Why DmBrandon casting the Vegas showmatch is a bad thing

I really care about our community and it's important the people who represents us reflects how we want to be seen

1. Having a Non HiRez caster representing the company at an event that'll give HiRez a lot of attention isn't smart.

2. DmBrandon representing HiRez at an event that'll give HiRez a lot of attention is even less smart considering his history having already been forced to leave HiRez from outrage inside and outside the Smite community.

3. DmBrandon is well known on r/livestreamfails for his anger and quick google searches of his name aren't pretty.

4. He'll share a stage with Ninja who campaigns for suicide prevention when Dm's main controversy was suicide related.

5. Whilst it has been said to be one time only if it goes well and we don't create a storm around it he may well end up getting hired again and then we have Dm representing our community again.

6. DmBrandon is known to attack other people within the community and by putting him in the spotlight, HiRez encourages that kind of behaviour. He also has on multiple occasions spoken very badly about other casters (in the smite and smash scene)

7. Dm frequently speaks negatively about the game and its developers, especially Ajax (he is the sole reason for the "Ajax only plays joust, so he doesn't know what he's talking about" meme) and the god designers (calling almost all new god releases bad). Having him represent HiRez means people are going to be go to his channel expecting an environment where people enjoy Smite and be met with somebody trashing that very game. This will be off-putting for a lot of potential new players.

Sources:

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-04-20-smite-streamer-leaves-hi-rez-after-controversial-comments-about-suicide

https://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/4ffrl1/dmbrandon_suicide_comment/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTUJtEL1gag

https://clips.twitch.tv/HeartlessCreativeAlligatorPogChamp

Smite is filled with plenty of queer characters and has a pretty diverse community with a supportive company behind it!

No matter the hate you hear in game or the rage bait you see from other places remember you are loved and you matter.

You deserve sunshine!

<3333

This is a discussion, feel free to voice your opinion and/or cite more examples.

Over the past year or so, it seems as though HiRez has been getting more and more greedy. Is it to counter a shrinking player base? We probably will never know. But let's start with some examples.

1. The "Odyssey Tax". It is clear this year we are being charged more for skins. 100 gems for regular skins, 50 gems for ward/etc skins (They were 200 last year, right?). And the Lore Lady Announcer Pack. Why is it 300 gems? We got two announcer packs last year for 200 gems.

You are forcing players to spend more money for less content just so people who never spend money on the game can get free stuff.

2. Let's briefly talk about this Arachne skin. It was stated, on stream, "we needed a T2 skin." What the fuck? Is the Odyssey required to have a T2 skin that you pretend isn't? You tack on an unnecessary voice pack and charge 400 gems. Do you really think that skin should be in the same category as other 400 gem skins?

3. Odyssey Chests. It appears as though you have stopped adding new skins to the Odyssey chests. More boosters for everybody.

4. Aphrocadabra.You know people wanted this skin and despite it being very Halloween related, did not put it in the Halloween chest.

5. Stormbringer Zeus & Solar Sentinel Ra. Everybody knows these skins are no longer good and yet you refuse to put in the resources to fix them. But what you don't refuse to do is put them in nearly every chest as a filler. You know people aren't buying them so you put them in chests to force people to.

6. Gem Events. So this one is going to be a touchy subject because it might come off as entitled. You removed quests for gems under the pretext that we would be getting more gem events, but quite frankly, we aren't getting any. There's the Reaping which is significantly less than last year'a. Just come out and say you don't want to give the community any more gems.

7. Animated Screens. So this one might be a stretch, but you removed the animated screens to put resources into other things. What exactly have you put those resources in? There hasn't really been any drastic changes that warrant getting rid of the animated screens.

I would love to hear your opinions. I did a search and didn't see any topics that cover a broad range of issues so I decided to make one.

EDIT: My numbering got fucked up but I think you get the point.

EDIT2: One of my professors once said something similar to this:

Nike isn't in the business of making shoes and Starbucks isn't in the business of making coffee. They're both in the business of making money.

So I guess we just have to accept the fact that HiRez doesn't care about making their game, they care about making money. They will do whatever it takes to maximize profit.

EDIT3: Three hours later and I just realized my phone put an a instead of an s after Hirez in the title.

It is a hard time for all of us, especially those of us still closeted. I was closeted for such a long time due to abuse I would receive, and I share your struggle.

No matter who you are, be yourself. Be who you are, and be proud! So long as nobody is hurting anything, you are you and you will always be you. You deserve to be who you are, and you are absolutely valid for who you are!

