Smite 10.4 balance problem and feedback

I disagree with the current balance and design philosophy of Smite. I’m frustrated with the current state of the game and the reasoning behind balance changes. The MOBA genre has three core pillars: mechanics, decisions, and game knowledge. With over 100 playable gods, professional players don’t practise every interaction. Decisions based on the game state matter, such as when to go for the gold fury. Mechanics include using abilities and moving around the map.

Currently, damage, mobility, and ease of use are at the heart of current balance woes. They are born from the design philosophy being followed.

Damage is just too easy to apply instantly, making it harder to dodge incoming bursts. On top of this, clear has been power crept across the board.

What’s more, in my mind, there are way more hard and soft mobility options. Deities that lack mobility have been given soft options or newer designs with it in mind. This has caused an imbalance with certain more traditional gods’ weaknesses gradually being removed. 1/3 of gods should have hard mobility skills, 1/3 should have soft mobility mainly and the remaining should have none. Rock paper scissors approach I admit may not work for a game with so many moving parts.

It’s much harder to dodge abilities now, making it feel less like a fighting game. There are far fewer skill shots and way more setup options built into kits that require less effort to land. That’s just how I feel currently about the game.

Combined together, these have indirectly created a burst-heavy meta – a race to the bottom in terms of skill and power creep with bloat. Small balance changes that don’t undo or properly address underlying constant creep are not just affecting gods but specific items.

Currently, items are over-tuned and typically lead to power creep. You can gain certain caps without much conscious effort. Leading to item trees filled with numbers and increasing game knowledge. Pretty much every item right now has at least 3 stats or more. A severe problem at the moment is the power curve for everything is out of wack and needs toning back.

Purposed item trees

Aggressive

Attack speed

Power / Mana

Penetration

Movement speed

Defensive 

Cooldown / Mana

Health / HP5

Protections

Crowd control

Utility

Life steal

Anti heal

Healing boost

Passives

Room to expand and add more if you wanted to expand certain playstyles. Possibly help the PC-centric UI work better on the console.

The design philosophy for standard kits should be moved back to basics. Early, middle and late archetypes should serve as the basis for balance. Gods should traditionally have a series of strengths and weaknesses. Soft counters by specific items have really been a clear priority over hard counters. Therefore should be considered and crafting soft weaknesses. A super mobile god, for example, should naturally lack immunity to crowd control, gently forcing the talented player to pick their successful fights wisely and carefully. You could indeed make it because they have lower health pools.

Early gods have high base damage, excellent clear, likely poor scaling 5% and lower than average health late.

Middle gods have mid-base damage, good clear, good scaling 50% and middle health value.

Late gods have awful clear, poor base damage, high scaling 200% or more and higher than average health late.

A balance idea could properly adjust basic attack damage based on these archetypes. Chronos, for an excellent example, gets higher basic attack scaling but lower base numbers. Opposite end Neith starts off stronger and falls off much harder.  This would have added the benefit of naturally tweaking critical strikes.  Pressure gets balanced with less late-game damage.

Ah Muzen Cab and Izanami both could be classed as early. Loads of levers you can pull within my vague archetypes. Don’t have to follow an inflexible path just use it as a guide.

I clearly have a different vision and idea of what the game should look like compared to the designers.