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SMITE 2LDR | Open Beta 35 Hotfix + Q&A Roundup
▲ 28 r/Smite

SMITE 2LDR | Open Beta 35 Hotfix + Q&A Roundup

Weekly Roundup

May 18th Titan Talk - Open Beta 35 Patch Notes w/ killgoon

Monday’s show was relatively light, going over patch notes and mostly responding to gameplay suggestions from chat.

Q&A Section

  • Attack Speed Slows - They’ve seen the discussion on how attack speed reductions should apply and generally agree with what’s been said, and it is something the design team is discussing and looking to change in the future.
  • Mulan Flag on Interact Key - Not likely to work as well as Atlas’ +1 due to the latter being something you purposefully charge up while Mulan’s is less predictable and would probably end up in you using it when you don’t want to.
  • Zeus’ Shield - While killgoon agrees that current Zeus in S2 isn’t the greatest version, the S1 version with his shield bounce is equally if not more problematic on the receiving end. Part of why they haven’t done an Aspect for Zeus yet is because the community is so split on this subject.
  • Pen Changes - Austin has a newer pitch on how to tackle all the issues pertaining to pen and protections that they feel may be easier to implement.
  • Bringing Back Slash - All of their efforts to revitalize this game mode have resulted in the mode still being unpopular. They’d love to add a new mode eventually but it’s tough to justify working on one when they’ve been unsuccessful in the past and would rather support the current main game modes.
  • Manikin Scepter - Could be something they look towards adding back later on, so long as it’s able to fulfill a certain niche that’s lacking and broadens build paths for a few characters.
  • No Plating on Midgardian Mail - They chose Midgardian specifically to fulfill the need of a strong physical prot item, and one with a purposeful effect. Their intention isn’t for every item to be good against everything, so this item will naturally be weaker against magical ADC’s.
  • Melee Solo God Changes - killgoon liked the pitch of increasing the HP threshold on minion executes for melee attacks but is less privy on just giving all melee Gods cleave autos.

May 22nd Titan Talk - Open Beta 35 Feedback + Q&A w/ Hinduman & killgoon

Titan Talk was cancelled for Wednesday with killgoon being out, but returned today to cover some hotfixes that have gone live since Tuesday’s update.

End of the Week Announcements

  • Ah Puch Aspect is now live!
  • Starting today and running through Monday, there will be a 2x Worshipper event over the Memorial Day weekend.
    • There won’t be a Titan Talk next Monday but they will be back with the preview for OB36 on Wednesday.
  • Atlas Aspect is currently disabled due to overwhelming feedback that players do not want to play against it.
    • They had fixed his Aspect to no longer proc on-hit item effects in a hotfix for OB34 and their data didn’t indicate that the Aspect was performing overly well in any game modes (mostly a <50% win rate).
    • This bug cropped up again following the release of OB35 (it has since been fixed as of Friday’s hotfix), and they’ve since seen prominently negative feedback for people playing against it.
    • Because of this, they’ve went ahead and disabled the Aspect until OB36 with plans to make changes that make it more interactive to play against while retaining its identity and playstyle, but aren’t completely reworking it.

Thursday Hotfix

  • Fixed an Issue with Agni ultimate. Agni is now available for play.
  • Amaterasu - Fixed an issue where Heavenly reflection was not dealing damage to Jungle camps and bosses.
  • Fixed some issues with low priority queue.
  • Ah Puch - Fixed an issue where autoskill was not working correctly.
  • Fixed Runic Bomb dealing reduced damage to Phoenixes.

Friday Hotfix

  • Ah Puch being able to hit enemy Ah Puch corpses with Corpse Explosion.
  • Fixed an issue with Atlas Kinetic Charge giving unintended movement speed to himself.
  • Buff icon added to Atlas Kinetic Charge.
  • Midgardian Mail Item should now be available for purchase. (We’re aware the item image is not displaying correctly)
  • Fixed an issue with Atlas Aspect proccing item effects on basic attack.