Thank you all for being supportive, and happy pride month to you all! <3

In one of the next few patches we will try a new carrot/stick design for rewarding players for good/bad behavior

At the end of the match each player can give one thumbs up or thumbs down to a player of their choice (but not to a party member)

Players will start with 100 Karma points

A player will accumulate +1 Karma for thumb ups (and lose -1 for a thumbs down)

What's the benefit?

The person with the most Karma in the team will use up 1 karma point and will get the first position in the match lobby for God selection and extra time to make first pick (even in Blind pick modes and gamemode like arena the play will be able to make first pick).

The rest of the team will be sorted by Karma points

Sure, this is a post complaining about complainers, but someone has to pull the breaks.

All this reddit has become is endless post's about how HiRez have become "money whore" because they added Chest's. Or how evil HiRez is because they didn't refund you your precious Hercules voicepack or Grand Slam skin. (You agreed to their terms when you bought the stuff! They owe you nothing!)

Maybe I don't agree with the decision of putting The King or Emotes into the Chest's, but in the end they are just cosmetic effects that have 0 effect on your gameplay, they only have psychological effect on your mind.

So how about we all just suck it up, and face the facts. Chest's aren't going anywhere. Some of us like the gambling thingy, and it really fucks with my mind that how Smite is being bashed for Chest's, when people love them in games like TF2 etc.

HiRez already has done multiple gem giveaways, multiple free gem weekends etc. and you guys act greedy. Seriously, this subreddit is becoming cancer.

/rant

===> ADDITIONAL COMMENTS MADE IN THIS MORE RECENT THREAD: https://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/8hjmgl/more_on_divine_uprising/

I talked to the design team and we have made these modifications to the Divine Uprising event.

• Price per roll in the event will be 300 gems.

• You continue to get the 50% off coupon after the first roll in a pantheon set.

• You will now be able to earn 100 gems per patch cycle through quests (300 gems per pantheon cycle, and 900 gems through the course of the event).

• Each roll will now give a choice from 3 of the items in the pantheon set, from the beginning of the event. Remember that, in the first patch, there will only be 3 items, so the first patch is effectively direct purchase under this system.

• With the coupon, that means you can get both skins in the first patch of each pantheon cycle for 450 gems -- and be guaranteed to get the skins, not filler content, assuming that is what you choose.

• With the free gems, even free-to-play players can earn 1 item for free in each pantheon set, 3 items through the course of the event. And, with the coupon, you could get a second roll in each set for 150 gems.

• So people really wanting to min-max on the low end of the event could get 6 items for 450 gems through the course of the event (or 3 completely for free). With the Pick from 3 system, odds are that most of these would be skins.

• Math wise, each pantheon set will be 2700 gems if you buy at the early bird price -- but you can reduce that cost an additional 300 gems through the free gems and 150 gems through the coupon.

• That means an effective price of 2,250 gems for each pantheon set if you take full advantage of the quests and free gems. For that price, you get 10 total items, including the bonus T4 skin with each pantheon set.

• If you took full advantage of the free gems, early bird pricing and coupons for all three pantheon sets, then for 6,750 gems you get all three sets plus the T5 skin (31 total items -- an average of 217 gems per item).

I know there is rarely a situation in which everyone will be happy. But I think this is at the end of the day a very strong value compared to most things in the game and hopefully a fun and great event for all types of players -- and a great way to celebrate bringing three new pantheons to the game over the summer. And it keeps us from making this event from being exactly like the Odyssey or the Ragnorak/Birthday events, which we honestly thought would just get stale.

• Totally free to play players can earn 3 items totally for free by completing all the quests and spending their gems on the event.

• Cash strapped players can get 6 items for basically 450 gems (if they get the free gems from the event and then use the 50% off coupon in each pantheon set for the second roll in the set)

• With a pick-from-3 chest system, and a min of 3 items and a max of 9 items in a pantheon set (depending on which patch you purchase in), there's a very good chance you will get what you are looking for reasonably quickly if you are looking for only one thing.

• It is a decent amount of money to buy through the whole event, but there's a lot of content in the event, some of it we believe is very special (and, yes, it's quite expensive for us to make).

Thanks for all your input and your support of SMITE. We really do appreciate it and really do want everyone to see that.

EDIT:

• per thread linked at top of this article, we will also give non-bonus skins a direct purchase price of 750 gems through the normal skin store for those people that prefer to buy a skin directly outside of the basic event structure.

I'll -try- and make this short:

With the recent events that happened during the last few months, Casters getting pointed out for Bming, being biased, Hirez employees being emotional on Twitter, arguments with pro players, now Bart's new voice pack comes with lines like: "quadra kill you're all garbage" and other Bm-like lines. Also, a sketchy, borderline disrespectful fake publicity about the new GAME game poking at independant developpers, etc, i'm really not enjoying what Hirez is becoming.

