Of course, I'll be avoiding obsessing over it to the same extent. I think I'll be banning myself from the smite Reddit (spent WAY too much time there) and still limiting my activity on smitefire and other such sites. I also will try to limit extended play times, I may try capping myself at 2-3 consecutive games.
Still, there are a few things I'm interested in pursuing in regards to Smite right now. My guides have been neglected for quite some time, and that's in part because maintaining them is quite frankly a pain in the rear end. Making a release guide is fun, you theory craft good release builds, get hype for the new god, come up with unique strategies, etc. Updating a release guide 5 months later is NOT fun. Strategies and builds have become efficient machinelike cogs in the smite meta, anything divergent from those strategies is "wrong" or at the very least "inefficient" essentially forcing you to regurgitate the most relevant info from reliable sources, usually the pro scene.
After a brief discussion with GameGeekFan about what smitefire does best, I really thought about what my guides are intended to do. While I like buildcrafting, it's simply impossible to do so in a timely manner for 11 guides, hence I'm thinking of changing my guides dramatically in a couple areas.
- Removing the build sections. Instead of telling viewers what items they should build, I'm thinking of instead telling them what attributes/build paths can work for each God and how to utilize them. Eg: for
Chang'e I could describe what works best with her/ what's essential. Generally she wants movement speed, CDR, stacking penetration, and a mix of power, health and defense. Alternatively, you can go one shot Chang'e and build straight power, which lends itself to a very different playstyle. This is of course a simplified version of what would be a detailed explanation, but you get the gist. - Removing meta specific details. I don't want to have to update my guide every time the solo lane meta shifts. If you want a solo laning guide, then I understand, but I want to write GOD GUIDES, i.e: how to play that God, not how to play the position they're in in the current meta.
- For meta relevant stuff I would likely just link my guides to relevant sites like smitelite and smitejunkies to help aid the advice given in my guides.
Finally the last thing on my agenda is the possibility of streaming some smite. The past week and a half I began messing around with twitch and decided that streaming is actually kind of fun. I've put up some melee netplay and a distance stream so far, but obviously smite would be an awesome game to stream on any channel. I've done pretty much nothing to promote my stream so it's basically unknown, but I'm having fun just making content right now and figuring out how everything works. If you're interested in it, my channel is TheZilb@twitch.
So... Yeah! That's what's up. Don't be having too many fights behind my back while I'm still hiatusing (looking at you
Skadi thread).~Z
**Bonus: I just discovered that I apparently have a jewelry/accessory line and an emo blogspot page, who knew? (And no, I did not create either of these :P )
Zilby either use pop-out chat (you can close stream) or pause the stream itself
Assuming the pop-out chat stays if you close the window that would work.
So, your guide will not be seen as a "reference guide". The guide we read first, and then look for other guides for build examples.
But the thing is, viewers will look at the build first and then, maybe, will read the rest.
So, even if you say it in the text, the comments will mostly be on the item builds anyway.
If we search for a god guide, by default, the old guides are not included.
Since you do need to update your guide often, it will eventually become an old guide.
An old guide that is still relevant of course, but still an old guide.
Therefore, new players won't probably see it, and it's sad.
As for the rest of your points, those seemed more or less like good suggestions, but I don't think I'd need any of them implemented for this to work out :)
then I think partly twitchchat is broken for you on the programs (you should show some interactions with chat when possible (like between matches)
I believe you can set up layouts in OBS which you can switch easily by pressing some buttons/hotkeys.
It's not broken I just haven't been interacting with it lol. Are there ways to interact with the chat without actually being on your channel directly? I've tried streaming while having my stream open and it ends up making things really laggy.
Unless that god got a rework of a major nerf that would change his/her playstyle, there should be no reason to revise the guide.
However, this kind of guide is not perfectly fitted for a site like SmiteFire.
SF encouranges to have many guides for the same god, for a better diversity, which is fine.
However, about all the guides would all say the same things, the difference would mainly be in the builds.
So, your guide will not be seen as a "reference guide". The guide we read first, and then look for other guides for build examples.
SF guides have to get a build. Of course you can put one, just put the starting items, or nothing at all.
But the thing is, viewers will look at the build first and then, maybe, will read the rest.
So, even if you say it in the text, the comments will mostly be on the item builds anyway.
SF guides are based on the last update.
If we search for a god guide, by default, the old guides are not included.
Since you do need to update your guide often, it will eventually become an old guide.
An old guide that is still relevant of course, but still an old guide.
Therefore, new players won't probably see it, and it's sad.
However, I think there should be more generic guides than build oriented guides on this site.
This could be fixed in different ways :
- There is guide type in the search (All, Full Guide and Build only).
We could add a new type (ex: Generic), and these guides would either not be affected by the expiration filter, either considered "Fresh" for the whole Season.
- There could be an option to quickly update a guide, without changing anything except it's update date.
That way, a simple click done after every patch (1 click per guide once a month, it's not that bad, even if you have more than 10 guides) would keep the guide updated and always available.
This should also be done for General Strategy guides.
I believe you can set up layouts in OBS which you can switch easily by pressing some buttons/hotkeys.
I don't know if it's a good idea you could generalize your item section and point people to your item guide for why to get an item. The place in the meta (point 2) is okay it's sort of removing your Gameplay area a bit.
I would try to keep general laning strategy and stuff in there, I would just try to avoid meta specific things. Eg: I'm not going to say "go get your mana buff with your jungler after spawn" because in the current meta, that may not be the case. There should still be a lot of content to cover in those sections.
As you already know happy to help with community related twitch stuff. (also I don't know how everything is set up but I had the feeling you have a non-working on screen chat. And also for smash you should probably have a second template for when you are in the other screen)
The chat was working at one point, I saw Stuke post a comment that came up (unless it's become desynced from my twitch since then, it should be working). As for smash, what other screen are you referring to? If you're referring to when I'm messing around with the online stuff to set up matches, usually that's time sensitive stuff so I don't have the opportunity to mess with OBS for a second and change a screen. In-between matches I try to occupy my time with CPU battles to keep things rolling.
As you already know happy to help with community related twitch stuff. (also I don't know how everything is set up but I had the feeling you have a non-working on screen chat. And also for smash you should probably have a second template for when you are in the other screen)
2) I like your idea of making guides. Makes it more simple but also unique in the fact that it leads to a playstyle. Or multiple playstyles.