RISE AND FALL OF SMITE

I have been around since the Beta. This is by far my most played game with over 3000 hours over the years. Its kind of a love-hate relationship.

The game initially took my breath away. Playing as legendary mythical gods and champions in beautiful detailed environments. There were few bugs here and there, but nothing that really bothered me. We had He-Bro, Lil' Mana, Olympian Anhur, but I felt like these skins we're not seen too often. They did not break the immersion.

Some time went pass and they introduced new Gods, Seasons and Items. New gods kept getting more and more overpowered to push people into buying the God Pack. Bellona was a fine example. It took them months to fix a god, that everyone agreed was beyond broken. Simple hotfix, reduce healing in half? Nope. We saw her fighting 1vs2's, 1vs3's and shivered at the mere sight of it. Console players had to suffer her for even longer.

There was the Frostbound meta, Qins/Fatalis meta where Cernunnos and many others were running rampant with insane damage and mobility, (I still have 88% win rate with Cern and 86% with the Bee.) Then there was the Defence meta, where assassins and warriors built 4 bridge items, and were able to destroy mages and hunters with ease, while taking barely any damage. Hi-rez did struggle massively to balance the game, and as they added more and more Gods and Items, it was even tougher job to get things right. We've all seen how bad it eventually got.

With every patch note, we saw where the manpower has gone. Skins. The base mechanics are barely working, while leaving people often with issues like:
-Not being able to invite friends
-Having to restart Smite in order to receive invitations or invite people
-Not seeing who is online
-Not seeing who is in game
-People getting randomly deleted from your Friendlist
-Not being able to talk in Party Chat
-Not being able to talk in Lobby Chat
-Not being able to talk in game chat without saying /g (not all know this)
-Mouse not interacting with item store, forcing you to restart the game
... And many many more.


You can start to see the picture i'm painting here. This could have been a game that kept tens of thousands of players around for years to come, but they did horrible job with managing the game. There are few expectations, but most of these skins are not appealing. They are all copies of each other with the same Edgy Robot, School Girl, Stuffed Animal, Edgy Demon and Edgy Demon Hunter Knight Thing kind of themes. They have been using the same taunts and cringey pop-culture references for years, with the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ voice actors.
The atmosphere of mythology, lore and divinity is all gone. The balancing is underwhelming. These gods are complete jokes, throwing around Cringey lines and occasional VELVEL spams. I used to read lore behind my favourite gods, that's how big of an impact the atmosphere had on me.

Hi-rez did jump on the MOBA wagon when it was popular.
Hi-rez did jump on the Hero Shooter wagon when it was popular, leaving Smite behind with no care for the well-being of the game.
Hirez did jump on the Battle Royale wago.. you know how this goes.

This could have been something special.


Honourable Mentions:

-Massively overbuffing Ullr before the release of 80€ T5 skin for him. He got banned in ranked in nearly every game and destroyed the casual experience. He was nerfed after the event, leaving people who spent money on that skin disappointed.
-I once opened 73 chests in a row and got the rare skins Derpules, Nuclear Ymir and 4 Convention skins in the last 6 chests. It is all a scam for the people with gambling tendencies.
-People were unavailable to spend money on the store after a patch last year. It took them only few hours to take the game down and hotfix this issue. My lobby chat was missing in January, it was still missing in July hours before writing this review. This is not healthy.



JULY 2020 UPDATE:

All the user interface, lobby and friendlist bugs are gone for me at least. Great!


NOVEMBER 2022 UPDATE:

Time to kill changes killed the game for me.

Time to kill was increased massively some time ago. Now everyone hits like a wet noodle, and i feel like the game is way more boring and stale than before.
This sucks for the following reasons:

Previously you could kill a fed enemy, if they made a missplay. Now, they are so beefy that they can afford to mess up a full kit rotation and still somehow survive/kill someone.
This makes the game even more snowbally than before. Capitalizing on your enemies mistakes don't pay off the same way as before and the player who is ahead in levels/defence/health, just rolls you, even if they make major mistakes.
I'd rather have fed enemies deal tons of damage, than to be unkillable. If they just deal tons of damage, you can outplay their kit and actually kill them.

1vs1 fights feel awful. Previously you could kill gods with single kit rotation and few basics, if you used your god to its full potential. It felt great. It felt rewarding. Pushing your god further just to deal that extra 100 dmg could mean the difference between enemy escaping or dying. Now there are just few champs that can actually 100>0 someone. Ra ulting someone, just to deal about 18% of warriors max health feels awful.

Since 1vs1 killing someone is out of the question, you have to rely more on your team. If you're playing with randies, you know how bad people are at this game. I feel so powerless, when the enemies are rolling over us and I cant kill anyone on my own. I have to depend on Fleshgordon27FENRIRx007 with his level 23 account to follow up on attacks to actually kill someone.
Impact of individual skill has been brought down SO MUCH that i just feel dead on the inside when team refuses to group up or work together.

Hunters crit meta is ass. Fights are decided on who gets the lucky roll out of the RNG machine and that is horrible for a skill based competitive game. I do wish they would rework the crit system or remove it all together. Maybe crits would crit every 2nd or 3rd basic attack, so that you have ways to play around it. You would be able to keep track of your own and enemies crits to add another layer of depth to the game.

Hitting like a wet noodle and feeling powerless does not fit the game where you play as literal chad ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Zeus. This is also not a skill issue. I've dropped solid 4000 hours into this game and made it into masters many times.


JANUARY 2023 UPDATE:

The recent updates are really good for the game and the overall experience feels a lot better.
Some defense builds are a bit problematic as they stack tons of survivability and damage at the same time, but overall I feel like I can actually deal damage. Extra free wards are mostly gone and that's really healthy for the game. There is stuff happening in the jungle right now and that's always good for the game.

