Smite

Smite already has two snakey things: Kukulkan and Medusa, and I don't think they're shying on Jormugandr. So multiple centaur thing would be OK.

EDIT: Bwuh!? That's a lot of new maps to consider.

edited 18th Sep '15 3:49:06 PM by ChrisX

Eh, Medusa kinda gets away with it by being Snake People, but Kukulkan and Jormugandr both being full-on serpents is definitely a point.

And yeah, it'll be cool if Smite tries to provide a variety of maps like Heroes Of The Storm but still has Conquest as the "default". Arena 10v10 certainly sounds like batshit insanity surpassing Hexakill on Twisted Treeline.

I thought at one point Dota 2 offered a 10 vs 10 mode.

I read threads for games I don't play because I like to stay informed. I can confirm that there is a 10v10 mode in Dota 2. Here's an example of the insanity.

If 10v10 is of any indication, Arena 10v10 is certainly going to be insane too.

WHAT TRICKERY IS THIS?

Y'know what, I kinda remember now hearing about the 10v10 stuff for Dota. I don't play it myself, so I kinda just thought they were rumors.

...Arena 10v10 is ultimately a good way to at least test how the game will handle it, but seeing that shit on Siege would be divine in more ways than one.

Should I pick up Smite? It's free on Xbox One.

Well, what kind of gameplay interests you?

Here, have a Christopher Tin. Apparently, Baba Yetu's a meme in the community.

Finally managed to start playing this game again, and I'm quickly remembering just how good I am at securing kills before dying, despite the fact that my playstyle is almost entirely passive/supportive. Which means I'm good at Siege, and can practically carry in Assault, but suck terribly at Conquest. Granted, I'm still Lvl. 13, which means not only that I need more practice but that I'm still playing with green-as-grass rookies. Seriously, duo mid? Where even am I?

Anyway, Sol, Goddess of the Sun marks the 70th god to come, and her kit is pretty interesting. The Heat mechanic alone gives her something interesting to work with, and her 3 leaving a trail of fire as she loses form is really cool.

Her design though....it's literally "naked chick on fire", and yet I'm okay with it. And it's more than just the excuse of her using an elemental avatar. Her voice is fantastic once you get past the hilariously-untraceable accent, but her lines combined with some of her animations really give her this fire-like purity to her character. Neith is more shameless despite having clothes, if you catch my drift.

(I'll admit, however, that giving her the title "Goddess of the Sun" kinda sucks, if only because I was totally expecting that to go to Amateratsu when the finally do Shinto.)

The Solar Flare patch also includes a pretty-cool cinematic to go with the tutorial (seriously, this is UE 3, let me try it plz), plans to improve the AI, a Halloween-themed Arena, some much-needed changes to the menu UI, and a hefty amount of item and god buffs and nerfs. All of it is being pretty well received, though I'm hoping Xing Tian isn't going to turn out as bad as some of the Reddit doom-sayers are saying.

edited 30th Sep '15 6:54:33 PM by Watchtower

I appreciate that they're trying for more varied god kits, and hers looks especially good. A mage that has decent burst and good autos? Only time will tell if she measures up to the likes of Chronos and Ao Kuang.

At the very least, her escape seems pretty great. And her ult seems super strong and versatile.

It's funny, I have about a year's experience with League Of Legends, and when I heard about Sol's Heat mechanic the very first thing that popped into my head was Rumble's Overheat. Then the ult came out, and I was like "Yup, fucking shit, we're doing Rumble!"

But yeah, the emphasis on variety is definitely appreciated. At the same time, however, it's also nice that Ravana and Xing Tian were able to get comparatively-simpler kits. It's a good way to keep themselves relatively grounded.

Especially compared to someone like Bellona. As much as I love her kit, I hope we don't ever get another god with a kit as bloated as Bellona.

...Even after all the nerfs, she still feels incredibly powerful.

I actually really like Bellona's kit and how it captures the whole "weapon master" aspect. The issue, as far as I could tell, is that they made her too strong with it. She could either have all the shit in her kit or she could be tough; giving her both is what made her near-broken.

From what I have seen so far, Sol could probably use some tweaking, since she seems a bit strong, but already she has one glaring weakness: she's squishy as shit. Like, I think she can be on-shot by several other gods.

EDIT: Nevermind, from some other stuff she doesn't seem as squishy as I once thought. The weakness I'm seeing now is that she needs to control the opponent but has no good way of doing it herself. Going to need to try her out on release to get a proper feel.

edited 1st Oct '15 9:28:39 AM by Watchtower

Oh, I absolutely love Bellona's kit, and it certainly fits her like a glove. It's just that, she has a stun, a slow, a block, a disarm, a heal, an escape, damage, and survivability. Which is completely nuts when compared to, say, Anubis, who has only damage and a stun, and needs to be rooted to the ground for his damage anyway.

