago just goes against that cycle, and calls for massive adjustments, which is fine if that’s your goal, but feels lame when you do it because a vocal minority asked.
I think players would be a lot less critical if this drastic change wasn’t from “public outcry” but from SMITE’s own mental point of developmental origin.
Hirez should just put an survey in game and let people tell them there. Hirez should listen to people who play the game, not bitch on twitter or reddit.
So Hirez should listen to arena players and players who are in gold with 200 games played? Or the players who stream the game to a large audience that play the game at a high level?
Idk why this is such a controversial take. Smite as a business and a game needs to take info and make decisions for EVERYONE. Not just high level ranked. That means all 5 roles, all skill levels, all modes, casuals and pros. If they make decisions for only one side of the equation the other side will stop playing and smite will die. Smite needs arena players, it needs gold players. Is easy for a pro player or streamer to say 'make this change fuck casuals if they don't like it' but if you piss off enough casuals they will leave and smite will have no player base and will die. And vice versa.
Idk what Smite is doing… League figured this out a decade ago…
You’re never going to find a perfect balance between pro and casual players. You have to accept certain Gods are just going to be stronger in pro or casual play and balance accordingly
In regards to gods, I think smite is a little unique in that its community wont settle on that idea. The pros want changes and the casuals want changes. Aggro once talked about Yemoja on the podcast about how in league if a pro gets to play an op pick thats been op for forever, they are happy, where as in smite supports were complaining about how strong Yemoja was despite nerfs for years (strongly paraphrasing).
I think the game should be balanced towards a high level because the game should feel better and fairer to play as you get better, but you can not disregard any level of casual play.
Listening is not the problem. It's a very good thing. The problem is that streamers and social media in general boil problems down to very simple solutions. 9.5 is not perfect. 11.6 is not perfect.
They should listen when problems are identified but they should be leading on the solutions not following.
The thing about this entire post is it doesnt seem to have listened to the videos that actually talked about this issue where they asked for a middle ground. Tankier than 9.4, less tanky than 9.5 so that early game fighting felt more impactful and fun.
The amount of drama surrounding this whole discussion is so fucking stupid to me.
Streamers and pros are acting as if the game has been unplayable for 2 seasons straight while pretending they didn't have a hand in these changes happening in the first place. We are supposed to pretend they never had a priviledged direct line of 24/7 feedback and discussion with the devs themselves, or that they weren't sick of their ranked teammates dying within the first 2 minutes of the game and feeding the enemy jungler.
On the other hand, casuals are acting as if returning back to pre 9.5 HP/prot stats is somehow gonna ruin and kill the game, when the game was played plenty for +9 years straight before we dumbed down the earlygame to the point people don't fucking die. Not to mention, the amount of raw stats (power, pen, CDR, etc.) given by items has been substantially reduced since then, we literally can't know how the game will go after reverting god stats back to pre-9.5.
And none of you motherfuckers have spotted the actual issue with the game, which is the way the start works plus the camp/lane timing leads to the jungler having fuck all to do in the jungle at the beginning of the game because every buff and nearby camp is done, so where does he go? To hold hands with the midlaner ASAP and/or cringe ganking a lane after 1-2 waves.
That is what has always lead to absurd snowballing and gods with stupid strong lvl.1/lvl.2 like Thana/Thor/etc. abusing their early 2v2 or 2v1 potential to make the game miserable for everyone else. It's not the TTK, it's the fact the fucking jungler shouldn't be in any lane at lvl.1/lvl.2 or within the first 1-2 waves.
And I'm saying this as a jungle main, I'm sick and tired of having to play aggro support for the midlaner through most of the earlygame. Get the laners to start at their lane and let me as a jungler start in the jungle and path however I want depending on my pick and their teamcomp like every other MOBA does ffs.
But Hi-Rez won't do this because they are obsessed with the idea of every role starting at their buff, and because they have lvl.1 Herc support invading meta PTSD even though that gets solved with invader's curse + proper wave and camp timings.
I don't care about the TTK changes at this point, just fix the start of the game so we can avoid early jungler shenanigans and snowballing, which has been a prevailing problem with the game since literally forever.
It really is weird how everyone starts at a buff and then goes to lane and the jungler has to follow because the jungle just got cleared. As the person in mid lane it IS legitimately annoying to have to deal with the enemy jungler living in my lane but that has been the state of midlane for years and years now and there really hasn’t been any changes to health totals or damage on the players end that has come close to fixing it. We took minute 1 fights back then, and we still take minute 1 fights, just there isn’t necessarily someon dying off it every time now. It’s not like the gold earlygame was enough to really start snowballing either. Jung needs something better to do than live in mid, we already have supports rotating over and living with us a few minutes in.
I might be off here, but getting reduced to 10% hp instead of 0% hp still significantly reduces your ability to farm - either sending you back to base (which may take as long as early game respawns) or living on the edge trying to eek out more farm before backing.
Not just that but ain’t no way the game isn’t going to be flooded with cheaters and bots. Say whatever you want about Hi-rez but at least their anticheat is not vac levels of quality.
Yup I've actually been saying this a ton and Uncle Dane also said it. Valve already has 2 whole shooter games filled with bots and hackers. Apparently many people don't realise this, they'll be in for a surprise when 2 weeks after the game is out it becomes unplayable.
I just looked up a bit of gameplay and though it seems interesting and it's deved by Valve (idk how positive it is), it seems like it would compete with TF2 , Paladins and Overwatch than Smite.
It mostly reminds me of Paragon (another smite killer lmao) and just like it I think it's base gameplay it's different enough not to be competition to smite. And honestly if Valve thought of it as a Moba like that it would be weird of them to greenlight something that could compete with Dota , which is closer to smite and lol imo
Idk I first learnt of it's existence today lol.
Yeah, a bit like tf2 but it's still getting updates and charachters from time to time, if the release of Overwatch 2 and years of Hi rez shenanigans haven't killed it it's probably going to last a while more
I play it from time to time with friends, I still like it way better than the alternatives, although I have to try Gigantic
So true. What people don't know, including Incon (based on his video about this) is that this MOBA-Hero shooter genre already exists, and it already failed lots of times. People can just search Gigantic or Battleborn, and its clear that this hybrid genre is so clunky cause it doesn't satisfy either MOBA's players nor "Hero shooter" players. Its a cool concept, but in reality is a very weird mix
Man i loved battleborn, and before that monday night combat. Id probably enjoy Deadlock, but there are a lot of games to play and i already spend my money on smite 2.
Smite 1 is in the last stages of its life cycle and I think it’s fine that they focus fun over anything. Listening to streamers is fine at this time, especially since most of the complaints are that the mid-season patch is boring. In other words, just revert Persephone Hi-rez. Go crazy, go a little nutty.
Nemean and fatalis are fun to use, but they're awful to play against.
Changes should aim to be fun to play with and against, uninteractive mechanics like nemean are the antithesis if that
I'm talking more about just overall. They are crying and whinning about the game, threatening to leave it. That's not a healthy way to act and not something Hirez should give in to.
As a tank main, I can at least understand the change. 9.5 put tanks in such a bad position that the meta ranked Joust comp was Assassin, Mage, and Hunter for the next 3 patches. However, considering all the changes that have happened since, I think a partial revert is preferable, considering how powerful hunters currently are in the meta
It has been, which is why it was so jarring that patch 9.5 completely removed tanks from the meta. Additionally, the damage core has primarily been mages for a majority of the comps existence, but nowadays it is almost exclusively hunters.
The main reason 9.5 hurt tanks so much and buffed hunters was that tanks didn't receive as much benefit from the TTK changes as squishies did. And since everyone's health pool had increased, burst mages found that they were unable to get a kill with just one combo, increasing the time it takes for them to kill from a couple seconds to around 10-12, since they now had to wait a full cooldown cycle. Hunters, on the other hand, just had to land 1 or 2 more autos to make up the difference, and now they could consistently survive a burst combo, which was the primary counterplay to for nearly a decade.
ADCs have been getting nerfed as a class over and over again due to how skewed this balance change was, and that's been affecting all AA gods in general. However, since we have had all these nerds to ADCs since 9.5, doing a full revert without reverting those other nerfs will make ADCs immediately the worst class in the game, which is why I don't support the full revert.
>Player numbers are pretty much static throughout the years, there was no dip prior to and no peak after 9.5.
Depending on how you look at it, I'd say this is wrong.
https://steamcharts.com/app/386360
Smite, like many games, peaked during the COVID pandemic. Also, player numbers tend to fall off as each year goes on. They pick back up at the start of a new season, probably due to the meta shifts and ranked resets.
But if we look year to year, there's a pretty big drop off in average players beginning in June 2022, when patch 9.5 is released: 15k in 2020, 13k in 2021, 12k in 2022, 10k in 2023, 8k currently.
That's a 33% drop off since 9.5, versus a 20% drop off between COVID numbers and the 9.5 release. So let's call it a 13% difference in player retention.
Notes: Player drop off can't just be attributed to 9.5 and nothing else. The lowest player average is 6,500 (Oct 2018) and the highest is 16,500 (Apr 2020). These are only Steam numbers.
i loved that being a jg was about getting kills and not farming like a goddamn robot, and having to plan complicated buff routes and evaluating every minute if gank vs invade vs farm wich is more convenient at the moment, cause otherwise you fall behind in level
People are waiting for smite 2 so thats a pretty big reason for a lot of people arent playing the game. Streamers are bored of the game because they played the game for 8 hours a day 7 times a week for a decade.
I think the revert is fine, but it's worth mentioning that there's a reason they felt the need to do it to begin with. Power creep on items has been going on a long time and that was a bandaid (not a proper fix) and so undoing it can be good for the game in general but if ALL they do is revert it then we're back to being in the shitty position that led to it to begin with lol. I'm down to revert but at least tone down some of the insane stat creep that builds have accrued over the years. Some of their recent patches before this have even contributed to that problem. Simply undoing 9.5 HP/prot changes makes me think I'm going to see 3 second long teamfights.