Q&A Section

  • Assault Item Bans - The designers will be taking a pass on item viability in Assault, and given that Eros’ Bow has mostly been tuned to retain its place in the mode, they may make Yogi’s Necklace available again. For anything Assault related, they intend on acting based on player feedback more than strictly adhering to a given item or God’s win rate.
  • Assault God Performance - Cabrakan Aspect is pretty much the only outlier that is overperforming from the data that they’ve looked at, while Gilgamesh Aspect is far more underwhelming. Sol Aspect had the highest win rate out of this data, which was taken prior to OB35.
  • CC Buffering - Pon Pon had a pitch for a way of bringing it back, and if it were to return, they would want to add more visual clarity to indicate that things are being buffered.
  • Horus & Set Dual Release - Doing this in S1 took a lot out of the dev team and it didn’t make enough of an impact to justify the work necessary to make it happen. Set is far less popular compared to Horus, being a historically underplayed God among the S1 roster.
  • Echo Changes - For OB36, there will be a mostly visual change to how Echo damage numbers appear, with them being under the impression that players don’t feel its effects enough and feel that they’ll be able to collect more feedback with this implemented.
  • Solo Lane Meta & Tanks - They’re well aware of discussion on this front and are testing things internally to see what would work best for the game.
  • Persephone’s Kit - When they get around to porting Persephone, they will more than likely be taking parts from her original kit, due to it being more liked by players, but their main issue with it stems from there not being much counterplay. Most of their changes will probably revolve around having more ways to play against the flowers she spawns.
  • More Anti-Heal Items - Brawler’s Beat Stick was previously a more STR jungler-focused item that has since seen less value, so more STR-based anti-heal options may be considered for potential item additions.
  • More Crossovers & Battle Passes - Crossover events aren’t super likely since they would need to divulge their team’s resources that would be better spent on porting more Gods. They’ve pretty much shifted away from the battle pass model since they would pigeonhole players into a specific skin selection and were a little too FOMO-focused.
  • Bringing Back Talisman of Energy - Can be something they can consider porting; they’re curious if people are more interested in it as a magical prot item or its potentially more problematic aura effects (the move speed is something they could change into Pathfinding).
  • Disabling All Aspects - Barring Atlas’, the balance team have made an effort to tune the more problematic Aspects that players have taken issue with. They intend on sticking with Aspects for the long term for the value they bring to opening more playstyles for their God, and it being healthier for the game’s playability to have more options for players.
u/BluesUltra — 16 hours ago
▲ 66 r/Smite

SMITE 2LDR | Open Beta 35 Balance Preview &amp; Art Contest

https://preview.redd.it/7slbn684gc1h1.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=27b3a963c6b3bae1911bce0ce008d84be1807fbf

Weekly Roundup

May 11th Titan Talk - Solo Q&A w/ killgoon

Monday’s Titan Talk was a solo Q&A session with killgoon prior to all the OB35 coverage.

Q&A Section

  • Atlas Aspect Being Too Strong - killgoon agrees that this launched relatively strong compared to previous releases and will have more to share on what direction they want to go in terms of changes once more data is settled in.
  • New Designer Hire - Their newest addition to the designer team started on Monday, and will probably be making an appearance on Titan Talk eventually. He doesn’t have as much experience with SMITE itself but is inundated with MOBA’s and UE5. They’ll be working on one of the God ports that’s further down and hasn’t been revealed on a roadmap yet.
  • Echo Being Underbuilt - Generally, they don’t want builds with Echo to be at the forefront or being super meta, but want to tune them to the point that they’re viable enough on certain Gods and are a valid build path for some characters.
  • State of TTK - The team is aware of community sentiment on tanks and how TTK is being perceived, and have narrowed down potential changes they could pursue.
  • Classic Skins vs. New Skins - They will continue to add new skins where it makes sense but they overall don’t sell as well and aren’t as well received as classic skins due to the latter being free for most players after their Traveler period.
  • More Starter Upgrades - Certain upgrades missing from S2 have been brought up frequently and are being considered to be brought over in order to fulfill certain niches, such as Redstone. killgoon would personally like to see Axe of Animosity brought back.
  • Lane Teleporters - They’ve heard the feedback that players want some form of the TP relic back in the game, but will probably be keeping the functionality of lane teleporters the same.
  • New S2 God - Not likely due to their current priority with porting Gods but things are always subject to change.
  • Chibi Skins - Likely not going to be done for a regular Traveler but could be saved for a Saga due to the amount of work needed for these skins.
  • Scope of Aspects - The team generally agrees that they overcomplicated Atlas’ Aspect a little too much. They’ve mostly addressed the more overtuned Aspects through balance and there are a few that they’d like to update when they have the time. As shared previously, they intend on keeping up with the release cadence for Aspects and continue working on them alongside new Gods, as it’s easier for them to work on it when all the other departments are on board.
  • Janus Aspect - The Support playstyle that they had planned around when they worked on Janus is still the direction they have in mind and is what they want to do if time allows.
  • Current State of Junglers - They’ve seen propaganda on both sides on how strong or weak junglers are and there are still a few other things they can do, but killgoon personally believes they’re in a relatively reasonable state now.

May 15th Titan Talk - Open Beta 35 Balance Preview & Art Contest Winners w/ Hinduman, killgoon, & Ben

Last show of the week went over all the balance coming in next Tuesday’s patch and the winners of the recent art contest.