As for Sol...her kit seems pretty reasonable. It seems like her strength compared to other mages is the ability to keep on fighting after all her abilities are on cooldown, something only Chronos can really do (and even then, one his steroid is over, he loses that too). And I really like the design for her escape. It sounds like a good damage move, and going incorporeal means that it's very unique, but as it's only really a move speed buff, it's not a guaranteed escape, so she has to be careful about it.

She seems pretty well balanced, assuming her damage isn't too nuts.

Her voicelines should be out, and... wow, she sounds like a rather young girl, even if her lore seems to portray her as a vengeful one. She didn't even have taunt to the one she has the grudge the most: Odin.

That said... what the hell is that accent?

Reddit consensus marks it as Icelandic, which would actually make it a very accurate choice, given the Nordic regions.

So since I don't have time to really try Sol for the next couple days, I'm going to focus on something that really never got much attention from the patch: the new Play Queue UI. And speaking of Reddit consensus, the general opinion of it is that it's still shit. Even the few defenses I've seen boil down to either "it's only a minor issue" or "it's the best they can do".

I find this to be a damn shame, because I think the UI is a fantastic step in the right direction. Rather than be all crunched in the center, it's reasonably spaced out, with decent-sized buttons on the left, an info box in the middle, and huge graphics of the mode taking up the right side. The graphics even include a decent-sized map, something very useful that I can't recall being in the original. The back button from each submenu may be an extra click, but it's intuitively placed and gives just enough leeway to work. I actually like that they removed the shortcut buttons, since they, while nice, really didn't belong. And in this new "main menu" of sorts, the graphics and info box are replaced with the new god/dess from the actual main menu, giving it some much-needed interactivity. High points all around.

That all said, here's a couple of improvements:

• The info boxes need to be bigger, because right now the text is so tiny I have to practically squint. There's a whole column of space to use, so use it.
• The title of each submenu is the same blue as the space background, making it blend in. I get that they don't want it to match the info box, but that white really stands out more.
• The Custom Match tab should really be its own submenu. The fact that it's the only one to just replace Sol instead of branching off is awkward, and I shouldn't have to click on one of the other tabs just to reset it.
• The MOTD graphic not only looks like shit enlarged, but also very transparently reveals how the fading effect is programmed. The latter is especially unacceptable in a released product.

edited 6th Oct '15 6:00:30 PM by Watchtower

Picked this up on PC because while I do appreciate MOBA strategy I can never get used to the isometric camera. I have to say, the third-person-shooter makes all the difference.

The Long Live The King patch goes live next week. Two awesome skins, a couple item nerfs, and some god tweaks, particularly with Sol. All-in-all good stuff.

And now a rant: I'm glad that matchmaking is not throwing me in with pros and smurfs, and I can say that because the people I'm playing with are not only very clearly new to Smite, but have very clearly never touched a MOBA before.

What frustrates me, however, is that one would think that someone who has little experience with MOB As would go through the tutorial, see the simple-as-hell recommended metagame, and stick with that as hard as possible. Bad to enforce a meta, I know, but at least use it as a start. But clearly I made too many assumptions, like that people would play the tutorials, because I'm seeing some of the most insanity-inducing shit I've ever seen, being done by people who have no idea what's going on.

They really just took the damn piss with that one.

Also, if anyone's been paying attention to the character pages I've been trying to put up descriptions for all the gods. However, I'm left completely stumped with Vamana. If anybody can help that'd be super-great.

edited 14th Oct '15 5:37:50 PM by Watchtower

Sorry to double-post, but datamining has turned up hints about a possible rework/remodel (most likely the latter) for Ne Zha. It's also confirmed the next god after Chiron: Skadi, the Norse goddess of hunting and, more importantly, skiing. And please, for the love of the Gods, give her skis. We already messed up with Ullr.

Skadi is one that would be using ice, right? Well... it probably still wouldn't fit the 'frost mage' archetype that other MOBA's had. But she might draw similarities with Drow Ranger and Ashe

Also, dat new King Ar-Tyr skin, it's actually Tyr having tons of Shout-Out to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I'd get that!

edited 15th Oct '15 4:57:06 AM by ChrisX

The Tyr skin is fantastic, but I am a bit upset with the implication that Arthur himself won't be considered as a god. I get it for Cthulu, but Arthur is technically Celtic and totally a badass.

Another rant: I just had one of the most maddening games I've ever played. First-time Khepri support, and it takes a while but eventually I get the hang out of timing his ult just right. And it takes a while, but eventually it gets to the point where we can dominate team fights pretty easily. Easy win, right?

Nope, we lose. Why? Because my team became more focused on skirmishes and split-pushing than actually finishing the game. Team goes left, one member goes right. Team retreats, one member dives in. Team dives, one member backs. I follow one guy on a split-push, the rest of the team dies without me, and the guy I tried to help gets killed anyway. There's only so goddamn much I can do, people.

When Khepri is well played and you pull off his ult a lot, you always get this sense of satisfaction that everyone will thank you and want to have babies with you. But... well, sometimes if your carry just like to go gung-ho and waste the second life given (like staying near the CC machine and getting killed), it gets irritating.