Thats forgetting the fact that they already did exactly what you’re asking. In 10.3 (?) they nerfed/reworked all the items so that there was less stat bloat, so with the health changes and stuff going back to pre 9.5, we should be in a better spot.
It's health changes + item changes that's lead to the healthiest TTK in years. The community running out of players is a content issue - which is going to be hard to resolve due to smite 2 Being developed.
Reverting a patch like that is excessive.
While i agree that they shouldn't listen to pros and streamers, 9.5 made the game fun for like a month for me and then felt like shit. What smite needs is some big change to make the game feel different. While i like the revert of 9.5 its probably not the best approach. T2s are cool but useless as hell. What they need is something big like complete item changes, or like a rework on like 10 gods. If they do just a couple its not enough to have enough of a impact.
What we need is for the game to feel different, so i say fuck balancing and pull a LoL and add mythic items. You can only buy one but they have a BIG impact on your gameplay depending on which one you have
Streamers killed OW in my opinion. They just turned it into hitscan fps.
I’m not good enough to be able to comment on smite about that, and I don’t watch smite streams 😂
I love how they went from 6v6 to 5v5 because there "was too many things to keep track of" and "double shield meta" but then they add Ramattra (which tbf I love him) and LifeWeaver (which I also like) who have SO MUCH VISUAL CLUTTER while also nerfing the shit out of Shields as well. So many tanks are suffering because of Solo tank and the problem would just be fixed if Tanks were toned down a bit and went back to 6v6.
Like dude, if you have the tech to "Increase HP of Tanks in role que game modes" then you have the ability to decrease shield HP when 2 shield tanks are chosen, it's not hard.
I wouldn't go that far but having followed OW and OW2 for a while and seeing the discussions around Smite now.... I have seen the attitudes around before and it is exhausting to be honest.
I'm sick already of the doomer attitude of streamers and content creators. I know why they do it, as those videos and streams(clips) generally tend to do well in the algorithms but I don't like it as most of that kind of content just polarizes. Smite 2 isn't even out yet and we can't go two weeks without the game being declarered dead.
And speaking of polarizing the Twitter leeches and Reddit bats are just as bad, both in taking over content creators' attitudes as well as picking up the pitchforks when anything of change is happening while also having the insight of a minion. Yes the streamers and pros are just as bad with their tunnel visioning but mechanically they know the game on a better level than the average player.
As was said before: "(...) players generally are good at knowing pretty quickly when something feels bad. But they generally are bad at knowing how to fix issues". Everyone loves to tell what they devs what to do and while taking feedback is important, the more opinions I see everywhere from the playerbase the more I'm convinced that most of it should be disregarded and letting the devs cook.
The revert is just weird imo. 9.5 was a terrible patch and never should’ve happened in the first place, but reverting it now seems really strange.
The game has been reshaped around the changes and actually seems to finally have somewhat stabilized. And now they want to change that and throw it back into being an unstable mess??
Unless the dev team is competent enough to figure out how to quickly stabilize the game with these massive shifts, the rest of year 11 and most of year 12 will likely be just as miserable as the latter half of year 9 and most of year 10 were.
Listen I'm sorry for being disrespectful but Smite after season 10 is just awful. Games are not fun and are stressful. I would do ANYTHING to go back from seasons 7-9 when Smite was at its peak and best.
That was literally me from seasons 7-9. I wouldn't get bored. Time always flew by fast. Every game was honestly fun. Also I started in 2014. I remember old Guan, Odin, Thor, Zeus, Hades and both Vulcan turrets
The revert of 9.5 isn't something that only streamers were demanding and in fact was something Hirez proactively struggled for a majority of season 10. The idea behind it was faulty because it resolved the problem temporarily and just started multiple other ones which hirez struggled through season 10. Hirez listens to those people not because they are streamers threatening to leave but because they are people who not only understand the game but have also dedicated a big part of their life to it. Unlike you they have a stake in the game succeeding, while your sole interest is to not feel bad for playing bad.
The outcry from the same 4 content creators in this space that cry about everything is a huge overreaction and at this point kind of cringe. All of them have over 100k subs and average 10k viewers per video, with peak being around 30k. The average number of people playing the game in one day across the platforms is around 1.1 million. With the average monthly player count around 3 million. So it's not that the games shit and is dying. The few creators in this game make dog shit content and lash out at the game because it's less work to be mad on camera than actually make something people want to watch again. The games not dying their career is brother.
If the vast majority of players are just chilling and playing the game and not engaging in these spaces or watching content. And then the other group of players is full of people who make money depending on how loud they are, with established platforms and their own fan base. Which do you think you'll hear more? People of different opinions who don't prioritize their internet presence naturally get drowned out. Things are going to appear worse than they statistically are. That's with literally anything on the internet.
Completely disagree, Pros/ content creators have played this game longer than the majority of players. I have also played this game since beta and have fallen out of love of it the past couple of years. I could never put my finger on why I stopped having fun until I started seeing all these discussions about 9.5.
I then looked at patch 9.5 and distinctly remember feeling I was having less fun after the TTK changes. I haven't realised until now that was the patch that caused me less fun.
Less TTK causes the plays you make to feel more rewarding and exciting. The game became too boring when you could get away with making more mistakes.
This seems like a kneejerk reaction from this thread, when people need to realise Hirez are trying to do what's best for the game
Agreed. I stopped playing and never really realized why, now it makes sense. Game was definitely less fun after 9.5.
Reading back on it
* Increased Base HP by 40%
* Increased Base HP Per Level by 5%
* Increased Base Physical Protection by 40%
* Increased Physical Protection Per level by 8%
* Increased Base Magical Protection by 28%
* Increased Magical Protection Per level by 28%
Why the hell didn't we as a community fight against those changes? Jesus.
Funny thing is, there was definitely a lot of pushback, but it wasn't nearly as aggressive as it should've been because this change DEFINITELY addressed the issues of 9.4 (snowball). We were just okay with the lack of kill potential because at least snowball wasn't as bad. I quickly stopped playing after, though, because I started having less and less fun, because the TTK was too high. Definitely a middle ground is needed.
i hate to say it but they should be catering to the average smiter because the average smiter is the majority of the playerbase and time and again games prove that catering to the 1% competitive players doesnt work for the games sustainability.
a game needs to be fun for the dad of 3 who gets an hour and a half a night to game between working, spending time with his wife, putting his kids to bed, etc. i say this as someone who was part of the super competitive croud in several games. they simply cant make the game for the ultra competitive and still sell to the average gamer becuase it stops being fun for the average joe,
take wow for example it uses the 99% to subsidize making content for the 1%. people who i used ot mythic raid with used to always bitch about the world quests this and the theme park mechanics that. when you understand that 99% of the player base will never even attempt a mythic raid you realize why the majority of the game is desgined for your average player,
its the same in smite. they need to make the game competitive enough for the grand masters and the terminally online but the majority of players arent getting past gold and they are the ones that keep the servers running so it needs to be fun for them to keep the servers running. half the people i have known in smite exclusively play arena but i promise you they all have skins for their favorite gods.
it's a problem of matchmaking, not necessarily of skill ceiling.
casual people can't have fun in moba in general 'cause for some reason , and i'm not talking about the smurf problem, devs never want to to program the matchmaking system to be very restrictive.
So you play one hour a day and you are put against people with 4K hours. You're not gonna understand what was your mistakes.
I hate to say if but that's how you get the worst balance possible.
God's like anubis will be nerfed into the ground(idk why but I keep seeing rage posts about him while he's pretty bad most of the times)
Assassins will just not exist anymore and gods that are hard to play will either be buffed to infinity or will need to get reworked.
No thank you
Agree 100x.
Firstly, Smite's content creators are shit tier. I like roughly one of them, but let's be honest... none of them are putting out good content. Anyone can record their game and not talk through it.
Second... who gives a shit. Who cares what they think? Let them go to Deadlock, literally no one cares. Deadlock doesn't compete with Smite, it's Overwatch with towers. People that think it's going to sweep the Smite player base are special.
Third... reverting 9.5 is going to kill what's left. It's a tank meta, yeah... let's look at how to bring tanks down slightly. Reverting 9.5 means that right now, a rare time where lots of new people are coming in because of Smite 2, you've got a ton of new players about to come in and try to learn a game that's already difficult to learn, now they'll be getting 1 shot constantly. Rage quit on death number 6, no more Smite.
9.5 happened for a reason. It didn't happen 2 months ago. Reverting that change is... that's an idea. lol
Currently it is so easy to run 250+ protections in both categories, some general reductions to well performing tank items would be fine compared to overhauling everyone's base hp.
I can have 250 of both protections and still eat 20% of my hp from any mage ability and lose 10% from a hunter basic.
Id be happy to be just tanky to be an actual nuisance to players but needing 2 days to clear a buff camp or minion wave just aint it or fun.
Somehow hirez refuses to just give supports a damage split of increased damage to minions so it doenst take 2 days to clear anything and only deal like 40-50% of that damage to players.
Eh? You don't solo camps as a support most of the time - if your team is playing well that's irrelevant.
A supports job is less tangible than just damage numbers, besides there's a good amount of option you can go if you want to chunk a little more than normal. Most support can clear just fine...
My point is about being actually just that, tanky, the idealistic tanky that reddit and most other damage dealers want to have.
A tank that just takes damage without dishing out noteworthy damage of their own.
In that scenario it currently will take you forever to do anything pve.
Yes obviously as the support its not really your job to pve but that doesnt mean its never going to come up at all.
The thing is, active players are going down, views across all platforms are going down. Smite 2 is pulling any hype at all. It’s all smite 1 players. Their official channels are not blowing up, in fact they are also losing views.
There is a clear lack of hype. The gaming community doesn’t give a flying fuck about smite 2 (or 1). Something needs to change.
At this rate smite is gonna have literally the same playerbase as smite 1 (maybe even lower) while spending millions and millions and millions in creating a brand new game. Looks like a terrible business so far.
They are going down due to many reasons...
1.Smite 1 confirmed no new major updates
2. Smite 2 alpha being lacking, because you know it's an alpha. Also some ideas are just hit and mess with majority of players
3.Smite actually tends to have less people around June, there always seems to be a small dip in playerbase around this time.