God Balance

  • Amaterasu (Buff)
    • Heavenly Reflection (2)
      • Now deals 15 increased base damage to minions at all ranks
  • Anubis (Nerf)
    • The Scales (P)
      • Base Protections reduced from 10 to 5
      • Max bonus Lifesteal reduced from 6% to 4%
      • Max bonus Protections reduced from 20 to 16
  • Aphrodite (Buff)
    • Love Birds (3)
      • Heal now ticks 1 additional time on application (was 6 ticks now 7 ticks total)
  • Bellona (Buff)
    • Bludgeon (2)
      • Spin damage increased from 45/80/115/155/190 to 55/90/125/165/200
  • Cerberus (Nerf)
    • Stygian Torment (4)
      • This ability will no longer Crowd Control displacement immune gods
  • Da Ji (Nerf)
    • General
      • Base Health reduced from 525 to 483
      • Health Per Level reduced from 101.5 to 86.5
      • Base Physical Protections reduced from 16 to 14.7
  • Discordia (Nerf)
    • Erratic Behavior (3)
      • Reduced cooldown reduction from 0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0/1.2 to 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0
  • Eset (Buff)
    • Spirit Ball (2)
      • Intelligence scaling increased from 70% to 80%
  • Izanami (Buff)
    • Spectral Projection (2)
      • Projectile speed slightly increased
    • Dark Portal (4)
      • Post fire time reduced from .6s to .3s
  • Jing Wei (Nerf)
    • Agility (3)
      • No longer grants a charge of Explosive Bolts
  • Morgan Le Fay Aspect (Nerf)
    • Shroud of Wildfire (3)
      • Percent Max Health Scaling reduced from 5% to 3%
    • Consuming Power (4)
      • Slow decreased from 20% to 15%
  • Scylla (Buff)
    • Crush (2)
      • Intelligence scaling increased from 80% to 90%
  • Xbalanque (Buff)
    • Branching Bolas (1)
      • Increased Damage increased from 10/15/20/25/30 to 10/20/30/40/50

Item Balance

  • Alchemist Coat (Buff)
    • Removed: 400 Max Mana
    • Added: 250 Max Health
    • Added: 30 Intelligence
    • Recipe changed to Soul Reliquary + Runic Hide
  • Blink Rune (Nerf)
    • Cooldown increased from 140s to 170s
  • Blinking Abyss (Nerf)
    • Cooldown increased from 140s to 170s
  • Bracer of the Abyss (Nerf)
    • Power per stack reduced from 10 to 8
  • Eros' Bow (Nerf)
    • No longer provides healing when hitting towers or phoenixes
  • Eye of Providence (Buff)
    • Magical Protection increased from 25 to 30
    • Physical Protection increased from 25 to 30
  • Gauntlet of Thebes (Buff)
    • Added: +10 Physical Protections at max stacks
    • Added: +10 Magical Protections at max stacks
  • Kinetic Cuirass (Buff)
    • Attacks required for buff decreased from 4 to 3
  • Oath-Sworn Spear (Nerf)
    • Strength reduced from 60 to 50
  • Prophetic Cloak (Buff)
    • Max stacks reduced from 20 to 15
    • Protections at max stacks increased from 5 to 10
  • Selflessness (Buff)
    • Cooldown reduced from 30s to 20s
  • The World Stone (Buff)
    • Intelligence increased from 70 to 80
  • War Flag (Buff)
    • Now when assisting on minions or Jungle monsters, War Flag will additionally heal self and allies within 8.8m for 7 health
  • New Item - Midgardian Mail
    • Base Stats
      • 2,400 Gold (Veve Charm + Legionnaire Armor)
      • 50 Physical Protection
      • 250 Max Health
    • Passive Effect
      • Damaged by Attack: That enemy has their Attack Speed reduced by 8% for 3s. Stacks up to 4 times.

Petals and Palettes Art Contest
The top 5 winners of this contest were showcased on today’s show, with the top 3 receiving diamond prizing.

