Smite: Official Launch

Arena mode FTW, been in beta for what seems like years, got a few friends hopping on this weekend with me. :D
 
Wow just watched some videos, the graphics and effects look WAY better than it did in beta!

I wonder--does the combat feel more smooth/crisp? I don't really know how to describe it, but when i played during the beta using moves and attacking just didn't feel good.

is there still auto-attack spam?
 
you can hold down for auto attacks, but it slows you down. I have no trouble hitting people with double trigger skills, just have to time for the projectile speed and enemy movement.
balance is super good atm, some ultimate feels pretty cheap at time, but every god got the potential to be super annoying. Except the card guy, he just flat out blows.
 
PanzeR- said:
you can hold down for auto attacks, but it slows you down. I have no trouble hitting people with double trigger skills, just have to time for the projectile speed and enemy movement.
balance is super good atm, some ultimate feels pretty cheap at time, but every god got the potential to be super annoying. Except the card guy, he just flat out blows.
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Which is sad because Zhong Kui was one of the best gods in the game.
 
So a community streamer sanctioned by HiRez reports you for the possibility of hacking. The HiRez staff member contacts you and (assuming he investigated) bans you for hacking. Whats the problem here? If the HiRez staff member banned you without evidence that is one thing, but it is unlikely and doubtful. Neither side has the ability to prove their case. Shit sucks if your in that very small minority that gets a false ban, but it happens rarely in all games.

You do carry a grudge. I read that post a month ago.
 
Amaroth said:
Whats the problem here? If the HiRez staff member banned you without evidence that is one thing, but it is unlikely and doubtful.
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Its amazing that people will defend even the most screwed up practices...I don't know if you're purposely being a blind fanboy or simply didn't read the thread, but it is absolutely clear that this was A LOT wrong with what happened in the linked story.

1. The guy, MID-GAME is able to get a hold of a Hi-Rez employee and have him watch his stream for suspected "hacks" Does everyone get this priviledge? Or just streamers / buddies of Hi-Rez?

2. By the next match, the ENTIRE team is banned. How often is action taken this quickly?

3. Later, on investigation, Hi-Rez bans the players for "other reasons unrelated to hacking" Basically, these guys got NSA'd. They got accused of hacking by lagging, but then the OP of the thread contacted Hi-Rez with extensive proof he wasn't so instead of Hi-Rez owning up to the mistake; they simply checked all their past logs for whatever random TOS violation they could find on the guys (likely language or something).

Reading some other threads it looks like this stuff happens often:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/24c9hq/smitegame_streamer_conduct/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/1qu38z/being_banned_by_mods_for_no_apparent_reason/
 
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lilbabycat said:
Its amazing that people will defend even the most screwed up practices...I don't know if you're purposely being a blind fanboy or simply didn't read the thread, but it is absolutely clear that this was A LOT wrong with what happened in the linked story.

1. The guy, MID-GAME is able to get a hold of a Hi-Rez employee and have him watch his stream for suspected "hacks" Does everyone get this priviledge? Or just streamers / buddies of Hi-Rez?

2. By the next match, the ENTIRE team is banned. How often is action taken this quickly?

3. Later, on investigation, Hi-Rez bans the players for "other reasons unrelated to hacking" Basically, these guys got NSA'd. They got accused of hacking by lagging, but then the OP of the thread contacted Hi-Rez with extensive proof he wasn't so instead of Hi-Rez owning up to the mistake; they simply checked all their past logs for whatever random TOS violation they could find on the guys (likely language or something).

Reading some other threads it looks like this stuff happens often:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/24c9hq/smitegame_streamer_conduct/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/1qu38z/being_banned_by_mods_for_no_apparent_reason/
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A blind fanboy? NSA'd? Ok. That is some funny and misguided stuff. I'm not gonna read one side and draw a conclusion. I've said the situation sucks. If you don't like the official streamers you can leave feedback through their form or directly contact Smite officials. They have removed streamers for a variety of reasons. Doomprincess lost her job months ago. ES manager Bart (Who is a giant tool and I despise) posts on the subject. Their was past behavior to warrant bans. This wasn't the first time MrAgmoore was banned. They have said no hacks were discovered. You didn't get a ticket for speeding, you were arrested for that dime bag they found.
 