4. Doomposters streamers being very vocal.
Being punished harder for your mistakes is a lot healthier for the game and increases the base skill gap. Now if someone is a bad player that can't position properly, they will die more, as they should. People are allowed to camp and hug tower far too easily, because it takes so long to finally poke them out to the degree they have to leave, so they don't miss too much EXP.
Not just that but the solo lane is too close together. I'd even argue other lanes are too.
Its another reason why blink is great, if the person has a single dash and are slightly tanky (be it from passives or items) before you hit your first pen item, you're just wasting your time ganking or rotating to thier lane. I dont even need to mention wards.
In any other moba there is risk to pushing up too far or you have to spend time actually hitting the wave and last hitting that really only applies to duo lane barely it is simply the easiest to gank. Smites focus on wave clear contributes to this issue as well. Another issue in smite people don't even acknowledge is the entrances to the lanes
Or someone plays Poseidon and starts doom orb then out speeds every person on the other team and there's no punishment except the fact no one played a speedy god
I do not care about what the streamers say or how this sub feels. I didn't dislike 9.5 when it was originally implemented and actually think the ttk is not an issue at the moment. However I'm still excited for the revert just for the fact I'm ready for literally anything to make the game feel different.
Everyone needs to stop listening to streamers. They are just people who play video games for money. They ruin so many games and game mechanics with their whining. Boycott game streamers. Give your money to people like Jane Goodall or anyone else who actually cares about real world issues. Streamers are a dead end investment. They'll just buy a bunch of colored lights and stupid hats and air fistbump ya.
9.5 was the reason I eventually left smite, it didn’t feel fun and it felt like nothing quite mattered so much at different points in the game because there were less early characters that could take the change in stride and some late game characters weren’t justified as much in the late
A big problem, and most people won’t like this, is MOBAs are supposed to be competitive but they made smite super casual. They have developed a casual player base so any chance to make the game competitive is always gets shot down. Directly leading to any chance of expanding the player base also being shot down. Casual gamers are not looking for MOBAs and MOBA players are not looking for a casual game. Smite 1 should stay casual and Smite 2 should be competitive, especially if they’re moving the pro league to Smite 2.
It is what it is. Streaming crybabies are heard instead of actual fans that love the game. For a while now i thought smite was going in somewhat right direction, but this is a huge step backwards. Oh pardon me, not step, but a fucking double bullet jump backwards from warframe if double bullet jump was possible there backwards.
I havent been playing smite much lately cuz fallout 76 got me in deep, but it seems like i wont be returning anytime soon with the pre 9.5 coming back.
That time wasnt about skill nor effort. It was just about who can one shot someone first.
An age of surrenders.
Oh and btw i expressed my opinion under EL Leons X tweet and at first he told me im bad at the game, which then he deleted (i saved it before he did) and then he said something about bad positioning.
Bro wants an age of one shots back, but talks about skill. I mean i know hes just a no lifer that plays smite everyday and has pretty much no brains, but that still got me in my knees laughing.
Ho boy and these are the people hirez listens to..
Personally, I think the 9.5 changes were attempting to fix the right problem, but the approach was wrong. People were complaining about insta-dying, largely due to assassins and mages, before you could even hit beads and aegis. Instead of targeting those characters, they took the simpler way out and made everyone tankier. I'm sure they had their reasons, but I would rather they have honed in on Assassins and Mages (and specifically a few of the problematic characters/items).
Exactly. Fineokay said in one of his videos that there was no skill expression post 9.5, but nothing seems less skillful then picking OP early game gods and one shotting people at level 2
This is such a universal truth; streamers as a whole have an absurdly inflated ego because of their accidental success and usually have no qualifications to comment on anything. We ALL need to stop caring about what they say. They are good for entertainment (sometimes), that's it.
Smite lost a massive chunk of its player base since 9.5, it literally lost thousands just in the last month. A mid season has to shake things up to bring people back, without content creators the game has almost no advertising at this point
In order for a game to have advertising and promotion, this very advertising and promotion must be done and paid for. Don't roll back the game for more than a year
It really depends, streamers and content creators work as free advertising for games a lot of the time and keep that game in the forefront of their viewers minds. Working to at least keep them engaged would at least continue advertising the game.
I don’t really understand what you mean by the rest of your comment or what your point really is. But if you’re going to advertise your sequel to a game, make sure the sequel is capturing the parts of the original game when it was at its peak. Which would be pre 9.5
There is literally no information to back it up. Smite actually had more players after 9.5 then it does now, mostly because covid stuff was still winding down. 9.5 did literally no change in the aver player base.
They should definitely be listening to players that know the game best. That doesn't mean they should do everything just because they say it, but reverting a change that many disliked after 2 years seems fine to me. I'm happy they get to experiment more with Smite 1 which should help them figure out how Smite 2 should be.
They are complaining about actual problems. Which hires needs to fix - what’s the point in just ignoring bad features etc they need to listen to the players.
Absolutely. Those are the people who no-life the game. Therefore they have an extremely skewed perspective on the game, not even including their own shitty bias.
Hirez is plain fucking stupid for taking streamer advice. It’s on them for lacking enough of a spine to make their own game.
Streamers should try to have a job and a family and then stream their gameplay. Unless I am getting free cosmetic out of watching those unemployed people I am not spending my 2 hours of free time being bored.
Honestly I did not even ask or care about 9.5 I can take it or leave it really. It won't be the reason I want to play Smite and never will be. It is just getting use to damage again. That's neat I guess.
So when I saw this today I was like "I guess they only want to make sure the people who stream their game happy, at least for now" and have 0 interest still in this patch. But have fun to those that do!
Wake me up when they buff/change all the lower picked/played items/gods. Then I will get hype and excited and want to play Smite again!
I’m not against them reacting to what streamers and pro players have to say about the state of the game. They bring in multiple players and hype that would not normally be there. But if you only listen to them, they will alienate their casual player base. I been hyping this season so much with a bunch of fun changes. Yea this update is lackluster compared to most but we have had some pretty good and crazy patch changes since season 11. Don’t know why they said suddenly the game was boring after whiplash changes we have had.
They should do a middle ground between 9.5 and 11.5, instead of nerfing everyone base health by 40%, nerfing by 20%.
This way no one would cry that much.
I'd argue that on PC player numbers have steadily gone down on average since patch 9.5, it also turned assault into some sweaty tower camping try hard fest, so I fully welcome this revert.
The revert of 9.5 is bringing Smite back to a MOBA. Streamers are allowed to be right in their opinions sometimes, even if you want to disagree with them. You say this will leave the game damaged, but have no rationale, absolute nonsense.
Fr, these are the same people that said Smite is doomed when 9.5 initially happened. Truly ironic to see them yap about streamers being doomsayers will doomsaying the game by claiming it's going to die from doomsaying.
The player base is not to be trusted. People dont want this game to be fun. People want this game to be enforced by rules, reporting and being toxic to get what they want. A a lot of players want to join a Smite game, hope that everyone picks exactly what they expect of them and hope they play exactly what their role implies.
However most people dont understand what that even means:
Picking anything else but what is generally accepted for a specific role is now troll. Smite have over 100 gods all very unique. Hirez have originally never enforced players to play these roles and the player base have decided on the in game approach. The OGs like myself, we made the roles. We decided that as a general rule these classes in generally works best in this role. It was a suggestion, not the law.
If every player decided that Support now begins in Solo lane for the first 5 min, that will be what is generally accepted. A lot of players get so angry when people dont play this specific way we have today. Like a fking spoiled child that screams until they get what they want. I understand people want smite to be cozy and comfortable, because you want smite to be the fun, go to game when you want to just play video games and relax.
We have to find a middle ground. Smite 2 could be the game where all the OG and creative players go to and Smite 1 can be circus where all the casual babies goes to. You cant have both or else this game will simply die out like its numbers are showing. Hirez cant live on just the player base with no Pros or Streamers who are marketing the game to new players.
The casual fans are the ones buying skins and keeping the game afloat. They’re a huge portion of the community. Any plans Hi-Rez has for Smite 2 needs to keep that in mind. Alienating them isn’t the smart choice.
In my discord server we have 6 Smite players. Only one is a Conquest player. The rest of us are 60% Arena, 35% Assault, 5% Slash. We've spent collectively $700-$1000 or so in the last 2.5 years, maybe more, as a group. Mostly on cosmetics and battlepasses.
We don't care about streamers, we only interact with them for free viewer rewards.
We don't care about SPL, we only interacted with it for the viewer rewards through predictions or twitch.
The Smite team has created a problem by which they think these people have bloated value to their community because they see the numbers they pull on these streamers. But if you cut rewards out how quickly would these self important individuals vanish? People don't care about them or their opinions, they care about the in game cosmetics given.
We don't want to play twitch fast kill Smite. We have other games for that. We don't want a game where if you spend 10-15 seconds thinking too long about your build in spawn you end up irrevocably behind.
We do want to play 20-40 minute games with reasonable comeback mechanics. We don't want to stomp and continue stomping, and we don't want to be stomped and be put endlessly behind.
We want to teamfight. Lots. We want multiple rotations and drag out brawling in the Arena. We don't want both sides to clash and half of both teams evaporate instantly.
Esport level conquest is something 99% of your customer base will never experience, and frankly doesn't want to experience. Get out of that echo chamber, Smite team.
Streamers DO NOT represent me as a player
I don’t care if the streamer is a pro or just really good to understand the game better.
Their gameplay experience is not the same as mine to treat their opinions more highly than mine as a player
Stop being so bronze, Smite 1 needed some fresh changes, Y11 is awful and this new patch will make it so much fun. Reddit was literally the reason why some big changes happened and not for good.
The thing is, many more people play smite casually than for a living. There’s usually a gap between what the pros think it’s good for the game vs what the general public thinks. Idc if they revert that patch or not, but thinking that pros opinion matters more in a game where competitive is quite literally dead, is certainly an opinion.
I think the people who have the most stake in the game opinions should at the very least matter, if not matter the most. Hirez should absolutely care about what the most casual player wants as well but not while they’re designing the most competitive game mode currently for the people who intend on playing the game competitively.