Wild Growth by feyluna

April Showers Discordia by aliastar5

Persephone - Goddess of Spring by soapienoodles

We Have Bad Bunny Nu Wa At Home! by vixy.chu

Spring Maid Cu Chulainn by sixis

Q&A Section

  • Limitations on Art Direction - Ben’s goal with art direction is to update any previous skin or God models to the same visual fidelity of everything else in the game. Some skins can’t receive as much treatment due to time constraints but their intention is to take the time needed for ones that need an art update the most. They are mostly limited by animation sets and the already set identities of Gods, and Ben mostly works from within those confides to deliver content that’s within the community expectations of SMITE’s identity.
  • Dreaded Gods From an Art Perspective - Since the upgrade from UE3 to UE5, any FX required for God ports are much easier to work on and they’re able to recolor them more effectively for Gods like Merlin. As far as God ports to come, there are some specific complications unique to Zhong Kui’s rig stemming from constraints in UE3 that will require more time. Floating characters like Baba Yaga are slightly easier on the animation side and in the skinning department. Animations are something that they’ve learned more from with experience, with Nox being an example of a model that doesn’t have legs below her dress, and designing skins for her would have to keep this in mind due to them not having her legs animated. The pirate skin for Chang’e was an example of them going through the effort of animating legs for a character that would traditionally be dancing around more, and they hope to come to a middle ground where she dances and has animated legs for her port.
  • Recolor Skins - Since they started working on Twitch drops, they’ve started having at least one recolor for the base God model done for this use or offered through other means, and they would like to go back and add recolors for base God models when they have the time.
  • S2’s Legacy Gem Approach - Their intentions with this monetization model is to have a currency that can be used for anything (mainly classic skins) rather than promising that players would receive a given classic skin in the future. They value the flexibility of the currency and being able to use it on new releases rather than having to wait until your favorite skin is in the game.
  • Updating Ability Icons - A lot of considerations have to be made when evaluating ability icons, such as what the ability icon is meant to represent in terms of gameplay, players’ perception or attachment to certain icons, and whether a given icon really needs the update treatment. The art team is mostly limited by resources and have to consider whether it's worth the time when evaluating some ability icons.
  • Chibi Skins - Will maybe happen at some time. So much goes into working on these skins and the opportunity cost of instead working on several other skin animations makes working on this skin line less valuable.
  • Action Cam For New Players - Much like the commonly brought up Aladdin ad, the S2 team continues offering this since it works for new player retention regardless of how silly veteran players perceive it.
reddit.com
u/BluesUltra — 8 days ago
▲ 61 r/Smite

SMITE 2LDR | Open Beta 35 Patch Preview

https://preview.redd.it/5motoiv5ay0h1.png?width=2160&format=png&auto=webp&s=564b3f3855d85e3344e2e80f8ace85b71f88f07e

Titan Talk today showcased the content for Open Beta 35 launching next Tuesday, including the latest God port and Aspect in Ah Puch and the start of a new Event tied to a Bellona Saga and several upcoming Travelers. PTS is live and contains all of changes for this balance patch (13 Items and Gods), which will be shown in full on Friday’s show.

Link to Twitch VOD

(Going to be experimenting a bit with the post format by including clips from the stream instead of just screenshots. If you frequent these posts and prefer them one way or the other please let me know!)

Upcoming Gods & Aspect

New God - Ah Puch (Available May 19th)
Ah Puch deals Magical Damage with pure INT Scaling.

  • Corpses can be picked up faster when tossing them into walls or onto self.
    • You no longer have to move off and then back onto a Corpse to pick it up.
  • Empty The Crypts’ (ULT) wraiths can no longer be body blocked but more are spawned and deal ticking damage.
    • Ah Puch’s next 3 Basic ATKs will each fire a Corpse after casting his ULT.

New Aspect - Aspect of the Death March (Available May 22nd)
Ah Puch’s Aspect still revolves around picking up Corpses, his 2nd Ability being replaced with one that uses them as ammo to debuff enemies.

  • Each decaying Corpse you walk over reduces the CD of Fleeting Breath (3) instead of the CD of Corpse Explosion (2).
  • Corpse Explosion (2) becomes Wraith Call, which Haunts enemy gods dealing bonus damage and significantly debuffing targets on ability hits.
    • Using Wraith Call fires a Wraith forwards, dealing a DoT over 5s and inflicting a Haunted debuff on enemies.
    • If Ah Puch hits a Haunted enemy, a zombie spawns, charging at them to deal damage (scaling with 1% of Ah Puch’s Max HP) and further debuffing them.
    • Haunted enemies deal 10% less damage to Ah Puch and the additional debuff stacks up to 5 times, each reducing their STR, INT, and Protections.
  • Empty The Crypts (ULT) deals less damage per tick but Slows Haunted enemy gods inside the field.

https://reddit.com/link/1tc8zv1/video/yqi0nqefay0h1/player

New God - Horus (Available June 2nd / Early Testing on PTS)
Horus launches with OB36 but will be available early this PTS cycle with his +1’s.

  • Horus’ model is still WIP and will appear a lot brighter than intended.
  • Heal from Protector’s Surge (3) is boosted with each stack of Resolute (Passive) without consuming the stacks.
  • To The Skies (ULT) now has Horus land earlier than his allies.

New Content

New Ascension Pass - Ah Puch

https://reddit.com/link/1tc8zv1/video/lnnx5ipday0h1/player

New Event - The Dawn of the Darkstar Empire
This is the next big Event with content releasing every patch until ~OB39.

