21 May 2013 | |
iTZKooPA
SMITE: Demigods, Deities and Gods Explained is a column dedicated to introducing prospective players of SMITE to its massive back story of lore. From the Greek to Hindu, each week we’ll look at two characters from a major pantheon and provide a quick recap of their history and in what capacity their digital incarnation will represent on the field of Hi-Rez Studios’ upcoming MOBA.
Lore: A giant wolf and son of Loki, Fenrir was prophesied to be the murderer of Odin. Should he have carried out the act of killing the All Father, monstrous beast would have began Ragnarök, the expected apocalypse of Norse mythology. The ensuing war would have seen the death of Thor, Tyr, Freyr, Heimdallr and Loki. Fenrir would have gained little but his own death at the hands of Víðarr, a son of Odin’s. The calamity would not have left the mortal realms safe. Various natural disasters and an ultimate flood would have made sure only two lone humans would survive.
Fenrir wasn’t just the beginning of the end. Loki’s furrier child was renowned for his strength. The great wolf broke numerous bounds as he continued to grow from the daily meals at Tyr’s hand. After two failed bounds, Leyding and Dromi, Odin had the crafty dwarves complete a third fetter, Gleipnir. The Aesir promised that if a bind could hold the great wolf he’d be freed for posing no threat. To be sure Fenrir wasn’t sandbagging his effort Tyr chose to place his hand in the beast’s mouth as a pledge that he was trying his hardest. Tyr’s loss of that hand marked Fenrir’s freedom and one of the best known tales of Norse mythology. Continue Reading
11 April 2013 | |
Mordil
Clearly this patch is missing the new god, Ne Zha, which has been delayed.
Other than that, this was mostly a bug fix and balance patch.
Most notable this patch to me was:
- Thor’s new skin, which is only for 300 gems.
- New gamemode: Assault (ARAM)
- The item store has a massive UI overhaul that people who have been playing since last summer will have to get used to
- Anubis got his animations updated, so now his ult is a little less overpowered by terms of usability with aiming
- Anhur also received the animation overhaul treatment that gives his abilities a little more particle effects.
- Kali, Arachne, Cupid, and Apollo all received buffs this time.
New Skins
- Blood Eagle Thor — This skin, drawn from the lore of Tribes: Ascend, can be purchased for gems, or is free to anyone that buys or has bought the Tribes: Ascend Game of the Year Edition (from the Tribes Ascend Store or Steam).
New Gamemode: ASSAULT
NOTE: This mode will be available only for special MEDIA/STREAMING matches on Thursday, April 11. It will be available for all players beginning Friday, April 12.
The Assault gamemode features a single lane with 2 towers, a Phoenix and a Minotaur surrounding both a friendly and enemy base. Your god selection is random. No recalls are allowed and you cannot return to the fountain area after leaving it. (ARAM) Continue Reading
27 February 2013 | |
Mordil
Update: The Patch has gone live, so I’ve made changes below in bold.
People have ravenously requested it – and Hi-Rez Studios finally delivered. They have released the Kraken with Poseidon in this week’s patch in SMITE.
Along with this week’s patch adding a new Mage – they’ve also made an announcement about the Ultimate God Pack: Poseidon will be included in the God Pack.
The Ultimate God Pack has been adjusted so that it now includes all gods in the game, including any future released gods. Those that purchased the Ultimate God Pack previously will receive new gods automatically (there is no need to upgrade). The Ultimate God Pack remains at a special beta price until the game is officially released.
In addition, when the Ultimate God Pack is purchased, players will now receive a FAVOR refund for any gods purchased prior to buying the Ultimate God Pack. Those that have already purchased the Ultimate God Pack will receive a favor refund upon first login after the patch goes live.
This One Time purchase option looks to be HiRez Studios’ new business model, as they did something similar with Tribes: Ascend. They’ve stated the price will remain what it has been throughout Beta, but once it goes live, they price will most likely go up. Get your Ultimate God Pack now before it’s too late for $29.99 (£20.99 or €23.99)!
From what I’ve seen of the patch notes, I’m looking hopeful at the changes in the competitive scene. Here’s what I feel like is some of the most significant changes:
- New status effect added: Cripple – Movement abilities (such as leaps & dashes, but not movement speed increases or teleports) cannot be used for the duration of this effect.
- All gods labeled as “Tank” have had their base & per level attack speeds reduced.
- Players in teams of up to 3 may now join the “Practice Arena” on the Practice tab.
- Vamana has the 2nd Epic Skin added to the game
After the jump, you can find the full patch notes & the SMITE God Reveal video for Poseidon, God of the Oceans.
Continue Reading
14 February 2013 | |
Mordil
Honestly, this week’s patch has been the first one I’ve been the most happy with since back in November.
Neith is one of the most balanced gods right at release – from what I’ve seen. She doesn’t do too much damage, and she’s about as easy to kill as other gods, even with all her utility. Focus is gone, with it’s somewhat clunky mechanic that was changed almost 3 times before being removed.
Along with Focus being removed, every god had a pass through by the designers to re-assign static values for stuns, slows, damage, speed increases, etc. that used to be scaled by Focus. The lengthy list is below, along with Neith’s God Reveal video, her abilities, and the generic balance changes.