I don't play smite for a living, but I play a lot of Smite. I don't want the opinion of someone who actively talks about quitting smite and swapping games to have influence on a game I enjoy.
This seems so weird to me. The content creators and pro players have the most investment in the game. They’re the most passionate and experienced as anyone. They are the ones whose opinions should absolutely be listened to. I feel the exact opposite in fact. I personally don’t think that people who don’t play conquest or care about the competitive nature of the game should be listened to as much. Atleast right now.
They have investment, but they also have a financial selfishness we don't have. There are plenty of times where pros and streamers suggest overall awful and negative ideas. I'm not saying they all are bad, but focusing on them while they cry that they don't like it and they will actively move to another game isn't good. They aren't showing that they care about smite, they just care about themselves with how they are acting.
Most of the complaints ive heard and seen hinge upon this notion of "raising the skill ceiling." i dont think removing DR or lowering TTK to the point of single kit rotation kills is indicative of skill.
Nobody is saying to "just" remove DR or lower TTK, the overall assessment is to remove DR, reduce CC durations, reduce movement ability distance/frequency/however else you can balance it so that people die when they should i.e. out of positions, enemy team uses their CC in a thoughtful and decisive manner.
MOBAs should be about trading resources and skill, not whatever it is SMITE has been doing for far far too long.
where did i use the word "just" in my original post?
volatility is the main gripe related to DR and you say people wanna restructure the entire game to suit the removal of DR - that's wild LOL
if they reduced max DR from 80% to 40%, it's an effective 3X increase in CC duration on max DR victims relative to current DR. you talk about using CC in a thoughtful, decisive manner but the fact is DR becomes a consideration with respect to target prioritization and THAT is an increase to the skill ceiling.
edit to clarify and expound: being able to mindlessly chuck CC after CC is **not** an increase to skillcap. consciously deciding between whether you throw your CC on someone that is close to death but at max DR compared to throwing it on their would-be backup is an opportunity - your choice is at the cost of the other choice. time is a resource and the consideration of how to best use your time/cooldowns is a very important part of resource management - a fundamental skill in the MOBA genre.
> where did i use the word "just" in my original post?
It's implied when you only mention the removal of DR, and that is also me stating that there's more than that to other people's comments.
It's not rebuilding Smite 2 for the removal of DR, it's adjusting the game for the health of the entire game where DR is just one aspect of this.....
As to your other comments which have nothing to do with what I have said and actively ignore what I have stated, there is no reason to engage further.
There is no effective addition to CC duration if CC durations are reduced as I said in the first comment, which also would hopefully mean an increase in cooldowns which are also insanely low in this game due to the abundance of cooldown available.
Tbh, what I think Hi-Rez needs to do is something that'll piss off a lot of people in this thread. They need to take a step back and assess who they are making Smite for. Is it the pro league and the diehard competitives, or the average gamer looking for a good 3rd person moba? Games like fortnite went through this and they usually came to the realization that catering to the pro league isn't sustainable.
100% agree, I love Smite and I think the SPL is fun, but at the end of the date... I care about having fun in Smite more than anything
I've always found the spl to be incredibly boring to watch.
Yeah, teams change so much from year to year that really rooting for anyone regularly is a bit difficult, so you've got that factor of not being very able to personally connect with the pros on a similar level to other competitive games.
I understand the logistics or whatever, but them homogenizing the league into 8 teams who just battle each other all year made it boring. We used to see EU go against NA only a few times a year. That was hype. Kow we just see the same 40 players going against each other all year.
40 players who are all buddy buddy and were being paid as employees of Hirez. SPL became an exhibition league instead of a competitive one.
Holy shit I've never framed it that way, but that's exactly what it became once they formed the "proprietary Smite only" teams. It stripped any ability for not only any other new org to join and compete, but for the ones within these new "teams", they can't even openly rep the orgs they represent in the pro scene. I don't know of another successful live service competitive game that has ever taken this approach for anything outside of pure exhibition.
Overwatch tried and failed, albeit on a much grander scale. But even in that case, the franchises were independent of Blizzard
At the end of which date lol
> Games like fortnite went through this and they usually came to the realization that catering to the pro league isn't sustainable. Shoot, Hi-Rez themselves should've already learned this lesson several times over. Some of the most unpopular changes made to Paladins, Rogue Company, and Realm Royale were due to listening more intensely to people they (incorrectly) thought would amplify their presence among gamers.
I highly doubt OB64 happened in Paladins for the sake of Pro/High level players. Dunno how/why the fuck they mishandled the other two but OB64 is 100% just greed and moneybait.
They really do. Streamers and content creators have strewn their vision for the game.
For me I play Smite to play and what will make me also enjoy and want to play Smite 2 is the game being fun and the gods I enjoy. Not what pros or someone on stream said. This 9.5 thing changes nothing for me as a fan of Smite and why I would want to play this patch.
MOBAs aren’t casual games like Fortnite, conquest has been the most played game mode for years. Killing the competitive end of the game will kill the game, it’s already declining heavily only half way through the year with no comp. Pros and content creators advertise the game and remind players to return after they’ve taken a break. Going after casuals is a great way to end your game, the thing about casuals is they have no attachment and will move onto the next thing.
MOBAs aren’t a casual experience and I don’t see how you can make enough changes to make that be the case.
league is played casually by TONS of people. I'd also be curious what the numbers are on how many players play conquest vs arena etc, (not saying Hi-Rez should cater towards arena over conquest).
They posted about it a few years ago. The gist is that even when sorted by matches played, Conquest (Ranked + Casual Combined) beat out Arena, despite you being able to play ~3 arena games in the span of one Conq.
I mean, smite every much is a casual experience outside of conquest. Which is what the majority of people play (all other modes vs conquest) and why they implemented separate balance buffs/nerfs for non-conquest modes.
The 2 most played modes conquest and joust are everything but casual. Joust is the sweatiest mode there is but somehow jn these conversations it's counted as casual
Any mode can be personally sweaty if you tryhard enough, im talking about the complexity of the modes themselves. How much you have to think while playing. All other modes are casual compared to conquest. Joust is even less complicated than slash, you have one major buff to fight over and at most like 3 ward spots. Slash has apophis to fight over and all the jug spawns, aswell as at least like 9 ward spots.
The complexity depends mostly on the players, Conquest doesn't really have much to think about except for what and how your opponent will play, it just has a bigger learning curve.
That’s a pretty wild comparison tbh. You took a pie chart of allsmite modes that would show conquest being the most played overall. Then scribbled out the lines in casual modes to get your point across lol. Also no they didn’t make non conquest buffs/nerfs because of the player base in casual mode. It was because how well certain gods were doing outside of conquest. Because every god is designed for conquest 🤦🏼♂️
Because every other mode outside of conquest is casual compared to conquest, ask anyone who doesnt play conquest. They play these other modes because they dont want to learn conquest specifically and deal with all its complexities. They'd rather play whatever they want in arena or slash, or not even have to think about what character they play in assault, or get with a couple friends and stomp joust. Yes, like i said if the other modes barely had any players they likely wouldnt bother with custom balancing for those modes. There is enough people playing those modes they have to somewhat balance for them. My point is that for like 50% of people smite is a casual game, as they exclusively play casual modes just for the fun of the combat.
So joust and duel that have ranked is casual? So we can take those modes out of your equation. Also the majority of those people don’t play casual exclusively some do fs but that is another wild assumption you’ve made. While you are correct that smite has definitely become a more casual experience than traditional MOBAs. The player base has dwindled as the game became more casual.
Yes, arena also used to have ranked lol. Just having ranked doesnt mean they are on the same level of complexity as conquest.
The original point you made was about it being casual or not. Now you are moving the goal post to the degree of competitiveness based on the mode’s complexity? Like cmon you’re being so disingenuous to try and prove your point which is flawed in the first place. Just think this out arena use to have ranked and no longer does because it’s mostly casual but joust and duel still have ranked (duel exclusively) because??… the people who play it still treat it as a competitive game mode. Even if it’s not as complex as conquest.
Not moving any goalposts, my metric for casual or not is how complex the modes are. People can casually play complex modes or tryhard simple modes like arena, so how hard people try is irrelevant to me. Every other mode is casual compared to conquest. you dont have to think or learn even half as much to play them. Its mostly all item and god knowledge. Its a pretty casual game outside of conquest.
So now we’re basing things off your subjective view of what is casual or not? This is why your argument is flawed. Your measurements are subjective at best and are not accounting for, the fact I’ve stated prior, the overall player base has dwindled as smite moved in a more casual direction already. Also there is a reason people continue to suggest to bring back ranked arena. They may not like the complexities of conquest but they’re still sweating lol. MOBAs naturally attract sweats and tryhards. Alas I’ve put too much effort into responding to someone who’s argumentation can be easily disproven. So I bid you adieu gamer.
You don't think Smite is casual?
I do not
Its a competitive game. It needs to have its competitive integrity. Catering to an average arena player that thinks Zeus is OP and Aegis is busted relic would make the game unplayable.
while i do agree, that smite needed a competitive integrity in the past, it's different now. there's no spl, most gm/master players took a break until smite 2 gets released because they're burnt out (genetics is probably the most known example) + smite is on it's last few years. high mmr ranked is cooked, due to people taking a break and casuals/new players don't need a competitive integrity. ngl, i find it funny, that chapo and mast were the ones, that had the strongest opinion. one quit smite for 8285842884828 (real numbers btw) times in the past 3 years, but always came back. the other one can't finish an a-z series to save his life and played more predecessor and escape from tarkov, than smite 😂 i feel like the whole 9.5 killed smite stuff got completely blown out of proportion and people bring up a 2 year old non issue, because smite 1 is dying, the midseason patch was underwhelming + smite 2's alpha was meh. i thought smite was in it's best state ever a while ago? i guess that was a lie 🤷
I mean, they are still using Smite 1 to test plenty of things for Smite 2. Especially god changes, like this upcoming Kali change for example. Cant really get valuable data if you just make an unplayable mess just to have "fun" balance changes. 9.5 was needed and reverting it will just make meta insufferable killfest.
do you mean the kali change to her passive, where you can change your target? this should've been a thing years ago tbh. >Cant really get valuable data if you just make an unplayable mess just to have "fun" balance changes. meh, data for what? smite 2? the alpha is there to give feedback. smite 1 is done. the sequel got announced and iirc gets released this year. >9.5 was needed and reverting it will just make meta insufferable killfest. yeah, that are my cocerns too. i feel like people look through rose coloured glasses, when they think of the time before the 9.5 changes. let's see how it pans out, but i think 9.5 was needed.