  • Event Details
    • Contains 1 Reward Saga, 2 Reward Travelers, and 10 Travelers.
    • Each Traveler gives a Battle Banner upon purchase, unlocking additional Event rewards, with the final reward being the Darkstar Bellona Saga at 10 Battle Banners.
    • A Buy All bundle priced at 8,000 Diamonds is available, unlocking all Travelers as they release and giving early access to the Darkstar Bellona Saga.
    • 2 Battle Banners are available from the newly refreshed Wandering Path track.
  • Event Rewards
    • Darkstar Announcer Pack - 1 Battle Banner
    • Morgan Le Fay Traveler - 3 Battle Banners
    • Dawn of the Darkstar Card FX - 4 Battle Banners
    • Khepri Traveler - 6 Battle Banners
    • Stealth Drone Ward Skin - 8 Battle Banners
    • Darkstar Bellona Saga - 10 Battle Banners
    • Commander Title - 10 Battle Banners
  • Event Travelers
    • Striking Archon Ishtar
    • Chiron (Classic)
    • Vulcan (Classic)
    • Nut (Premium)
    • Hua Mulan (Premium)
    • Ne Zha (Classic)
    • Discordia (Premium)
    • Bastet (Premium)
    • Geb (Classic)
    • The Morrigan (Classic)

New Saga - The Darkstar Saga
Requires 10 Battle Banners to unlock, giving Interstellar Empyrean Bellona & 20 Levels of 2x Coins. Unlocked early with Buy All bundle.

  • Page 1
    • Interstellar Empyrean (Free)
    • Darkstar Saga VXG Emote (Free)
  • Page 2
    • Outerworld Invader (1,000 Coins)
  • Page 3
    • Galactic Commander (1,000 Coins)
  • Page 4
    • Interstellar Empyrean - Burning Conquest (750 Coins)
    • Interstellar Empyrean - Bloody Wrath (750 Coins)
    • Interstellar Empyrean - Phantom Blade (750 Coins)
    • Interstellar Empyrean - Emerald Reaver (750 Coins)
    • Interstellar Dimension Recall Skin (150 Coins)
    • Interstellar Rift Kill Effect (150 Coins)
    • Empyrean Title (150 Coins)
    • Darkstar’s Banner Badge (150 Coins)
  • Page 5
    • Outerworld Invader - Burning Conquest (1,000 Coins)
    • Outerworld Invader - Bloody Wrath (1,000 Coins)
    • Outerworld Invader - Phantom Blade (1,000 Coins)
    • Outerworld Invader - Emerald Reaver (1,000 Coins)
    • Burning Conquest Recall Skin (150 Coins)
    • Bloody Wrath Recall Skin  (150 Coins)
    • Phantom Blade Recall Skin (150 Coins)
    • Emerald Reaver Recall Skin (150 Coins)
  • Page 6
    • Galactic Commander - Burning Conquest (1,000 Coins)
    • Galactic Commander - Bloody Wrath (1,000 Coins)
    • Galactic Commander - Phantom Blade (1,000 Coins)
    • Galactic Commander - Emerald Reaver (1,000 Coins)
    • Burning Conquest Kill Effect (150 Coins)
    • Bloody Wrath Kill Effect  (150 Coins)
    • Phantom Blade Kill Effect (150 Coins)
    • Emerald Reaver Kill Effect (150 Coins)

https://reddit.com/link/1tc8zv1/video/dfal6dbcay0h1/player

New Reward Traveler - Dusk Glimmer Morgan Le Fay
Requires 3 Battle Banners to unlock, giving Dusk Glimmer Morgan Le Fay and 5 Levels of 2x Coins. Unlocked early with Buy All Bundle.

  • Dusk Glimmer Title (200 Coins)
  • Classic Cutesy Chest (600 Coins)
  • Arcane Mark Badge (600 Coins)

https://reddit.com/link/1tc8zv1/video/lmrz286bay0h1/player

New Traveler - Striking Archon Ishtar
Premium Bundle priced at 1,000 Diamonds, or free with Buy All bundle. Unlocks Striking Archon Ishtar, 1 Battle Banner, and 5 Levels of 2x Coins.

  • Shimmer Prism (1,100 Coins)
  • Aqua Prism (1,100 Coins)
  • Venom Prism (1,100 Coins)
  • Angelic Archon Badge (600 Coins)