If you have the Raptr app and have accumulated points, you can use those points to purchase gems and skins for Smite. If you don't have quite enough points you can do little things with the app to accumulate enough points to do so. I use the AMD version since I have an AMD video card. Just Google for Raptr App and you'll see what I'm talking about.
 
I gave the game a chance a while ago. Its a much prettier version of LoL with several modes that encourage more PvP / Arena type combat than the usual Lane-Defensive. The more competitive leagues seem to be more the traditional style, but I was surprised at how fun the other stuff could be.

I don't think I'll play much long term though, it just isn't my cup of tea (and I still don't trust Hi-Rez).
 
Hirez will drop support for this game just like they did to GA and Tribes Acsend. It's the only thing that there good at, dropping games.
 
Airbrushkid said:
Hirez will drop support for this game just like they did to GA and Tribes Acsend. It's the only thing that there good at, dropping games.
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It's been worked on since late 2010, all games eventually lose support, why are you upset about it?

For what they offer the MOBA genre now, they are among the best. Unlike some of their competators, a one time small fee gives you everything gameplay wise (including future content); rather than the equivilant monetary sum unlocking only 3-4 playable characters in other games.

Constant upgrades and balance patches are coming out for it as well, making it one of the fastest growing games in it's genre.

It may be time to re-evaluate greivances with the past and accept that times can change. :)

-- Shantarr
 
I appreciate the constructive discussion. #sarcasm

Hi-Rez deserves the acclaim they are getting with this game and I, for one, wish them the best.
 
I started playing this the other day and have been having a lot of fun. I've tried other MOBAs but was always turned off by the learning curve and the controls (I hate click-to-move). The move to 3rd person fixes the control issue and for some reason makes the game feel less complex and intimidating. I'm still using the auto-item and auto-level features while I learn the Gods, game strategies, phases, etc. which has helped some also. So far I've enjoyed playing with Rama, aNOOBis, and Xbalanque the most but there are still a ton of Gods that I haven't messed with yet.

I normally don't stay with a game for more than a couple of months so it likely won't effect me if Hi-Rez does screw it up in the long run. I spent thousands of dollars on WoW and that game turned to utter shit after BC so I'd count the $30 I could possibly lose as money well spent. It's certainly much better than the thousands of dollars I've spent on Steam sales for games I've either never played or put 30 minutes into before I realized that they sucked.

Add me if you want to help train a noob: Kreskin
 
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lol the whole point is that the game is already screwed up, in the short run hirez will pump and dump pay 2 win weapons, and keep releasing updates with bugs and balance issues. And people will keep playing on the hope that the game will get better. But it wont, so the game has issues in the past, present and future. The difference is that many games more or less sort their issues out and come to a decent equilibrium. HiRez games never hit that equilibrium. Long before HiRez hits it they will completely abandon the game. But before they abandon it they will promise you over and over from these community liasons that they are working on it. The server lag, they are working on it. The lack of locations for server they are working on it. OP, classes and weapons they are working on it. Then the money dries up at the snap of a finger. Ask yourself why is it hirez runs
 
I'm not going to invest a ton of money into it so if Hi-Rez screws it up then it's only going to hurt themselves and the people that are crazy enough to spend a ton of money buying skins. If I get a month of solid gameplay out of it for $30 than that's a better deal than what I get out of the vast majority of games that I've wasted money on. I've only been playing a few days but I've yet to see any lag, bugs, or other issues (I've had a better experience with Smite than BF, Dark Souls, Watch Dogs, and the multitude of early release games that are being pushed right now). If they fuck it up then I'll keep doing my other hobbies until another game that tickles my fancy comes out.

It's currently a blast to play and some of my friends are getting into it which is what matters to me.
 