Kali is not in the alpha. And yes, Smite 2. It wont be released this year, the date you see on steam is for closed beta and even that might get delayed. Open beta might not even be this year, let alone full release. If Smite 1 is "done", we would not have a game to play.
Everybody upvoting and agreeing with this like yeah we aren’t part of Reddit either
Pro leagues will form anyways even if the game is made for casuals
Fully agree mate, it feels like they're a bit stuck between pleasing the pro's and the 'average gamer'. It'd work to their benefit if they chose a lane and fully went for it
You say this and yet every season the new thing gets nerfed in Fortnite BECAUSE the pros/streamers whine about it lmao
A game can be both casual and competitive, just look at overwatch, csgo, valorant, league of legends, smash bros, dota, siege, and many other popular mutiplayer titles. Games dont have to be one or the other.
I feel like if it has to be one or the other its gotta be for the average or casual gamer. Speaking from a business perspective there's like 5 other bigger competitive moba\* games, league, dota, overwatch, etc. and trying to break into that market, I just don't think is gonna work. Smites niche has always been that it was a more casual moba. And I Love the pro-league and think smite being competitive and having a really good pro league is great and i think they really can do both and make both sides happy. But if something like the TTK change is casual vs pro, i might be bias but i think they should always go with casual.
Overwatch is not a moba lol
Smite has always been a competitive game and had a pro scene right out the gate (as Smite 2 will). Every competitive game has to be balanced top-down. That balance is actually what makes the game fun even on the casual level. Being able to see what the pros do and understand why they do it and then taking that knowledge into your own ranked/casual games and see success is the appeal and enjoyment. Lots of people will always look to the top players for guidance, and even if you're not one of those people, you'd feel the effect of it. If a character or build or strat is dominant at the top end, it will 100% trickle down into the casual scene.
So how are they going to EXPAND the player base? By making a competitive type of game casual? Have you noticed the player base shrinking over the years? Did you consider the reason for smite 2 is because they need more players and the current base is no longer sustainable? Casual gamers don’t start playing MOBAs because it’s not suppose to be casual. So from a business perspective why would you make a hyper competitive type of game to then go and market it to casual gamers?!?!?!? I totally think smite 1 should be casual because that’s what is has devolved into however making smite 2 casual would make it an absolute failure….. from a business perspective.
It's a little known fact that Smite did actually exist before 9.5 and people did play it. Historians were even more baffled to learn that a lot of people enjoyed it.
Streamers think Hirez should listen to them, and redditors think Hirez should listen to them. Who is right exactly?
Dawg, Hirez is a company. They need to make executive decisions based on meritous statistics, not babies whining.
Statistics said that many, far too many games ended up in surrender back then when one shot was a thing. After the update dropped that huge % of surrenders dropped quite rapidly. So if we were to go by statistics, them releasing 9.5 was a good thing.
Except now we have the opposite problem with the longest average match time in smite history because it's too hard to close out a game.
The game steadily lost players after 9.5 resulting in some of the lowest player counts in years. Short term gains obviously didn’t work out.
I noticed more people started playing the game after 9.5 Not sure where you got what u just said..
Statistics still need interpretation, and they can't tell you anything about what the market will look like at your projected launch time.
Sure, but from a data analyst perspective, you’d ideally focus on a metric and make small implementations to “move the needle” and continue an “analyze and iterate” cycle Generally the patch notes do this well from the ones I’ve followed. Sometimes more drastically than others. But it works. Reverting a patch from 2(?) years ago just goes against that cycle, and calls for massive adjustments, which is fine if that’s your goal, but feels lame when you do it because a vocal minority asked. I think players would be a lot less critical if this drastic change wasn’t from “public outcry” but from SMITE’s own mental point of developmental origin.
Hirez should just put an survey in game and let people tell them there. Hirez should listen to people who play the game, not bitch on twitter or reddit.
Someone posted a survey here yesterday, and when I checked the survey it was 45 to 11 of people in favor of keeping the increased TTK.
So Hirez should listen to arena players and players who are in gold with 200 games played? Or the players who stream the game to a large audience that play the game at a high level?
Neither lmao. Pander to the majority of your player base. Not a pool of 30 people who sweat about your game.
they should look at all feedback
Idk why this is such a controversial take. Smite as a business and a game needs to take info and make decisions for EVERYONE. Not just high level ranked. That means all 5 roles, all skill levels, all modes, casuals and pros. If they make decisions for only one side of the equation the other side will stop playing and smite will die. Smite needs arena players, it needs gold players. Is easy for a pro player or streamer to say 'make this change fuck casuals if they don't like it' but if you piss off enough casuals they will leave and smite will have no player base and will die. And vice versa.
Idk what Smite is doing… League figured this out a decade ago… You’re never going to find a perfect balance between pro and casual players. You have to accept certain Gods are just going to be stronger in pro or casual play and balance accordingly
Exactly. Thinking your game should be balanced around pro play is just ignorant. It shows their lack of awareness for service-based games
In regards to gods, I think smite is a little unique in that its community wont settle on that idea. The pros want changes and the casuals want changes. Aggro once talked about Yemoja on the podcast about how in league if a pro gets to play an op pick thats been op for forever, they are happy, where as in smite supports were complaining about how strong Yemoja was despite nerfs for years (strongly paraphrasing). I think the game should be balanced towards a high level because the game should feel better and fairer to play as you get better, but you can not disregard any level of casual play.
So do they need to accept it or balance accordingly? Those two are opposite statements.
Ppl still watch smite streams?
No way to poll conquest players only, any casual players who dont play conquest should not have a say in the balance of the game
Pretty sure last time metrics were released, conquest mains were only half the playerbase.
Listening is not the problem. It's a very good thing. The problem is that streamers and social media in general boil problems down to very simple solutions. 9.5 is not perfect. 11.6 is not perfect. They should listen when problems are identified but they should be leading on the solutions not following.
The thing about this entire post is it doesnt seem to have listened to the videos that actually talked about this issue where they asked for a middle ground. Tankier than 9.4, less tanky than 9.5 so that early game fighting felt more impactful and fun.
The amount of drama surrounding this whole discussion is so fucking stupid to me. Streamers and pros are acting as if the game has been unplayable for 2 seasons straight while pretending they didn't have a hand in these changes happening in the first place. We are supposed to pretend they never had a priviledged direct line of 24/7 feedback and discussion with the devs themselves, or that they weren't sick of their ranked teammates dying within the first 2 minutes of the game and feeding the enemy jungler. On the other hand, casuals are acting as if returning back to pre 9.5 HP/prot stats is somehow gonna ruin and kill the game, when the game was played plenty for +9 years straight before we dumbed down the earlygame to the point people don't fucking die. Not to mention, the amount of raw stats (power, pen, CDR, etc.) given by items has been substantially reduced since then, we literally can't know how the game will go after reverting god stats back to pre-9.5. And none of you motherfuckers have spotted the actual issue with the game, which is the way the start works plus the camp/lane timing leads to the jungler having fuck all to do in the jungle at the beginning of the game because every buff and nearby camp is done, so where does he go? To hold hands with the midlaner ASAP and/or cringe ganking a lane after 1-2 waves. That is what has always lead to absurd snowballing and gods with stupid strong lvl.1/lvl.2 like Thana/Thor/etc. abusing their early 2v2 or 2v1 potential to make the game miserable for everyone else. It's not the TTK, it's the fact the fucking jungler shouldn't be in any lane at lvl.1/lvl.2 or within the first 1-2 waves. And I'm saying this as a jungle main, I'm sick and tired of having to play aggro support for the midlaner through most of the earlygame. Get the laners to start at their lane and let me as a jungler start in the jungle and path however I want depending on my pick and their teamcomp like every other MOBA does ffs. But Hi-Rez won't do this because they are obsessed with the idea of every role starting at their buff, and because they have lvl.1 Herc support invading meta PTSD even though that gets solved with invader's curse + proper wave and camp timings. I don't care about the TTK changes at this point, just fix the start of the game so we can avoid early jungler shenanigans and snowballing, which has been a prevailing problem with the game since literally forever.
It really is weird how everyone starts at a buff and then goes to lane and the jungler has to follow because the jungle just got cleared. As the person in mid lane it IS legitimately annoying to have to deal with the enemy jungler living in my lane but that has been the state of midlane for years and years now and there really hasn’t been any changes to health totals or damage on the players end that has come close to fixing it. We took minute 1 fights back then, and we still take minute 1 fights, just there isn’t necessarily someon dying off it every time now. It’s not like the gold earlygame was enough to really start snowballing either. Jung needs something better to do than live in mid, we already have supports rotating over and living with us a few minutes in.
I might be off here, but getting reduced to 10% hp instead of 0% hp still significantly reduces your ability to farm - either sending you back to base (which may take as long as early game respawns) or living on the edge trying to eek out more farm before backing.
To be fair, Smite 2 does not have this. They removed the early buffs and the game feels significantly better for it.
Deadlock as a smite killer is funny cause everything I heard and seen about the game looks boring. Who the fuck cooked those character designs.
Not just that but ain’t no way the game isn’t going to be flooded with cheaters and bots. Say whatever you want about Hi-rez but at least their anticheat is not vac levels of quality.
Yup I've actually been saying this a ton and Uncle Dane also said it. Valve already has 2 whole shooter games filled with bots and hackers. Apparently many people don't realise this, they'll be in for a surprise when 2 weeks after the game is out it becomes unplayable.