https://reddit.com/link/1tc8zv1/video/lwirkpbaay0h1/player

Balance Update

Conquest Balance Preview

  • Titans
    • Slightly tankier for each Structure that is still up.
  • Lane Minions
    • Starting at 24:00, every 3 minutes Lane Minions begin spawning 1 second faster
      • Before 24:00 = 30s -> After 36:00 = 25s
    • Fire Minions’ Max HP and mitigations have been decreased to match their normal counterparts
      • They still have double the Strength of normal Minions, and deal bonus damage to enemy Minions, Structures, and Titans
  • Jungle Monsters
    • Pushed back initial spawn time of Oracles and Random Mid Buff Camp from 1:30 -> 1:35
    • Speed Buff Holder, Purple Buff Holder, and Big Cyclops Warrior have slightly less Protections
    • Increased Vortex CC strength against Jungle Monsters
  • Runic Bomb
    • Physical Damage no longer affects Jungle Bosses
    • True Damage vs Towers, Bosses, and Minions cannot be mitigated in any way
    • Increased Physical Damage vs Gods from 300 -> 500
  • Fire Giant and Gold Fury
    • Minions and Pets tanking these objectives now have -75% reduced Healing
  • Fire Giant Buff
    • Healing from the buff is now reduced by Anti-Heal and blocked by Healing immunity effects
    • Base
      • Decreased Heal from 1% -> 0.8% of Max HP per second
    • Enhanced
      • Decreased Heal from 2% -> 1.4% of Max HP per second
      • Decreased Mana Heal from 2% -> 1% of Max MP per second
  • Enhanced Fire Giant
    • Removed Fire Giant’s additional Max Health while Enhanced (it was +4000 additional HP)
    • Decreased Fire Giant’s additional Strength while Enhanced from +85 -> +40
  • Moonlight
    • Lowered the cap on number of Shards collected that made it possible for both teams to tie to gain Lane Pushers
    • The Ritual site at the center of the map now functions similar to how Stygian Beacon did in S1 with a couple of tweaks
      • Capturing it still gives you the Ritual consumable and gives 50 Team Gold
      • The shards will are still going to fall but are no longer tied to winning the objective and are instead tied to getting the Lane Pushers
      • Capturing speeds up slightly with more teammates on the point
      • You will automatically win the capture point if you are in control of it when the Moonlight Phase ends
    • The Moonlight Queen Naga now drops a Shard once for every 5% of HP lost
      • Also regenerates a small burst of HP on leash

New Item - Midgardian Mail
Being brought over from S1, this item is fulfilling the niche of an anti-AA Physical Protection item but without its previous Move Speed Slow.

  • Base Stats
    • 2,400 Gold (Veve Charm + Legionnaire Armor)
    • 50 Physical Protection
    • 250 Max HP
  • Passive Effect
    • When you are damaged by a Basic ATK, the enemy has their Attack Speed reduced by 8% for 3s (stacks up to 4 times).

Bug Fixes

  • Updated Basic ATK animations for Bellona.
  • Fix additional cases that could result in a stuck falling situation.
  • Fixed Morgan Le Fay’s 1-1 casting for normal cast users.
  • Fixed an issue for Ishtar with The Morrigan being unable to de-transform from being Ishtar and Ishtar being permanently revealed.
  • Fixed an issue for Ishtar A01 getting stuck.
  • Fixed an issue with inhand abilities not consuming costs in certain cases.
  • Fixed a Conquest issue where certain camps could be tricked and killed with repeated leashing.
  • Added Banish to the list of Hard CC that can interrupt AI (fixes jungle mob AI from breaking after being Janus portal’d).
  • Fixed an issue causing adaptive stat to not be functioning properly on Warrior’s Axe and Leather Cowl.
  • Removed the STR and INT item store filters on Void Shield and Void Stone.
  • Book of Thoth has a minor tooltip correction.
  • Fixed objective HP bars not displaying on Towers.
  • Fixed Towers marking an enemy God as the priority target if the enemy God damaged a friendly God standing outside the tower radius.
  • Fixed Jungle camp reward scaling beyond 30:00.

Q&A Section

  • Midgardian Mail vs. Plating - Plating is being more aligned as a counter against burst-AA heavy characters while Midgardian is being offered specifically to counter Attack Speed heavy characters.
  • Parry / Counter-Based Ability - They’ve found that abilities in this vein are heavily affected by latency and are hesitant to add one in a game based around team play.
  • New Item Art - Can’t say for sure if more new icons are in for this patch but will share them if they are on Friday’s show.
  • Older God Aspects - No firm release date on Aspects for Gods that haven’t received one yet but do have ideas in mind, it’s mostly bandwidth among teams that they’re lacking.
  • Support Starter Upgrade Level - They’ve said previously that they are certain on changing the upgrade level for Support starters specifically, but changes to the base starters themselves are being lined up for this balance patch.
  • Ranked Bans - No plans to add more bans to Ranked for the time being. Eventually, they may start making the newest God unavailable for 2 weeks in Ranked, but they value collecting feedback on the latest port given the game’s beta tag.
  • Anti-Shield on Gem of Isolation - Caps sees this item’s identity as more of a prominent slowing item and would rather add different utility to buff it and ideally have a separate more dedicated anti-shield item.
reddit.com
u/BluesUltra — 10 days ago
▲ 16 r/Smite

SMITE 2LDR | Open Beta 34 Q&amp;A Roundup

Weekly Roundup

May 4th Titan Talk - Open Beta 34 Patch Notes w/ killgoon

First show of the week was a solo patch notes review with killgoon going into Open Beta 34.