The most recent update sadly involved some of the most questionable behavior yet, and the first really serious event that shows that HiRez monetization is getting out of hand.

First of all, they removed the ability to purchase icons for favor, and increased icon prices for many of the most popular significantly, to even 400 gems for one of them! Worse, those who already owned icons for say, Nu Wa, who just got a model update, got their "old" icon taken away from them and replaced with the new one, with the "old" one, going up on the store as a "Retro Nu Wa" icon that they'd have to pay for again! There's a long thread on the Smite sub-Reddit about this.

My personal grievance comes with the introduction of the "Chests", otherwise known as "gatchapon/random fucking boxes". For 200 gems each, you get a chance at a random gem-cost item. They have even introduced new "epic" skins that you can ONLY get from the random boxes, at the rarest tier of course. You can also get some of the rarer skins like the convention types. You could also win a 600 gem skin, 400 gem skin, 300 gem ward skin, 200 gem voice pack etc... in descending rarity. I'd feel better if the implementation didn't have any ultra-rare/exclusive/unpurchasable items, whereas someone could just spend 200 gems for a random skin plus a bonus or two, compared to 400/600 for picking a particular one, but adding the exclusives and rarities encourages players to play the "slot machine" hoping for the "good stuff". I've never been a fan of "random" boxes, especially those with exclusive items; its basically adding a form of pseudo-casino gambling requiring real currency -, as well as being one of the worst, most greedy monetization strategies I've seen; sadly, often partnered with other equally horrid ideas. It shows that a game is targeting "Whales", big spenders, instead of encouraging the majority of the playerbase to pay a more reasonable amount, and that's a bad precedent for the long term health of the title.



HiRez has made some recent decisions that show their monetization strategy is pointing more and more towards the practices from Asian and Mobile titles, which are near universally player-hostile. I became interested in Smite only because they offered the "God Pack" for all characters for around $30, allowed many purchases to be on Favor (in game earned currency) as well as Gems. Their new partnership in China with Tencen, the Chinese publisher/manager giant, means they aren't hurting for cash, but all of these new business decisions seem to show they've been infected with the worst sort of ideals. Some hypothesize that HiRez and Tencen want to squeeze Smite players as much as possible before the MOBA bubble pops, others say its just the new greed-first paradigm seeing the success of League of Legends, but whatever it is it doesn't bode well for Smite, or gaming as a whole.
 
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Xaeos said:
The most recent update sadly involved some of the most questionable behavior yet, and the first really serious event that shows that HiRez monetization is getting out of hand.

First of all, they removed the ability to purchase icons for favor, and increased icon prices for many of the most popular significantly, to even 400 gems for one of them! Worse, those who already owned icons for say, Nu Wa, who just got a model update, got their "old" icon taken away from them and replaced with the new one, with the "old" one, going up on the store as a "Retro Nu Wa" icon that they'd have to pay for again! There's a long thread on the Smite sub-Reddit about this.

My personal grievance comes with the introduction of the "Chests", otherwise known as "gatchapon/random fucking boxes". For 200 gems each, you get a chance at a random gem-cost item. They have even introduced new "epic" skins that you can ONLY get from the random boxes, at the rarest tier of course. You can also get some of the rarer skins like the convention types. You could also win a 600 gem skin, 400 gem skin, 300 gem ward skin, 200 gem voice pack etc... in descending rarity. I'd feel better if the implementation didn't have any ultra-rare/exclusive/unpurchasable items, whereas someone could just spend 200 gems for a random skin plus a bonus or two, compared to 400/600 for picking a particular one, but adding the exclusives and rarities encourages players to play the "slot machine" hoping for the "good stuff". I've never been a fan of "random" boxes, especially those with exclusive items; its basically adding a form of pseudo-casino gambling requiring real currency -, as well as being one of the worst, most greedy monetization strategies I've seen; sadly, often partnered with other equally horrid ideas. It shows that a game is targeting "Whales", big spenders, instead of encouraging the majority of the playerbase to pay a more reasonable amount, and that's a bad precedent for the long term health of the title.