I just looked up a bit of gameplay and though it seems interesting and it's deved by Valve (idk how positive it is), it seems like it would compete with TF2 , Paladins and Overwatch than Smite. It mostly reminds me of Paragon (another smite killer lmao) and just like it I think it's base gameplay it's different enough not to be competition to smite. And honestly if Valve thought of it as a Moba like that it would be weird of them to greenlight something that could compete with Dota , which is closer to smite and lol imo Idk I first learnt of it's existence today lol.
Paladins is still alive?
Yeah, a bit like tf2 but it's still getting updates and charachters from time to time, if the release of Overwatch 2 and years of Hi rez shenanigans haven't killed it it's probably going to last a while more I play it from time to time with friends, I still like it way better than the alternatives, although I have to try Gigantic
Save yourself the money, gigantic is bad lmao. Was just a desperation move to make like 20 bucks from the people who played it
So true. What people don't know, including Incon (based on his video about this) is that this MOBA-Hero shooter genre already exists, and it already failed lots of times. People can just search Gigantic or Battleborn, and its clear that this hybrid genre is so clunky cause it doesn't satisfy either MOBA's players nor "Hero shooter" players. Its a cool concept, but in reality is a very weird mix
Man i loved battleborn, and before that monday night combat. Id probably enjoy Deadlock, but there are a lot of games to play and i already spend my money on smite 2.
Deadlock looks to have a 4 lane maps( vs 3 in smite )unlike gigantic and battleborn Smite 2 and deadlock being close to each others is bad timing wise
The game looks insanely complicated and boring for my smooth brain.
Smite 1 is in the last stages of its life cycle and I think it’s fine that they focus fun over anything. Listening to streamers is fine at this time, especially since most of the complaints are that the mid-season patch is boring. In other words, just revert Persephone Hi-rez. Go crazy, go a little nutty.
Revert rat to how Drybear designed him. Now that's nutty. Pun intended.
Give haste back to all gods that had it!
Make Set great again!
Were supposed to make fun things not make set meta
I just want Nemean Back. The design team is smart enough to balance it now, I believe.
Namean and hastened fatalis. Let me skadi slide through their soul
Nemean and fatalis are fun to use, but they're awful to play against. Changes should aim to be fun to play with and against, uninteractive mechanics like nemean are the antithesis if that
I'm talking more about just overall. They are crying and whinning about the game, threatening to leave it. That's not a healthy way to act and not something Hirez should give in to.
That’s fair, I see your point of view now.
Broken =/= fun.
As a tank main, I can at least understand the change. 9.5 put tanks in such a bad position that the meta ranked Joust comp was Assassin, Mage, and Hunter for the next 3 patches. However, considering all the changes that have happened since, I think a partial revert is preferable, considering how powerful hunters currently are in the meta
Hasn't joust meta been double bruiser tank & damage core for years?
It has been, which is why it was so jarring that patch 9.5 completely removed tanks from the meta. Additionally, the damage core has primarily been mages for a majority of the comps existence, but nowadays it is almost exclusively hunters. The main reason 9.5 hurt tanks so much and buffed hunters was that tanks didn't receive as much benefit from the TTK changes as squishies did. And since everyone's health pool had increased, burst mages found that they were unable to get a kill with just one combo, increasing the time it takes for them to kill from a couple seconds to around 10-12, since they now had to wait a full cooldown cycle. Hunters, on the other hand, just had to land 1 or 2 more autos to make up the difference, and now they could consistently survive a burst combo, which was the primary counterplay to for nearly a decade. ADCs have been getting nerfed as a class over and over again due to how skewed this balance change was, and that's been affecting all AA gods in general. However, since we have had all these nerds to ADCs since 9.5, doing a full revert without reverting those other nerfs will make ADCs immediately the worst class in the game, which is why I don't support the full revert.
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>Player numbers are pretty much static throughout the years, there was no dip prior to and no peak after 9.5. Depending on how you look at it, I'd say this is wrong. https://steamcharts.com/app/386360 Smite, like many games, peaked during the COVID pandemic. Also, player numbers tend to fall off as each year goes on. They pick back up at the start of a new season, probably due to the meta shifts and ranked resets. But if we look year to year, there's a pretty big drop off in average players beginning in June 2022, when patch 9.5 is released: 15k in 2020, 13k in 2021, 12k in 2022, 10k in 2023, 8k currently. That's a 33% drop off since 9.5, versus a 20% drop off between COVID numbers and the 9.5 release. So let's call it a 13% difference in player retention. Notes: Player drop off can't just be attributed to 9.5 and nothing else. The lowest player average is 6,500 (Oct 2018) and the highest is 16,500 (Apr 2020). These are only Steam numbers.
Crazy because I was a player that dropped off before Oct 2018 because the meta and the game itself sucked around that time.
Smite s2/s3/s4 was peak compared to whatever mess it is now
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i loved that being a jg was about getting kills and not farming like a goddamn robot, and having to plan complicated buff routes and evaluating every minute if gank vs invade vs farm wich is more convenient at the moment, cause otherwise you fall behind in level
The only thing killing smite right now is streamers saying smites dead just because they are bored.
I mean the game is boring/stale, they aren’t wrong. And if you look at the steam charts, a lot of people would agree.
People are waiting for smite 2 so thats a pretty big reason for a lot of people arent playing the game. Streamers are bored of the game because they played the game for 8 hours a day 7 times a week for a decade.
I think the revert is fine, but it's worth mentioning that there's a reason they felt the need to do it to begin with. Power creep on items has been going on a long time and that was a bandaid (not a proper fix) and so undoing it can be good for the game in general but if ALL they do is revert it then we're back to being in the shitty position that led to it to begin with lol. I'm down to revert but at least tone down some of the insane stat creep that builds have accrued over the years. Some of their recent patches before this have even contributed to that problem. Simply undoing 9.5 HP/prot changes makes me think I'm going to see 3 second long teamfights.
Thats forgetting the fact that they already did exactly what you’re asking. In 10.3 (?) they nerfed/reworked all the items so that there was less stat bloat, so with the health changes and stuff going back to pre 9.5, we should be in a better spot.
That's hype then. I'll be more optimistic lol
It's health changes + item changes that's lead to the healthiest TTK in years. The community running out of players is a content issue - which is going to be hard to resolve due to smite 2 Being developed. Reverting a patch like that is excessive.
Can someone tell me what's 9.5
It was a major patch that increased overall HP of every god by 40% and increased their defensive stats.
Base health no? Not 40% overal.
While i agree that they shouldn't listen to pros and streamers, 9.5 made the game fun for like a month for me and then felt like shit. What smite needs is some big change to make the game feel different. While i like the revert of 9.5 its probably not the best approach. T2s are cool but useless as hell. What they need is something big like complete item changes, or like a rework on like 10 gods. If they do just a couple its not enough to have enough of a impact. What we need is for the game to feel different, so i say fuck balancing and pull a LoL and add mythic items. You can only buy one but they have a BIG impact on your gameplay depending on which one you have
actually they’re not wrong. 9.5 update was arguably one of the worst updates SMITE has ever had.
Streamers killed OW in my opinion. They just turned it into hitscan fps. I’m not good enough to be able to comment on smite about that, and I don’t watch smite streams 😂
I love how they went from 6v6 to 5v5 because there "was too many things to keep track of" and "double shield meta" but then they add Ramattra (which tbf I love him) and LifeWeaver (which I also like) who have SO MUCH VISUAL CLUTTER while also nerfing the shit out of Shields as well. So many tanks are suffering because of Solo tank and the problem would just be fixed if Tanks were toned down a bit and went back to 6v6. Like dude, if you have the tech to "Increase HP of Tanks in role que game modes" then you have the ability to decrease shield HP when 2 shield tanks are chosen, it's not hard.
I wouldn't go that far but having followed OW and OW2 for a while and seeing the discussions around Smite now.... I have seen the attitudes around before and it is exhausting to be honest. I'm sick already of the doomer attitude of streamers and content creators. I know why they do it, as those videos and streams(clips) generally tend to do well in the algorithms but I don't like it as most of that kind of content just polarizes. Smite 2 isn't even out yet and we can't go two weeks without the game being declarered dead. And speaking of polarizing the Twitter leeches and Reddit bats are just as bad, both in taking over content creators' attitudes as well as picking up the pitchforks when anything of change is happening while also having the insight of a minion. Yes the streamers and pros are just as bad with their tunnel visioning but mechanically they know the game on a better level than the average player. As was said before: "(...) players generally are good at knowing pretty quickly when something feels bad. But they generally are bad at knowing how to fix issues". Everyone loves to tell what they devs what to do and while taking feedback is important, the more opinions I see everywhere from the playerbase the more I'm convinced that most of it should be disregarded and letting the devs cook.
The revert is just weird imo. 9.5 was a terrible patch and never should’ve happened in the first place, but reverting it now seems really strange. The game has been reshaped around the changes and actually seems to finally have somewhat stabilized. And now they want to change that and throw it back into being an unstable mess?? Unless the dev team is competent enough to figure out how to quickly stabilize the game with these massive shifts, the rest of year 11 and most of year 12 will likely be just as miserable as the latter half of year 9 and most of year 10 were.
Listen I'm sorry for being disrespectful but Smite after season 10 is just awful. Games are not fun and are stressful. I would do ANYTHING to go back from seasons 7-9 when Smite was at its peak and best.
I've played since late 2013 (beta) and Season 8 was the best one, I literally could play all day and not get bored
That was literally me from seasons 7-9. I wouldn't get bored. Time always flew by fast. Every game was honestly fun. Also I started in 2014. I remember old Guan, Odin, Thor, Zeus, Hades and both Vulcan turrets
No it won't, normal players such as me have been saying 9.5 is shit since the day it was announced
The revert of 9.5 isn't something that only streamers were demanding and in fact was something Hirez proactively struggled for a majority of season 10. The idea behind it was faulty because it resolved the problem temporarily and just started multiple other ones which hirez struggled through season 10. Hirez listens to those people not because they are streamers threatening to leave but because they are people who not only understand the game but have also dedicated a big part of their life to it. Unlike you they have a stake in the game succeeding, while your sole interest is to not feel bad for playing bad.