Q&A Section

  • Omnipotence & MOTD - Will eventually happen at some point, their current focus is to support the main game modes and branching out to work on Omnipotence would take more resources and could potentially split the playerbase more.
  • Forgoing Golden Blade Changes - Although Bumba’s Golden Dagger and Golden Blade have somewhat similar effects, they elected to forego making the change to Golden Blade where its bonus damage wouldn’t affect the main target, as the two items are intended to have different use cases and Golden Blade would probably be too weak if this change was applied. Bumba’s Golden Dagger has been prevalent for a while now and has been used more outside of the jungle role, so they wanted to make a more drastic nerf to push it out of the meta for a bit.
  • Enchanter Support Items - They have heard the repeated feedback of players missing healer-centric items such as Lotus Crown and Fae-Blessed Hoops and are open to building out that section of the item store in the future.
  • Locking Starters Behind Roles Again - With the current state of starters, there is a lot more freedom in item choice and enables various playstyles for a given God. There will always be a top option that dominates the meta for starter choices at any point in the game’s life and they ultimately just have to balance things to the best of their abilities.
  • Random God Button on God Select - Probably not something they’ll end up doing due to it encouraging potentially toxic play.
  • Releasing Gods Very Strong vs. Weak - Usually, they would like to release Gods a little on the stronger side, but it’s always difficult to fully assess player reactions on new releases when they vary so much. The last couple of ports were overperforming in their playtests and they probably nerfed them more than they would have liked.
  • TTK in Current Meta - It’s difficult to parse feedback currently since there is a lot of disagreement amongst the community on whether TTK is too fast or too slow. TTK will be tackled to some degree with their planned pass on pen but it’s hard to say what extent it will have on damage.
  • Agility Relic for New Players - While it’s not particularly strong in its current state, it’s serving its purpose in making the game more accessible. killgoon agrees that they could do more with basic tutorials in-game and will eventually get around to adding Quick Play Conquest, but really don’t want to overbear the NPE with too many tutorials.
  • Payoff for High Skill Floor Gods - Generally, if a God’s kit is harder to execute, then the payoff should be higher compared to low skill floor Gods, but the problem they often run into and have to balance around is the God being less difficult to pilot than intended and dealing high damage regardless of player skill.

May 6th Titan Talk - Open Beta 34 Community Q&A w/ Hinduman & killgoon

OB34 went live later than usual, so Wednesday’s Titan Talk had less to cover in terms of addressing known issues or hotfixes in the work, but still went through Q&A.

Recent Patch Delay

  • This is the first day one of their patches has slipped even a day after multiple years.
  • On Monday, killgoon mentioned that they may have to release the patch a little late due to a last minute certification issue with Sony.
  • This was quickly resolved a little bit after Titan Talk but they ran into another certification issue with Microsoft that was mostly the dev teams’ fault.
  • They missed a validation file that needs to be authorized by Microsoft every few months and had to take half a day to make a new build with it due to it expiring at the last minute.

Q&A Section

  • Atlas Data - It’s easier for them to wait 24 hours before pulling data, with the database they usually run analysis on automatically updates based off their live database on a daily basis.
  • Rank X Speedrun - They are interested in having mini-events to celebrate the first few players to reach Rank X on a new God but would need to take the time to implement something in-game.
  • New Item Art - They were able to get in new art for Alchemist Coat and Doublet of Binding thanks to one of their artists, Erice. (not to be confused with Erez…)
  • Revisiting Base Stats - There are a few outliers that they’d like to go back and adjust, but generally speaking, the base stat pass did make a difference but probably not as much as people are thinking. Certain archetypes, such as solo lane brawlers, are ones they are likely to address due to them being overshadowed by things like ranged solos.
  • Horus on the Release Calendar - Gods are usually evaluated based on if they fulfill a necessary design hole or are more feasible with the time allotted. His place on the port schedule made sense for the team due to them having the proper amount of time to work on more technical things like his ULT.
  • God Leads on Upcoming Ports - Ah Puch is being led by Caps, Austin is taking point for Horus, and the tech side for Bastet is mostly being worked on by Jarod, one of their returning designers.
  • Killcams in S2 - The most benefit these would bring is to show how someone died, which probably doesn’t have as much value as being able to watch the remainder of a teamfight from the grey screen. In other games, cosmetics pertaining to killcams are frequently monetized and from their experience with Paladins, it would often lead to many bugs and be desynced.
  • Community God Polls - Polls run by creators or on Reddit are often skewed by their communities and usually aren’t indicative of what the team’s data show, with Fafnir as an example of someone that is voted for more compared to his S1 play rate.
  • Bastet ULT - They’re experimenting with a couple of ideas at the moment and during playtests and will have more to share when they get around to her.
  • He Bo’s Port - Their biggest challenge when considering this God is evaluating how many people prefer the camera angle and animations on He Bro over his base model, and the best way to handle that would be.
  • God Design Touchups Based on Lore - For the most part, their intent isn’t to update each God model with their most known depiction in media and are known to take artistic liberties with their designs in order to end up with a more unique addition to the roster.
  • Target Bracket Highlighting - This was initially implemented in S2 with designer temp art but it gave the impression to new players that the game was utilizing lock-on or tab targeting, so they ended up doing away with it.
  • Item Store in Jungle Pitch - They found this idea interesting and have talked about the cons of a potential additional shop, in which it would devalue Chang’e passive, is most useful during the laning phase, and is less necessary due to having lane teleporters.