HiRez has made some recent decisions that show their monetization strategy is pointing more and more towards the practices from Asian and Mobile titles, which are near universally player-hostile. I became interested in Smite only because they offered the "God Pack" for all characters for around $30, allowed many purchases to be on Favor (in game earned currency) as well as Gems. Their new partnership in China with Tencen, the Chinese publisher/manager giant, means they aren't hurting for cash, but all of these new business decisions seem to show they've been infected with the worst sort of ideals. Some hypothesize that HiRez and Tencen want to squeeze Smite players as much as possible before the MOBA bubble pops, others say its just the new greed-first paradigm seeing the success of League of Legends, but whatever it is it doesn't bode well for Smite, or gaming as a whole.
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As long as none of this touches anything that affects balance, I don't know why people would really care. Of course, I've never spent money on a F2P game anyway, so I guess if you are this news would be more annoying.

I just started playing this again, for the first time since beta, and I'm really shocked at how much polish they put on the game. Looks great, plays great, and I'm having a blast!
 
Xaeos said:
The most recent update sadly involved some of the most questionable behavior yet, and the first really serious event that shows that HiRez monetization is getting out of hand.
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Hmm, I put about 20hrs in the game on the more non-moba type modes and stopped coming due to it not being particularly fun... Sounds like Tribes all over again, expect the gameplay P2W stuff coming next (6months?).
 
lilbabycat said:
Hmm, I put about 20hrs in the game on the more non-moba type modes and stopped coming due to it not being particularly fun... Sounds like Tribes all over again, expect the gameplay P2W stuff coming next (6months?).
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Did Tribes end up having P2W nonsense?

If so, that doesn't bode well for SMITE. Guess I'll enjoy it while I can then. The 1-lane MOBA 3v3 is a ton of fun.
 
People have been saying since Smites creation it was going to be p2w and customers were going to get screwed over by Hirez. So ignoring the fact you can earn all gods for free, or you can buy the god pack that gives you all current gods and future gods for $30, all skins, voice packs are purely cosmetic, we most definately have a money grab here and a pure p2w game.
 
Amaroth said:
People have been saying since Smites creation it was going to be p2w and customers were going to get screwed over by Hirez. So ignoring the fact you can earn all gods for free, or you can buy the god pack that gives you all current gods and future gods for $30, all skins, voice packs are purely cosmetic, we most definately have a money grab here and a pure p2w game.
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Grinding for one skin for one god takes what, 30 hours? Grinding for a new god takes how long? 60hrs? It wasn't worth the time for me.
 
lilbabycat said:
Grinding for one skin for one god takes what, 30 hours? Grinding for a new god takes how long? 60hrs? It wasn't worth the time for me.
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It probably takes 5-10 hours to earn enough for a basic skin. Are skins required for your enjoyment of a game? I don't even grind; I just play the modes I enjoy and if I notice that I have a surplus of favor/gems I might grab a skin. IIRC you start with 6 or 7 free gods and get 6 or 7 additional gods for the weekly rotation. I have no idea how long it takes to get a new god since after I put 20 hours or so in it I figured it was worth $30 to have access to all of the current and future gods. That's a hell of a deal compared to LoL or any other F2P and cheaper than many non-F2P games that you might get less hours out of.

I typically login once or twice a week and play the non-MOBA modes for a few hours. I've been playing for 8 months or so and it was by far my most played game last year. Considering the amount of money I laid out on games that I barely played last year the $30 I spent to unlock the gods proved to be exceptionally fair.
 
I haven't even been playing much but between the 3 days i've had the game installed, with the log-in bonus and the first-win-of-the-day bonus, i've accrued about 3k favor. Not bad considering how long it'd take to get 3k IP in LoL.
 
Yup. The favor isnt that crazy to earn. If you were going to unlock every god like that it would be tough. The god pack is a steal though. They have almost doubled the gods since I got it almost 2yrs ago and havent slowed down. The screw hirez and p2w arguments dont work in this particular instance and with this game.
 