A videogame company is supposed to set high standards of professionalism and quite honestly it's becoming quite laughable, is it a marketing strategy they're attempting by purposely creating drama?

I could cite several other examples but it seems to me it's faux-pas after faux-pas and anyone who is relatively informed on reddit knows what i'm talking about.

Mind you, some incidents might seem quite "harmless" or maybe "borderline" at first glance but you have to remember there are rules of conduct you agree to when you start playing the game and it seems Hirez employees themselves walk the fine line between what's respectable and what's not. It's certainly not setting a good example for players and no wonder there are so many incidents of BM and communication with the pros seems to have deteriorated to a point many of them openly mock Hirez and/or go play other Mobas with their streamers when the servers are down.

My plea would be for Hirez to get their act straight and clean up their ranks, but perhaps it's futile, find me harsh if you want but seems many of them can't think twice before making bad decisions which seriously hinders their image. They seem to have no direction, or if it's actually a thought out direction, it's a really, really bad one.

I'm appalled by this mess, really.

Premades stomping solo queuers isn't new, Siege was the worst victim but it's happening in every gamemode.

And solo queuers have no means to defend themselves, they often have bad comps without even a guardian/frontliner because everyone wants to play the big damage and make penta plays. They have barely any communication unlike premades that can very accurately and easily navigate grouping up our ganking with comms.

Just looking at MMR isn't a fair matchmaking, premades need to be removed from solo queue's period. There's a reason you can only pary with 2 max in ranked.

Solo queuers need an option to not be queued up with premades, or make a seperate queue for people who want to play with parties, solo queuers shouldn't suffer because people want to play with friends.

Premades/parties do more harm than good in Smite, the premades are always going to help eachother before they help randoms. it's like a premade aphro that's never going to link to heal you because they don't care about you or the team, they only care about their premades..

I maybe committing a cardinal sin here for saying anything bad about Frost as he's highly revered by the community... but his series of using every god in the game as a support has had a giant impact on conquest. I have more and more people playing literally anything in support and causing us to lose. I have seen so many mage and hunter supports in casual and ranked conquest that it hurts and I honestly feel like he's indirectly responsible for this surge.

There is a large number of people who really hate support and some will even dodge queue if they get it. But now I get Loki, Ra, Anhur, Merlin, Anubis, Hera, Bakasura, and Susano supports who just assume anyone can support if you build Thebes... saying "dOn'T woRrY iT WoRkS". You can downvote me if you want for daring to speak a bad word about frost but I have experienced all the gods listed above in the support role in the past 3 days. Conquest is a total shit show.

EDIT: For those of you who haven't seen it: http://www.twitch.tv/smitegame/b/528485955?t=207m16s

Seriously Smite? This skin was so cool, had so much potential...

And you give her a voice pack that says "I am greatest Waifu", and "I hope Senpai notices me"

The whole thing is overblown, stereotyped, and DOES NOT FIT THE SKIN at ALL.

The thing I liked about Nemesis, and her voicepack, was just how bad-ass she was. She was cool, collected, and totally bad-ass, and a ninja skin seemed perfect for her.

This Voicepack could have enhanced that, played up the whole "I am a super bad-ass ninja piece of awesome who will gank your entire team, score a penta, and then take down two towers" vibe she had going....

And you make her say "I am Greatest Waifu".

Un. Freaking. Believable.

I'm off to play until the patch. It will be my last chance to enjoy Blind Vengeance Nemesis.

EDIT: Hmmm.. 83 Upvotes, 83 Downvotes. It seems the community is very, very, split on this issue.

Not any god specifically, the entire role, and every god in it.

I don't know how it would be done, but I know as a fact bruisers are over powered and are controlling the meta. Bruisers are so good they do most other roles better then gods in that actual role. Bruisers can support better then most guardians, bruisers are better in the jungle then most jungles, and they control the solo lane.

Their scaling is ridiculous, bruisers are so tanky, yet they dish out massive damage at the same time. I can box a bruiser early who only has bumbas and pen boots, and he is so tanky my burst doesn't do anywhere enough to be fatal, and he is just shredding my entire health bar with ease.

But what's really wrong with each god you ask?

Tyr: His 1+2 combo does more then most ultimates until late game, he has plenty of mobility, more then some assassins, and he has a massive heal with passive defenses or passive damage.