Thursday Hotfixes

  • Fixed a bug where Gold Fury could reach maximum attack speed
  • Fixed an issue where Chaac ULT could sometimes put enemies in a broken state
  • Fixed a bug that allowed for multiple Typhon's Fang pets
  • Fixed Doublet of Binding to properly reduce damage taken by allies
  • Fixed a bug that could cause "infinite falling"
  • Updated audio for Ishtar's ultimate
  • Added the name of the new Aphrodite skin (Burning Passion)
  • Atlas passive attack no longer stuns towers
  • Atlas now has builds for Quickplay
  • Atlas' Astrolabe can no longer get stuck in Aladdin's lamp; Aladdin has been reenabled
  • Atlas Aspect now has reduced health and protections, as intended
  • Auto-build on Atlas has been fixed
  • Fixed an issue where Gravity Pull had a bad interaction with Purification Beads
  • Fixed an issue with Gravity Pull putting you in a broken state
  • Fixed an issue where item stacks where providing passive stacks for Atlas
  • Fixed an issue where Gravity Pull throw and launch strength were inconsistent at times

May 8th Titan Talk - Open Beta 34 Feedback + Q&A w/ Hinduman & killgoon

Final Titan Talk of the week went over hotfixes that have gone live since OB34’s launch.

End of the Week Announcements

  • Atlas Aspect is now live!
  • The Flurry Ratatoskr Twitch Drop campaign starts tomorrow and will run for 2 weeks.
  • Voting for the SMITE Prime Petals and Palettes Art contest is now open, running until next Friday where they’ll showcase the winners on Titan Talk with Ben.

Q&A Section

  • State of Junglers - Overall, they are much more satisfied with how junglers are performing compared to where they were a few weeks ago. Their next balance patch will probably focus on buffing underplayed Gods or items now that most of the worst case offenders have been reined in.
  • Next 2x Worshipper Weekend - Next one is planned for Memorial Day weekend around the end of the month.
  • Rod of Tahuti & Pen - Their intended passes on both of these bullet points are largely intertwined due to the way the stats behind these interweave with each other. They’re slowly working away at resolving the most pressing balance issues that cropped up in the past month and will get around to tackling this topic once things have settled down more.
  • Solo Lane Tanks - They’ve heard the feedback on what people want to be stronger in solo, and they can certainly pursue this in ways such as buffing what they itemize towards or adjusting base stats as they’ve mentioned before.
  • Bakasura’s Port - Generally, they’re trying to balance the workload of all their departments and considering ported Gods’ popularity. killgoon can’t recall the specifics but nothing indicates that he’s risen much in the latter regard and does require some minion AI to be worked on for his ULT.
  • Moonlight Phase in Other Modes - Adding things that disrupt the general flow of non-conquest modes has historically been negatively received. There’s a risk of over-complicated things in gameplay that people don’t come to the game mode for.
  • More Travelers for Non-Bundled Prisms - A Traveler for Thanatoast was planned to be sold a few patches ago but has been pushed back on the schedule due to them wanting to get The Reaping Buy All out first.
  • Work on Pet AI - Rather than honing in on one big set of tech, the programming team usually focuses on the most necessary projects while working on larger arcs of work in the background, as is the case with Gods with pet AI.
  • Bob Ross Sylvanus - Any licensed skins in this vein aren’t likely to be brought over 1:1 due to the monetization terms within their licensing agreements when going from one game to another.
  • Reflection on New Stats - These were added at a time where the game’s balance was very poor and they think this has some effect on player perception on the new stats. Adding echo brought to light some of the underlying issues pertaining to multiplicative damage multipliers that gave them time to properly address them. Since then, all of the stats have mostly settled in and are serving their intended purposes. There are a few issues related to plating and dampening that they intend on resolving, such as them not impacting item passive damage and them not counting towards passives or abilities that count item protections.
  • Next UI Prioritization - Given how much needs to be worked on for each patch, the UI team is mostly focusing on cleaning up things and improving game presentation, with bigger UI tasks being worked on in the background and more likely to come in the following patches.
  • Jungle Practice In Queue - Has been a long time request and is something they’d like to do eventually, their biggest hold up is sorting out the edge cases in transitioning from being in-game to a match lobby or getting lost at some point throughout the process whenever the queue pops.
u/BluesUltra — 15 days ago