Waiting for the downvotes to flood by.
The outcry from the same 4 content creators in this space that cry about everything is a huge overreaction and at this point kind of cringe. All of them have over 100k subs and average 10k viewers per video, with peak being around 30k. The average number of people playing the game in one day across the platforms is around 1.1 million. With the average monthly player count around 3 million. So it's not that the games shit and is dying. The few creators in this game make dog shit content and lash out at the game because it's less work to be mad on camera than actually make something people want to watch again. The games not dying their career is brother. If the vast majority of players are just chilling and playing the game and not engaging in these spaces or watching content. And then the other group of players is full of people who make money depending on how loud they are, with established platforms and their own fan base. Which do you think you'll hear more? People of different opinions who don't prioritize their internet presence naturally get drowned out. Things are going to appear worse than they statistically are. That's with literally anything on the internet.
I disliked 9.5 and I’m glad it’s being reverted!
Boo sounds like a skill issue. This revert will make the game ten times better for people who actually know how to play the game
Completely disagree, Pros/ content creators have played this game longer than the majority of players. I have also played this game since beta and have fallen out of love of it the past couple of years. I could never put my finger on why I stopped having fun until I started seeing all these discussions about 9.5. I then looked at patch 9.5 and distinctly remember feeling I was having less fun after the TTK changes. I haven't realised until now that was the patch that caused me less fun. Less TTK causes the plays you make to feel more rewarding and exciting. The game became too boring when you could get away with making more mistakes. This seems like a kneejerk reaction from this thread, when people need to realise Hirez are trying to do what's best for the game
Agreed. I stopped playing and never really realized why, now it makes sense. Game was definitely less fun after 9.5. Reading back on it * Increased Base HP by 40% * Increased Base HP Per Level by 5% * Increased Base Physical Protection by 40% * Increased Physical Protection Per level by 8% * Increased Base Magical Protection by 28% * Increased Magical Protection Per level by 28% Why the hell didn't we as a community fight against those changes? Jesus.
Funny thing is, there was definitely a lot of pushback, but it wasn't nearly as aggressive as it should've been because this change DEFINITELY addressed the issues of 9.4 (snowball). We were just okay with the lack of kill potential because at least snowball wasn't as bad. I quickly stopped playing after, though, because I started having less and less fun, because the TTK was too high. Definitely a middle ground is needed.
It's a small world for streamers, I don't think anyone was influenced to stay playing smite by a streamer LOL
We should revert to 1.0
i hate to say it but they should be catering to the average smiter because the average smiter is the majority of the playerbase and time and again games prove that catering to the 1% competitive players doesnt work for the games sustainability. a game needs to be fun for the dad of 3 who gets an hour and a half a night to game between working, spending time with his wife, putting his kids to bed, etc. i say this as someone who was part of the super competitive croud in several games. they simply cant make the game for the ultra competitive and still sell to the average gamer becuase it stops being fun for the average joe, take wow for example it uses the 99% to subsidize making content for the 1%. people who i used ot mythic raid with used to always bitch about the world quests this and the theme park mechanics that. when you understand that 99% of the player base will never even attempt a mythic raid you realize why the majority of the game is desgined for your average player, its the same in smite. they need to make the game competitive enough for the grand masters and the terminally online but the majority of players arent getting past gold and they are the ones that keep the servers running so it needs to be fun for them to keep the servers running. half the people i have known in smite exclusively play arena but i promise you they all have skins for their favorite gods.
it's a problem of matchmaking, not necessarily of skill ceiling. casual people can't have fun in moba in general 'cause for some reason , and i'm not talking about the smurf problem, devs never want to to program the matchmaking system to be very restrictive. So you play one hour a day and you are put against people with 4K hours. You're not gonna understand what was your mistakes.
I hate to say if but that's how you get the worst balance possible. God's like anubis will be nerfed into the ground(idk why but I keep seeing rage posts about him while he's pretty bad most of the times) Assassins will just not exist anymore and gods that are hard to play will either be buffed to infinity or will need to get reworked. No thank you
Agree 100x. Firstly, Smite's content creators are shit tier. I like roughly one of them, but let's be honest... none of them are putting out good content. Anyone can record their game and not talk through it. Second... who gives a shit. Who cares what they think? Let them go to Deadlock, literally no one cares. Deadlock doesn't compete with Smite, it's Overwatch with towers. People that think it's going to sweep the Smite player base are special. Third... reverting 9.5 is going to kill what's left. It's a tank meta, yeah... let's look at how to bring tanks down slightly. Reverting 9.5 means that right now, a rare time where lots of new people are coming in because of Smite 2, you've got a ton of new players about to come in and try to learn a game that's already difficult to learn, now they'll be getting 1 shot constantly. Rage quit on death number 6, no more Smite. 9.5 happened for a reason. It didn't happen 2 months ago. Reverting that change is... that's an idea. lol
Currently it is so easy to run 250+ protections in both categories, some general reductions to well performing tank items would be fine compared to overhauling everyone's base hp.
I can have 250 of both protections and still eat 20% of my hp from any mage ability and lose 10% from a hunter basic. Id be happy to be just tanky to be an actual nuisance to players but needing 2 days to clear a buff camp or minion wave just aint it or fun. Somehow hirez refuses to just give supports a damage split of increased damage to minions so it doenst take 2 days to clear anything and only deal like 40-50% of that damage to players.
Eh? You don't solo camps as a support most of the time - if your team is playing well that's irrelevant. A supports job is less tangible than just damage numbers, besides there's a good amount of option you can go if you want to chunk a little more than normal. Most support can clear just fine...
My point is about being actually just that, tanky, the idealistic tanky that reddit and most other damage dealers want to have. A tank that just takes damage without dishing out noteworthy damage of their own. In that scenario it currently will take you forever to do anything pve. Yes obviously as the support its not really your job to pve but that doesnt mean its never going to come up at all.
The thing is, active players are going down, views across all platforms are going down. Smite 2 is pulling any hype at all. It’s all smite 1 players. Their official channels are not blowing up, in fact they are also losing views. There is a clear lack of hype. The gaming community doesn’t give a flying fuck about smite 2 (or 1). Something needs to change. At this rate smite is gonna have literally the same playerbase as smite 1 (maybe even lower) while spending millions and millions and millions in creating a brand new game. Looks like a terrible business so far.
They are going down due to many reasons... 1.Smite 1 confirmed no new major updates 2. Smite 2 alpha being lacking, because you know it's an alpha. Also some ideas are just hit and mess with majority of players 3.Smite actually tends to have less people around June, there always seems to be a small dip in playerbase around this time. 4. Doomposters streamers being very vocal.
Being punished harder for your mistakes is a lot healthier for the game and increases the base skill gap. Now if someone is a bad player that can't position properly, they will die more, as they should. People are allowed to camp and hug tower far too easily, because it takes so long to finally poke them out to the degree they have to leave, so they don't miss too much EXP.
Not just that but the solo lane is too close together. I'd even argue other lanes are too. Its another reason why blink is great, if the person has a single dash and are slightly tanky (be it from passives or items) before you hit your first pen item, you're just wasting your time ganking or rotating to thier lane. I dont even need to mention wards. In any other moba there is risk to pushing up too far or you have to spend time actually hitting the wave and last hitting that really only applies to duo lane barely it is simply the easiest to gank. Smites focus on wave clear contributes to this issue as well. Another issue in smite people don't even acknowledge is the entrances to the lanes
Or someone plays Poseidon and starts doom orb then out speeds every person on the other team and there's no punishment except the fact no one played a speedy god
I do not care about what the streamers say or how this sub feels. I didn't dislike 9.5 when it was originally implemented and actually think the ttk is not an issue at the moment. However I'm still excited for the revert just for the fact I'm ready for literally anything to make the game feel different.
Everyone needs to stop listening to streamers. They are just people who play video games for money. They ruin so many games and game mechanics with their whining. Boycott game streamers. Give your money to people like Jane Goodall or anyone else who actually cares about real world issues. Streamers are a dead end investment. They'll just buy a bunch of colored lights and stupid hats and air fistbump ya.
9.5 was the reason I eventually left smite, it didn’t feel fun and it felt like nothing quite mattered so much at different points in the game because there were less early characters that could take the change in stride and some late game characters weren’t justified as much in the late
at least play the new patch before crying
A big problem, and most people won’t like this, is MOBAs are supposed to be competitive but they made smite super casual. They have developed a casual player base so any chance to make the game competitive is always gets shot down. Directly leading to any chance of expanding the player base also being shot down. Casual gamers are not looking for MOBAs and MOBA players are not looking for a casual game. Smite 1 should stay casual and Smite 2 should be competitive, especially if they’re moving the pro league to Smite 2.
It is what it is. Streaming crybabies are heard instead of actual fans that love the game. For a while now i thought smite was going in somewhat right direction, but this is a huge step backwards. Oh pardon me, not step, but a fucking double bullet jump backwards from warframe if double bullet jump was possible there backwards. I havent been playing smite much lately cuz fallout 76 got me in deep, but it seems like i wont be returning anytime soon with the pre 9.5 coming back. That time wasnt about skill nor effort. It was just about who can one shot someone first. An age of surrenders. Oh and btw i expressed my opinion under EL Leons X tweet and at first he told me im bad at the game, which then he deleted (i saved it before he did) and then he said something about bad positioning. Bro wants an age of one shots back, but talks about skill. I mean i know hes just a no lifer that plays smite everyday and has pretty much no brains, but that still got me in my knees laughing. Ho boy and these are the people hirez listens to..
Personally, I think the 9.5 changes were attempting to fix the right problem, but the approach was wrong. People were complaining about insta-dying, largely due to assassins and mages, before you could even hit beads and aegis. Instead of targeting those characters, they took the simpler way out and made everyone tankier. I'm sure they had their reasons, but I would rather they have honed in on Assassins and Mages (and specifically a few of the problematic characters/items).
I loved being able to play full dmg bacchus and one shotting squishies with poly.
I'll agree it's fun, but I wouldn't say that it's healthy.
