My God Is Better Than Your God - A Smite Thread

[Arcanum]

Smite is a third-person MOBA made by Hi-Rez, the folks behind Tribes and Global Agenda. Only instead of shaking the MOBA mold like SMNC, Smite is pretty standard despite the change in camera perspective. The reason for the thread title is that the heroes are Gods from various pantheons (Greek, Hindu, Chinese, Egyption, Norse, etc). Have some gameplay footage.



So yeah, the game is pretty interesting, though it is definitely in beta and could use some work. Why am I making this thread you ask? Because a friend gave me a beta key, thus giving me three extra beta keys to give away. Currently the game only supports 2-player parties, so playing as a big team isn't going to work. Regardless, who wants in? Just post here if you want a key and I'll PM it to you.

Also feel free to talk about and/or hate on Smite.

[Aldurin]

Throw it on me. I'll bite, though I don't know if I'll immediately try to spit out the taste or not.

[TDK]

Looks pretty nifty. Somewhat skeptical about the idea of a different camera angle in a moba, but I think it could be fucking sweet.

[lazy man]

...ya know what, why not, throw a key my way. Might as well try something different for once.

[Arcanum]

Oh and just FYI, you either have to go onto your Hi-Rez account and redeem the key through your Games page, or download the Smite client and activate the key on the login screen.

Also, TDK, is that an "I want a key" or just a "This game looks neat" ?


Anyway, some more info on the game from my extensive experience of 7 or 8 games:

It's much faster-paced than your traditional moba, mainly because you earn exp and gold just by being near enemy creeps that get killed (although you do earn more gold if you deliver the kill). Also enemies can't deny creep kills (which is a huge plus in my book). All of my games have ended in about a half hour, which is a half hour shorter than most DotA 2 matches (those things are way too long).

Also, assassin (or ganking) class Gods are either ridiculously overpowered, or everyone I've played against doesn't know how to deal with them. I've gone over 10 kills in all my games (usually 15+), and less than 5 deaths. And by the end-game I can solo almost their entire team because of how fed I get.

This also might be because you can buy certain passives in the store (I mean the in-game/in-match store, not the cash-money store which has yet to contain anything other than Gods) for only 500 gold that a lot of players either don't know about or just don't buy. Meanwhile the first thing I buy every game is the passive that boosts the gold and exp I get from a kill (hero or creep) by 10%.

Also neat is that every single neutral creep mob gives you some kind of buff. These include: health regen, magic regen, damage boost, movement speed boost, cooldown reduction, and armor boost. So farming up buffs from the jungle before a gank is extremely effective.

The game is pretty damn fun, although I find you gain Favor (the in-game currency) ridiculously slow. Sure you get 1000 every time you level up (a God costs 5500 Favor), but Favor gained from a match is barely noticeable.

e- Oh, also, two pretty awesome things that I love about the game that make it possible for your team to come back and win so long as you aren't horrendously out-leveled and out-skilled.

1) The final line of turrets are Phoenixes, and a certain amount of time after a Phoenix is killed (I have no idea how much time exactly) it respawns with a very low amount of HP (though I'm pretty sure they regen their health slowly). So losing your base turrets doesn't mean you're absolutely fucked (though it does boost that lane's enemy creeps with fire weapons).

And 2) the goal isn't to kill a boring motionless defenseless base, but a giant fucking Minotaur as seen in the trailer, and it fights back. And damn does that sucker hit hard. So if a team isn't coordinated, your minotaur could easily live long enough for a Phoenix to respawn, giving you a chance to push back and win the game.

[DarkDrgon]

I can't tell, is it standard moba controls in a different view point, or more of an actiony style game using the moba formula

[Arcanum]

More actiony. You use WASD to control your movement, abilities are number keys 1-4. The only items with abilities you can activate all cost 500 gold and you can only have four of them (this is separate from your standard six-slot inventory) and you activate them with the Q,E,F,G keys (Default). However these four "item ability" slots are also shared with whatever passives you buy.

What's weird is that despite being able to aim the camera wherever you want, ranged attacks only happen in a 2D plane, and it can be rather tricky for the first few games when you're getting used to aiming and figuring out your range (since you can attack while moving, although doing so makes you move slower).

Also, the changed perspective has an interesting effect on the "fog of war" mechanic in your traditional MOBA. You can see almost all the way down a lane, and spot any enemy heroes that are coming towards you. However, fog of war is only revealed in a limited space around you. So while you can see that guy, he won't show up on the mini map until he enters a revealed area. To compensate for this, the lanes aren't straightaways and have a lot more bends to help conceal approach or so someone doesn't see you enter the jungle as soon as you leave your base.

[Yumil]

I've played 50 games so far, I'm pretty awful(~55% win rate, though leavers really screwed me over), but I love it quite a bit.

They have removed passive abilities along with nerfing Guan Yu and that has done a lot for the game. Supposedly they will release Fenrir next week, so I'm psyched about that. Favorite god so far is Vamana, though I really like He Bo as well.

Balance is pretty good. I see most every god in every game, though I feel some are weaker than others(Ao Kuang and Kali) and some may be a little strong(Agni), but overall I haven't had one god making or breaking the game(save Guan a few weeks back).

If ya'll ever'd like to game with me, I'd be down. Names Quasari. I got 2 keys myself, plus my friends 3, and everyone that gets a key gets 3 of their own, so plenty of keys to go around.

EDIT: Oh yeah, it lets you solo queue up to 3 people now, along with 5 man full queues. So, as long as we dont have just four people wanting in a game, it's great.

[Aldurin]

I don't know if anyone is still playing it, but SMITE is still developing pretty rapidly and I'm getting into it (level 16, so I'm getting closer to have Competitive access). My casual win rate is roughly 50% simply because it's very possible for 1 person (sometimes yourself) to be fed up to level 20 by 15 minutes but everyone else is disconnected or intellectually vacant, which is why I'd like to look into Ranked Matches since the majority of the influence on your rank is what YOU do.

Recent God designs are weird, Aphrodite doesn't seem to be as good as a support as she should be (Hel could probably make a better pocket medic). And Apollo is nuts, since he gets a really strong passive, a stun that while it looks like shit it interrupts EVERYTHING, the oddest-working escape ever and then a clone of Thor's ult but trading the stun for damage and range (I'm pretty sure you can cross half the map using it, which could let you intervene on more fights than you should be allowed to (Neith's ult is still bullshit)).