Smite is definitely not p2w, nor has it ever been.

The game is balanced around the conquest map. There is a new conquest map for season 2 with many visual and some mechanics changes. It looks like an improvement, but time will tell.

The Joust map (1v1, 2v2, 3v3) is considered fun, but broken. It's good for quickly learning how to use gods, especially in close boxing encounters. It's also good for creating a gauge of when one can take down a tower / phoenix.

The conquest map is probably the most rewarding. It's just difficult to participate in a proper game.

In a proper game:

- Curse voice communication. Without coms, you have a chaotic game... that's not what conquest is about.
- Teams either follow something resembling the meta (player roles, coordinated buffs, etc) or have a well-communicated plan
- Hopefully the more experienced players call the shots and offer guidance
- Hopefully matchmaking doesn't fail miserably. This is one of the biggest problems.

It also takes 150+ hours of experience to know enough about each of the gods to participate in this fabled proper game. I'm definitely not there yet, but I've played with people who are.

From what I've seen... it's rare that all of these elements align and you'll get a great game. It's unfortunate... there is so much potential, but so many practical barriers.

Game 1 of CoG Prime vs CoG Red in the 2015 Smite World Championships shows the potential of the game. You can check the channel "SmiteGame" on twitch under "past broadcasts" - but then you'd have to find that match on Day 2 of the tournament.

I still feel it's a great game, and I'll stick with it. The god-pack is necessary for an infrequent player such as myself. I hear the God pack was on sale for $20 during the tournament ($30 now), but also that a fixed price is not guaranteed for the future (may switch to a per-god pricing).

My friend has about half the gods unlocked after 200 hours of play, for reference. Logging in daily gives you favor / gem rewards.
 
Yeah, it's part of the reason why I only play Arena and Assault. They typically don't take more than 15 minutes a match and you can have a good time playing with gods you're not good with and generally won't catch any flack for sucking. I hate the general MOBA meta as the seriousness just isn't fun for me.
 
Bankie said:
Yeah, it's part of the reason why I only play Arena and Assault. They typically don't take more than 15 minutes a match and you can have a good time playing with gods you're not good with and generally won't catch any flack for sucking. I hate the general MOBA meta as the seriousness just isn't fun for me.
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Agreed. I haven't actually done assault or arena yet in smite, but I did one conquest and went right back to doing 3v3. All I ever played in LoL was 3v3 as well. Never been a fan of the meta. Gotta have Caster mid, support/adc bot, etc bla bla. What fun is that?
 
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Tried my first Siege game last night. What a blast!

The siege element wasn't over-prevalent which was my main concern. I didn't want it feeling like the Strand of the Ancients WoW battleground abomination... which thankfully it didn't :)

It's also way closer to Twisted Treeline. There's a boss in the middle you fight over, two lanes, etc.

I still think i'd like the 3v3 map better... all it's missing is a boss with a big buff to fight over. But I get that's not the goal with that map. Anyway, good times.

Finally getting better at buying items. It felt daunting at first, but the more I play the more I realize there's basically an item for every item in LoL. Just have to find it ^_^

Really wish you could carry more than one ward ><
 
chockomonkey said:
Tried my first Siege game last night. What a blast!

The siege element wasn't over-prevalent which was my main concern. I didn't want it feeling like the Strand of the Ancients WoW battleground abomination... which thankfully it didn't :)

It's also way closer to Twisted Treeline. There's a boss in the middle you fight over, two lanes, etc.

I still think i'd like the 3v3 map better... all it's missing is a boss with a big buff to fight over. But I get that's not the goal with that map. Anyway, good times.

Finally getting better at buying items. It felt daunting at first, but the more I play the more I realize there's basically an item for every item in LoL. Just have to find it ^_^

Really wish you could carry more than one ward ><
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I'll be streaming tonight and doing my weekly gem give away. Viewer games. Helping new players. Stop by if you have time. OD_gamer an twitch
 
If anyone wants to party up my player name is Thian.

I got a little smite reddit famous for my FP count :)
 
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