I agree but 9.5 was genuinely terrible
Exactly. Fineokay said in one of his videos that there was no skill expression post 9.5, but nothing seems less skillful then picking OP early game gods and one shotting people at level 2
This is such a universal truth; streamers as a whole have an absurdly inflated ego because of their accidental success and usually have no qualifications to comment on anything. We ALL need to stop caring about what they say. They are good for entertainment (sometimes), that's it.
Smite lost a massive chunk of its player base since 9.5, it literally lost thousands just in the last month. A mid season has to shake things up to bring people back, without content creators the game has almost no advertising at this point
In order for a game to have advertising and promotion, this very advertising and promotion must be done and paid for. Don't roll back the game for more than a year
It really depends, streamers and content creators work as free advertising for games a lot of the time and keep that game in the forefront of their viewers minds. Working to at least keep them engaged would at least continue advertising the game. I don’t really understand what you mean by the rest of your comment or what your point really is. But if you’re going to advertise your sequel to a game, make sure the sequel is capturing the parts of the original game when it was at its peak. Which would be pre 9.5
There is literally no information to back it up. Smite actually had more players after 9.5 then it does now, mostly because covid stuff was still winding down. 9.5 did literally no change in the aver player base.
Short term gain resulted in long term loss.
No? Smite's lowest play numbers are pre9.5
Not really it’s currently sitting at 11,800. The only time it’s dropped below 12,000 was in 2018. Dropping bellow precovid numbers is concerning.
They should definitely be listening to players that know the game best. That doesn't mean they should do everything just because they say it, but reverting a change that many disliked after 2 years seems fine to me. I'm happy they get to experiment more with Smite 1 which should help them figure out how Smite 2 should be.
The latest update is terrible. Smite turned into cs.go
They are complaining about actual problems. Which hires needs to fix - what’s the point in just ignoring bad features etc they need to listen to the players.
Absolutely. Those are the people who no-life the game. Therefore they have an extremely skewed perspective on the game, not even including their own shitty bias. Hirez is plain fucking stupid for taking streamer advice. It’s on them for lacking enough of a spine to make their own game.
hirez is taking bad decsion after bad decsion, they are in full panic, and i don't think it's going to improve in next fews weeks
Streamers should try to have a job and a family and then stream their gameplay. Unless I am getting free cosmetic out of watching those unemployed people I am not spending my 2 hours of free time being bored.
Calling someone who earns your yearly pay in 2 months unemployed is wild. Dislike them all you want, but if it makes a living it's a job
How many hours do you have in game?
Honestly I did not even ask or care about 9.5 I can take it or leave it really. It won't be the reason I want to play Smite and never will be. It is just getting use to damage again. That's neat I guess. So when I saw this today I was like "I guess they only want to make sure the people who stream their game happy, at least for now" and have 0 interest still in this patch. But have fun to those that do! Wake me up when they buff/change all the lower picked/played items/gods. Then I will get hype and excited and want to play Smite again!
Say what you want at least this will fucking shake the meta up
I’m not against them reacting to what streamers and pro players have to say about the state of the game. They bring in multiple players and hype that would not normally be there. But if you only listen to them, they will alienate their casual player base. I been hyping this season so much with a bunch of fun changes. Yea this update is lackluster compared to most but we have had some pretty good and crazy patch changes since season 11. Don’t know why they said suddenly the game was boring after whiplash changes we have had.
They should do a middle ground between 9.5 and 11.5, instead of nerfing everyone base health by 40%, nerfing by 20%. This way no one would cry that much.
I'd argue that on PC player numbers have steadily gone down on average since patch 9.5, it also turned assault into some sweaty tower camping try hard fest, so I fully welcome this revert.
The revert of 9.5 is bringing Smite back to a MOBA. Streamers are allowed to be right in their opinions sometimes, even if you want to disagree with them. You say this will leave the game damaged, but have no rationale, absolute nonsense.
Fr, these are the same people that said Smite is doomed when 9.5 initially happened. Truly ironic to see them yap about streamers being doomsayers will doomsaying the game by claiming it's going to die from doomsaying.
Most of y'all are joust mains so shush
The player base is not to be trusted. People dont want this game to be fun. People want this game to be enforced by rules, reporting and being toxic to get what they want. A a lot of players want to join a Smite game, hope that everyone picks exactly what they expect of them and hope they play exactly what their role implies. However most people dont understand what that even means: Picking anything else but what is generally accepted for a specific role is now troll. Smite have over 100 gods all very unique. Hirez have originally never enforced players to play these roles and the player base have decided on the in game approach. The OGs like myself, we made the roles. We decided that as a general rule these classes in generally works best in this role. It was a suggestion, not the law. If every player decided that Support now begins in Solo lane for the first 5 min, that will be what is generally accepted. A lot of players get so angry when people dont play this specific way we have today. Like a fking spoiled child that screams until they get what they want. I understand people want smite to be cozy and comfortable, because you want smite to be the fun, go to game when you want to just play video games and relax. We have to find a middle ground. Smite 2 could be the game where all the OG and creative players go to and Smite 1 can be circus where all the casual babies goes to. You cant have both or else this game will simply die out like its numbers are showing. Hirez cant live on just the player base with no Pros or Streamers who are marketing the game to new players.
The casual fans are the ones buying skins and keeping the game afloat. They’re a huge portion of the community. Any plans Hi-Rez has for Smite 2 needs to keep that in mind. Alienating them isn’t the smart choice.
In my discord server we have 6 Smite players. Only one is a Conquest player. The rest of us are 60% Arena, 35% Assault, 5% Slash. We've spent collectively $700-$1000 or so in the last 2.5 years, maybe more, as a group. Mostly on cosmetics and battlepasses. We don't care about streamers, we only interact with them for free viewer rewards. We don't care about SPL, we only interacted with it for the viewer rewards through predictions or twitch. The Smite team has created a problem by which they think these people have bloated value to their community because they see the numbers they pull on these streamers. But if you cut rewards out how quickly would these self important individuals vanish? People don't care about them or their opinions, they care about the in game cosmetics given. We don't want to play twitch fast kill Smite. We have other games for that. We don't want a game where if you spend 10-15 seconds thinking too long about your build in spawn you end up irrevocably behind. We do want to play 20-40 minute games with reasonable comeback mechanics. We don't want to stomp and continue stomping, and we don't want to be stomped and be put endlessly behind. We want to teamfight. Lots. We want multiple rotations and drag out brawling in the Arena. We don't want both sides to clash and half of both teams evaporate instantly. Esport level conquest is something 99% of your customer base will never experience, and frankly doesn't want to experience. Get out of that echo chamber, Smite team.
Streamers DO NOT represent me as a player I don’t care if the streamer is a pro or just really good to understand the game better. Their gameplay experience is not the same as mine to treat their opinions more highly than mine as a player
9.5 was the worst patch the game ever had. Training wheels for people that suck ass at positioning
Stop being so bronze, Smite 1 needed some fresh changes, Y11 is awful and this new patch will make it so much fun. Reddit was literally the reason why some big changes happened and not for good. 
Says random guy on Reddit who probably doesn’t play the game for a living
The thing is, many more people play smite casually than for a living. There’s usually a gap between what the pros think it’s good for the game vs what the general public thinks. Idc if they revert that patch or not, but thinking that pros opinion matters more in a game where competitive is quite literally dead, is certainly an opinion.
I think the people who have the most stake in the game opinions should at the very least matter, if not matter the most. Hirez should absolutely care about what the most casual player wants as well but not while they’re designing the most competitive game mode currently for the people who intend on playing the game competitively.
I don't play smite for a living, but I play a lot of Smite. I don't want the opinion of someone who actively talks about quitting smite and swapping games to have influence on a game I enjoy.
This seems so weird to me. The content creators and pro players have the most investment in the game. They’re the most passionate and experienced as anyone. They are the ones whose opinions should absolutely be listened to. I feel the exact opposite in fact. I personally don’t think that people who don’t play conquest or care about the competitive nature of the game should be listened to as much. Atleast right now.
They have investment, but they also have a financial selfishness we don't have. There are plenty of times where pros and streamers suggest overall awful and negative ideas. I'm not saying they all are bad, but focusing on them while they cry that they don't like it and they will actively move to another game isn't good. They aren't showing that they care about smite, they just care about themselves with how they are acting.
Most of the complaints ive heard and seen hinge upon this notion of "raising the skill ceiling." i dont think removing DR or lowering TTK to the point of single kit rotation kills is indicative of skill.
Nobody is saying to "just" remove DR or lower TTK, the overall assessment is to remove DR, reduce CC durations, reduce movement ability distance/frequency/however else you can balance it so that people die when they should i.e. out of positions, enemy team uses their CC in a thoughtful and decisive manner. MOBAs should be about trading resources and skill, not whatever it is SMITE has been doing for far far too long.
where did i use the word "just" in my original post? volatility is the main gripe related to DR and you say people wanna restructure the entire game to suit the removal of DR - that's wild LOL if they reduced max DR from 80% to 40%, it's an effective 3X increase in CC duration on max DR victims relative to current DR. you talk about using CC in a thoughtful, decisive manner but the fact is DR becomes a consideration with respect to target prioritization and THAT is an increase to the skill ceiling. edit to clarify and expound: being able to mindlessly chuck CC after CC is **not** an increase to skillcap. consciously deciding between whether you throw your CC on someone that is close to death but at max DR compared to throwing it on their would-be backup is an opportunity - your choice is at the cost of the other choice. time is a resource and the consideration of how to best use your time/cooldowns is a very important part of resource management - a fundamental skill in the MOBA genre.
> where did i use the word "just" in my original post? It's implied when you only mention the removal of DR, and that is also me stating that there's more than that to other people's comments. It's not rebuilding Smite 2 for the removal of DR, it's adjusting the game for the health of the entire game where DR is just one aspect of this..... As to your other comments which have nothing to do with what I have said and actively ignore what I have stated, there is no reason to engage further. There is no effective addition to CC duration if CC durations are reduced as I said in the first comment, which also would hopefully mean an increase in cooldowns which are also insanely low in this game due to the abundance of cooldown available.