RISE AND FALL OF SMITE I have been around since the Beta. This is by far my most played game with over 3000 hours over the years. Its kind of a love-hate relationship. The game initially took my breath away. Playing as legendary mythical gods and champions in beautiful detailed environments. There were few bugs here and there, but nothing that really bothered me. We had He-Bro, Lil' Mana, Olympian Anhur, but I felt like these skins we're not seen too often. They did not break the immersion. Some time went pass and they introduced new Gods, Seasons and Items. New gods kept getting more and more overpowered to push people into buying the God Pack. Bellona was a fine example. It took them months to fix a god, that everyone agreed was beyond broken. Simple hotfix, reduce healing in half? Nope. We saw her fighting 1vs2's, 1vs3's and shivered at the mere sight of it. Console players had to suffer her for even longer. There was the Frostbound meta, Qins/Fatalis meta where Cernunnos and many others were running rampant with insane damage and mobility, (I still have 88% win rate with Cern and 86% with the Bee.) Then there was the Defence meta, where assassins and warriors built 4 bridge items, and were able to destroy mages and hunters with ease, while taking barely any damage. Hi-rez did struggle massively to balance the game, and as they added more and more Gods and Items, it was even tougher job to get things right. We've all seen how bad it eventually got. With every patch note, we saw where the manpower has gone. Skins. The base mechanics are barely working, while leaving people often with issues like: -Not being able to invite friends -Having to restart Smite in order to receive invitations or invite people -Not seeing who is online -Not seeing who is in game -People getting randomly deleted from your Friendlist -Not being able to talk in Party Chat -Not being able to talk in Lobby Chat -Not being able to talk in game chat without saying /g (not all know this) -Mouse not interacting with item store, forcing you to restart the game ... And many many more. You can start to see the picture i'm painting here. This could have been a game that kept tens of thousands of players around for years to come, but they did horrible job with managing the game. There are few expectations, but most of these skins are not appealing. They are all copies of each other with the same Edgy Robot, School Girl, Stuffed Animal, Edgy Demon and Edgy Demon Hunter Knight Thing kind of themes. They have been using the same taunts and cringey pop-culture references for years, with the same god damn voice actors. The atmosphere of mythology, lore and divinity is all gone. The balancing is underwhelming. These gods are complete jokes, throwing around Cringey lines and occasional VELVEL spams. I used to read lore behind my favourite gods, that's how big of an impact the atmosphere had on me. Hi-rez did jump on the MOBA wagon when it was popular. Hi-rez did jump on the Hero Shooter wagon when it was popular, leaving Smite behind with no care for the well-being of the game. Hirez did jump on the Battle Royale wago.. you know how this goes. This could have been something special. Honourable Mentions: -Massively overbuffing Ullr before the release of 80€ T5 skin for him. He got banned in ranked in nearly every game and destroyed the casual experience. He was nerfed after the event, leaving people who spent money on that skin disappointed. -I once opened 73 chests in a row and got the rare skins Derpules, Nuclear Ymir and 4 Convention skins in the last 6 chests. It is all a scam for the people with gambling tendencies. -People were unavailable to spend money on the store after a patch last year. It took them only few hours to take the game down and hotfix this issue. My lobby chat was missing in January, it was still missing in July hours before writing this review. This is not healthy. JULY 2020 UPDATE: All the user interface, lobby and friendlist bugs are gone for me at least. Great! NOVEMBER 2022 UPDATE: Time to kill changes killed the game for me. Time to kill was increased massively some time ago. Now everyone hits like a wet noodle, and i feel like the game is way more boring and stale than before. This sucks for the following reasons: Previously you could kill a fed enemy, if they made a missplay. Now, they are so beefy that they can afford to mess up a full kit rotation and still somehow survive/kill someone. This makes the game even more snowbally than before. Capitalizing on your enemies mistakes don't pay off the same way as before and the player who is ahead in levels/defence/health, just rolls you, even if they make major mistakes. I'd rather have fed enemies deal tons of damage, than to be unkillable. If they just deal tons of damage, you can outplay their kit and actually kill them. 1vs1 fights feel awful. Previously you could kill gods with single kit rotation and few basics, if you used your god to its full potential. It felt great. It felt rewarding. Pushing your god further just to deal that extra 100 dmg could mean the difference between enemy escaping or dying. Now there are just few champs that can actually 100>0 someone. Ra ulting someone, just to deal about 18% of warriors max health feels awful. Since 1vs1 killing someone is out of the question, you have to rely more on your team. If you're playing with randies, you know how bad people are at this game. I feel so powerless, when the enemies are rolling over us and I cant kill anyone on my own. I have to depend on Fleshgordon27FENRIRx007 with his level 23 account to follow up on attacks to actually kill someone. Impact of individual skill has been brought down SO MUCH that i just feel dead on the inside when team refuses to group up or work together. Hunters crit meta is ass. Fights are decided on who gets the lucky roll out of the RNG machine and that is horrible for a skill based competitive game. I do wish they would rework the crit system or remove it all together. Maybe crits would crit every 2nd or 3rd basic attack, so that you have ways to play around it. You would be able to keep track of your own and enemies crits to add another layer of depth to the game. Hitting like a wet noodle and feeling powerless does not fit the game where you play as literal chad fcking Zeus. This is also not a skill issue. I've dropped solid 4000 hours into this game and made it into masters many times. JANUARY 2023 UPDATE: The recent updates are really good for the game and the overall experience feels a lot better. Some defense builds are a bit problematic as they stack tons of survivability and damage at the same time, but overall I feel like I can actually deal damage. Extra free wards are mostly gone and that's really healthy for the game. There is stuff happening in the jungle right now and that's always good for the game.