Odin: His base damage is stupid, and his ultimate gives way to much. If Odin catches you in his ultimate and you don't have the following [Jump, combat blink] you're almost guaranteed to die. He will be hitting for massive damage, with near max attack speed, and his movement speed keeps him glued to you while his cc immunity and gained defenses stops you from trying to fight back.

Chaac: He has massive sustain, he can use abilities for free, his poke is ridiculous during the laning phase, and his ultimate not only silences for a large amount of time, but makes him immune to everything.

Vamana: Vamana is.....special. The god that builds defenses to do more damage, and is the only god to get a penta in pro play, and it has happened twice (Or was it three times?). When he ults it's nearly impossible to stop, and he shreds literally everything in his path, I have even seen Vamanas hunt down and kill Geb's back when Geb's shield wasn't garbage.

Guan: He isn't as bad as the rest, but still has problems. For example, the fact that he takes away defenses while doing massive damage with the same ability is ridiculous, he has a good slow, and his ultimate destroyes anyone early game.

Hercules: The raid boss himself is just as bad as the others. Not only does this god never die, but he can glue well to enemies, can pull you and push you back in the same combo, and his ultimate late game does a good 1k damage without even bouncing off a wall. I have seen Hercules tank a phoenix and even get chased by a titan just to get a kill, and he gets the kill and still survives because his heal heals it all back.

Sun Wukong: The god of never ending cc is here, and he not only does nothing but stun and knock up, but his cudgel does massive damage and is retard proof when it comes to landing it. He does to much damage with his abilities, and they are way to versatile. He can get out of anything with his bird of nope, he has a good easy to hit stun, and he has Ox form for a knock up if needed. On top of all this, he has an ultimate that heals him, places him up in the air and allows him to dunk down dealing good damage, and he sends a decoy that can take and deal decent damage at the same time.

Nemesis: The bruiser that should be an Assassin is up next. The god that has every slow in the entire universe, and can nearly kill a god in 1s without even attacking it. I have seen Nemesis's time their 3 properly (Not hard or skillful), and in doing so reflected the burst of a Loki, which dropped the Loki to near no hp. If she is in trouble she has a double dash, and if she can't dash out her ultimate not only gives good movement speed but gives her tons of protections, while slowing the person chasing.

Seriously, can all this just stop? How hard is it to realize how broken the role is. There are little to no cons or flaws in these gods, and they have nothing but pros. It's ridiculous.

1. Lifestealing Abilities

Abilities that heal you a portion of the damage they dealt based on your lifesteal stat.

2. ManaStealing

Abilities that steal some of the enemies mana. Abilities that steal some of the enemies mana based on your lifesteal stat. Maybe a new genre of items that gives Manasteal.

3. Manaburn

Abilities that destroy a portion of the enemies mana.

4. More channeling abilities.

Like Anubis' Locusts Cone. Something that stuns an enemy and yourself on a support and stuff like that. They are cancelled by stuns, like Guan Yu's Assault.

5.Actual Size, as in heroes that are larger than others visualy (ymir > vamana) and have larger hitboxes.

6. Upgradable Passives. (Ability Passives)

Not sure why they aren't already implemented, but they need some abilities that have no active, every other mobas has them.

7. Minions That last more than 5s lol.

You should be able to micro manage minions by pressing the ability and zooming out to see the whole map, and select a place to send them or an enemy to attack. While you are zoomed out you continue in the direction you were heading. Also minions should mostly last around 25s - 60s.

8. Someone with different forms that they actually stay in.

Like you choose a form to turn into and you gain a different passive/abilities while in it and you stay in it until you choose to switch again.

9. Overall less simple abilities.

EX: Vamana, damage in cone. Apollo, Damage in line.

10. Gods with no mana

Pretty straight forward, they would generally have longer cooldowns and such, possible the abilities take health.

11. Toggle Abilities

As in, while you have it on, your AAs take mana but have an additional effect (bleeds, Piercing, slows, wtva). Sure we have xba but that is more about the additional damage than the side effect + we need more of them.

12. More exotic and relevant passives.

Lots of passives hardly have an effect on the gods play style and build (DONT GET ME WRONG, A LOT DO) but there could be more significant passives, like a god whos max CDR cap is increased to 60% (in a a patch like this there would have to be more cdr items released).

Also, another messed up thing in smite is that you loose your lead very fast if the enemies don't surrender. Increasing the max level to 25 and making it so with the spare levels you can upgrade you stats (like in dota) or make it so you can buy stats so that late game you can continue getting stronger (slower though).