Things of note to me were:
- Hel’s abilities share half the CD time in both stances now (Her 1 in Healing Stance is used, both her Healing Stance and Damage Stance go on CD, with Damage Stance only being on CD for 1/2 the time)
- Hercules’ “Earthbreaker” (knockback) ability had the length of its range reduced by about 10ft.
- New Solo Practice Map for Arena: Ymir, Artemis, Ra, vs. Ymir, Artemis, and whomever you choose.
- Advanced Tooltips have been added for abilities now.
- and again, Focus has been removed.
Check out Neith’s reveal after the jump!
Continue Reading
31 January 2013 | |
Mordil
Yesterday morning, we were hit with the latest SMITE patch, introducing the delayed (by only one week) god: Vulcan, God of Lava & Smoke.
This patch mostly introduces the new god, with some welcomed balance changes (Hercules nerf!), a new loading screen (as seen above) and bug changes.
I’m wondering if with each new god, they’ll change the loading screen to show them off. Makes sense with this change not having a static photo background like we used to have with Ole Zeus.
Hit the jump for the full patch notes and Vulcan’s official God Reveal trailer. Continue Reading
10 January 2013 | |
Mordil
SMITE patched to include the Ladies’ Man, Hercules, yesterday. The update brought mostly balance changes with the new god. Some of them I felt were unnecessary, but we’ll see as time goes on if the changes are for the better or worse.
Things of note are Bakasura’s changes to his eating ability, giving him movement speed on kills as a passive, and not his eating ability; and the eating ability gaining a buff to its healing. Again. Freya no longer receives a 50% damage reduction when both Pulse (#1) and Irradiate (#2) are active at the same time, and Kali’s Frenzy ability now breaks CC.
New God: HERCULES!
- Strength From Pain (Passive): As Hercules takes damage, he gains 20 (+2 * your level) physical power based on a percentage of his missing health.
- Driving Strike: Hercules delivers a mighty strike, driving all enemies back and stunning them for .8/.9/1/1.1/1.2s if Hercules is at or below 50% health, increasing with Focus up to 1.7s. Anyone hit by the blow takes 80/130/180/230/280 (+60% of your physical power) physical damage. Cost – 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Cooldown – 14s.
- Earthbreaker: Hercules smashes the ground, sending a shockwave forward that does 60/110/160/210/260 (+50% of your physical power) physical damage to all enemies. Enemies at the end of the shockwave are thrown into the air towards Hercules. Cost – 70/75/80/85/90 mana. Cooldown – 15s.
- Mitigate Wounds: When Hercules activates this ability, 30/55/80/105/130% (+1% for every 2% health missing) of the damage taken in the next 4 seconds is returned to him as health over the next 10 seconds. Cost – 60/65/70/75/80 mana. Cooldown – 12s.
- Excavate: Hercules rips a huge boulder from the ground. Throwing the boulder does 200/300/400/500/600 (+100% of your physical power) physical damage and knocks back all enemies where the boulder lands. The boulder continues rolling, doing 50% damage to all enemies in its path. Subsequent hits on the same enemy do 50% less damage per hit. Cost – 100 mana. Cooldown – 90s.
Note: Hercules will be 11,000 favor for the first approximately 2 weeks after launch, then drop to 5,500 favor. The gem price is not expected to change in the near term. Continue Reading
11 December 2012 | |
Mordil
I really think it has something to do with Loki, and all the new changes that HiRez is doing to SMITE to bring a faster, better MOBA experience.
I’ve found myself playing several matches a day, at the behest of my wife thinking I need an intervention.
With the latest changes made to matchmaking, and the overall queuing process itself – being invites come out at a set interval – I’ve made the happily casual leap from Normal Conquest, into regular Ranked Conquest match queues.
The result? Pretty happy rank climbing, and enjoyable gameplay that I before felt I wouldn’t achieve.
My experience has been that players in Ranked tend to be a lot more friendly than in normal, which is quite surprising and refreshing. It seems overall the community would rather be helpful to their teammembers in a match to win that current game, than to tear down the weakest link, and hope they don’t get queued with them again (by blocking).
I honestly wasn’t expecting that, and I’m curious as to what has fostered that response. Hit the jump to hear more. Continue Reading
14 November 2012 | |
iTZKooPA
“OP!” It’s a call every MOBA player is familiar with. Often levied on new champions, gods, avatars, what have you, the fist-shaking declaration is nothing new to gaming. Certain weapons in FPS games, rush strategies in RTS titles or pixel-perfect combo links in fighters, the cries of “overpowered” have been with gaming since Lawrence Taylor crushed quarterbacks in Super Tecmo Bowl. Likely before. The derisive comment is simultaneously a cry of agony and complaint against imbalance. Yet, in the case of today’s popular massive online battle arena titles, it’s often misplaced, misdirected and inaccurate.
Be it League of Legends, SMITE, DotA 2 or Heroes of Newerth, champions aren’t natively OP at release. Once the rage subsides, think on the points after the jump. A combination of them is likely the cause of your avatar’s recent demise, not a game designers inability to get things right. They may feel OP, but they aren’t. Continue Reading