Another thing in smite is late game, the assasins and hunters have a lot of burst but they die so incredibly fast. most assassins in smite are weaker late game which makes zero since, they are supposed to be weak early ggame and strong late game. The only assassin/hunter that is stronger late game is Mercury because his 1 scales hard making him very strong late game. The main reason this doesn't happen in other mobas is because almost all items have a small amount of Defenses and/or health built into them. Tank items obviously would have more, but this allows assassins and hunters to keep up the damage while still being tankier. So pretty much getting fed also means you are more durable.

Also in other mobas farming makes a bigger deal, so you can catch up with enemy carries by getting some solo farm. In smite that doesn't work.

ALSO:

Im fairly new to smite, I started at the beginning of this summer (no side jungles when i joined). But i saw a video of the map with side jungles and i thought it was really cool. Currently the solo lane can be boring at points, like when you are both really tanky and you know you can't hurt eachother so you just ignore eachother, adding the side jungles again could create fun little mini competitions every time they respawn, and whenever you kill the enemy soloer/ enemy in the duo your award could be the xp and the buff. I though that was rly cool so :P. Also i think the mid furies are way to important so: I know making a small camp would make the jungler have less gold and xp overall but the introduction of the side jungle buff would make another source of farm for the jungler to make up for the loss of the big mid camps. Im not sure how this would work, i dont know how the numbers would add up, its just an idea :3

Mystical Mail should be removed for a few reasons.

Mystical Mail can single-handedly bolster a characters damage to be top an entire game by just walking at someone. The player does not need to hit an ability, execute a trade or anything else. The simple act of pressing W can turn a character with Mystical Mail into a raid boss.

Mystical Mail is literally the antithesis of the mantra of "skillshots" that HiRez has preached about in SMITE. Players are not rewarded for hitting things. Players are rewarding for being near something. There is no skillshot component to it. There is no skill. It is not even CD based, so you can't "outplay" it or anything of the sort.

Mystical Mail can severely limit solo lane diversity. If an assassin does not get ahead early against a bruiser building mystical mail the assassin cannot contest the bruiser in lane once Mystical Mail is finished. Most of the time Assassins lose lane to the mystical mail even with a lead. It is extremely suffocating to assassins and even some bruisers if they do not build it themselves. If a bruiser gets ahead against an assassin and bruiser has Mystical Mail, the assassin, in nearly all matchups, loses and sometimes the assassin gets entirely dominated. This will usually turn solo into bruiser v bruiser matchups with mystical mails coming out on both sides unless the bruiser is an exceptional boxing character or has high sustain. its kinda OP. A lot of my other points were implying this, but it makes bruisers so tanky and do so much damage at the same time. Their early presence becomes pretty much unstoppable.

It makes the game not fun. This is the most important point. Theres no skill to mystical mail. It feels awful to die to something where the player was just holding W. The opposing player didn't "outplay" you they just ran at you and you couldn't CC down the raid boss in time so you just lose the trade. Even killing someone with it doesna't feel good. it wasn't skillful, it wasn't "I just outplayed that guy," its "I just ran at him and won the trade cause he didn't have mystical mail." The item entirely swings matchups, making it the ITEM that wins the game and not the PLAYER. If I see the enemys building a Mystical Mail, I get sad. Because if I don't build the Mystical Mail I am probably going to lose the lane, and if I do it turns into a bruiser slap fight that makes me slowly fall asleep.

Remove Mystical Mail. Its just not fun.

Recently during the chronos community skin contest, a Genderbent theme was available too, I think this could be a really refreshing and welcome addition to the skin collection of smite

Please make this a thing! because the only thing close to a genderbent skin right now is Opera Queen Bacchus and its Damm awesome!

Lately my games in ranked just seem to be dipping in quality and it makes it very frustrating to even play for. Between having ranging queue times of anywhere from 30 seconds to potentially ten minutes and having people several levels below my division get into my games after having it gets really fatiguing and quite frankly unrewarding to play.

My suggestion for giving more incentive to play Ranked would be to reduce the amount of Worshiper's from other game modes or eliminate them entirely. I feel as if having full exp/worshiper rewards for game-modes that are supposed to be considered "off-game" modes and that aren't supposed to be the highlight of the game as well as what the game is balanced around shouldn't give the same rewards. People should feel like there's a reason to play the main game mode over others and it in turn would probably increase the amount of people that play Conquest and Ranked Conquest.

Any other suggestions people can come up with?

For example on this picture here. Neiths NURSE DIAGNOSIS UNRAVEL ability does not have an AOE field , but has on the other skins. Album for proof

Short and neat, please fix Neith.

EDIT: I've never understood how this subreddit works when it comes to downvotes and upvotes. Fixed wording.

MMOBomb Vulcan!!!!!!!!!!

What do you say HiRez? Please? :)