To whom it may concern,
I was not quite sure what platform to use so that I could try and give some feedback/ideas for Arena in SMITE so i opted to send this email.
I have been playing SMITE since season 5 and really enjoy the Arena mode. I have played some Joust and a little bit of Duel and Conquest but Arena has always been the best fit for me with time constraints and other considerations.
I will jump right into the nuts and bolts of what I think would be a great way to revitalize some of your SMITE content. There is a tag given to players who are arena mains and i will even jokingly refer to myself with this tag at times. It is 'arena trash'. I, and a lot of other players, understand that the focus on the SMITE staff is going to be to push conquest and the other major team modes, but I feel like there is definitely some room to make Arena more relevant and to give Arena players the chance to show they have some pretty great players, even if they choose not to necessarily partake in the other game modes that SMITE offers.
There's sort of a casual level of toxicity towards players that focus on playing arena at times just from being arena mains. There are plenty of players that will join arena matches and treat them as a joke, or take it as no big deal when they are performing poorly(purposely or just by having a bad game)and typically respond with "it's just arena". For myself, I don't necessarily know how much time i have to play at any given time due to family and other considerations, and take my playtime seriously and play to win. Sometimes I have bad games and it is from poor choices that i made in my match. Other times I find myself having bad games trying to make up for the lack of output from other players that are playing Arena but are seemingly apathetic to the results or to the concept of working within the team to try and get a win.
I feel like there is a niche within SMITE that could be filled with this delimma(probably not a problem to you in the studios but it is a problem to players and contributes to toxicity within the game between players). There is ranked Conquest, Joust and Duel. Looking at these modes, Duel is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Arena with a 1 vs 1 match type. I feel like we need a mode where we can have full teammode fights in a ranked format. Arena, i think, from what i see every day getting matches with no problem would probably have little to no issues supporting a ranked format from a player standpoint. I would not know what would go into it from the development side, but I feel like injecting new elements other than just new skins, gem/chest sales, and rebalance changes(while all of these are nice aspects of SMITE) could get more people interested in the game.
A lot of people may not necessarily have the ability to focus on matches for the 25-30+ minutes that matches in Conquest/Joust can take at times. Especially since there is no ability to pause and take care of business and come back since it is in real time. In my experience it is pretty rare to have an arena match that lasts over 20 minutes. Going through my most recent match history in my SMITE profile I don't even have 1 Arena match over 20 minutes long. I feel like ranked matches in Arena would be very viable just because it is much easier to commit to a smaller block of time and then also to take it much more seriously if players have the ability to advance their rank and showcase their proficiency in Arena mode. This would also allow players that don't take Arena seriously and may only be playing because they want a break from the other modes or the queues are too high.
This could also be a way to bring members of the SMITE community together who only play Conquest/Joust competitively with Arena players. If ranked Conquest players start doing ranked Arena and are getting bested by Arena mains then it could motivate them to explore Arena/other modes they never really considered before. By the same token, ranked Arena mains might be more motivated to do the same if ranked players from other modes took part in ranked Arena matches and had success.
I feel like ranked Arena would be a win/win for the SMITE community and would encourage continued growth in the game and give SMITE developers another tool to keep the game relevant and give them new tweaks to implement to keep revenue streams diversified enough to keep the player base engaged, interested and spending gaming dollars in SMITE.
I have no idea if anyone will even bother reading this or if it will go to the trash bin, but thank you for your time.
The whole reason for it was that turtling (this also caused the joust reworks) was the most effective way to win the game. Apparently people did not fight and tried to win on getting that small ticket advantage during the early game. It will become the straight opposite of what the "clown" fiesta casual arena.
As you can imagine playing a PvE game is boring for a lot of people, therefore it will gain a low player base once the turtling meta becomes a thing again.
The whole reason for it was that turtling (this also caused the joust reworks) was the most effective way to win the game. Apparently people did not fight and tried to win on getting that small ticket advantage during the early game. It will become the straight opposite of what the "clown" fiesta casual arena.
As you can imagine playing a PvE game is boring for a lot of people, therefore it will gain a low player base once the turtling meta becomes a thing again.
that is wierd because in almost any games i have played, turtling results in losing. I have had teams up by 100 or more and turtled and we ended up losing
During the turtling they will only go and delete minion waves and since the other team will have to do the same ability wise it will be the same (as any mage and most hunters can one-shot the wave after a while).
If you're turtling correctly they will avoid fighting, so just back up towards their fouuntain jumping over the wall if needed (and clearing through the wall), causing the other team to either move in further (away from their safety) so taking the risk.
on top of that, the engaging team will need to focus their abilities on engaging and peeling while the defending team only needs to focus on peeling. it pretty much takes someone standing majorly out of position (aka them not being able to react in any way shape or form) for the defending team to lose the advantage or a really surprise engage, which is hard in arena.
another reason is just that in a ranked scenario teams will be optimized for that stuff while in casuals it often isn't
Wasn't expecting any response, but i figured i'd just get it out there anyways.
I know, but it let me get rid of that whole thought process and let it go so that some other random idea could plague me for the foreseable future...
Oh, NOW you tell me!
Really? I did not know that...:D
Sure, Arena is far from balanced, but a Ranked version would provide some balance with a pick/ban phase. They could even consider outright banning very specific gods, if those gods are understood to be extremely OP in that mode.
Still think Siege could be straight up removed.
Also, I'm not advocating ranked Arena, but I appreciate silent sharing his thoughts.
Sure, Arena is far from balanced, but a Ranked version would provide some balance with a pick/ban phase. They could even consider outright banning very specific gods, if those gods are understood to be extremely OP in that mode.
Still think Siege could be straight up removed.
Also, I'm not advocating ranked Arena, but I appreciate silent sharing his thoughts.
Thanks for your thoughts on it. It would be nice to have more balance there and also with the bans, if everyone got a single round ban pick. that is 10 characters every match that couldn't be used and just use the same timer length as for the other modes and it wouldn't add that much time before getting into the match.
Arena is typically a place for all players to go to play a quick game with little stress in actually having to perform well. The mode is shorter so it's not like losing an elongated, 45-60 min Conquest match.
If you're going to do ranked, you probably want to be able to ban, right? Otherwise you're likely to get very similar comps over and over and over due to some gods being OP in that mode. Remember, the game is balanced for Conquest, not Arena, so you're automatically bound to have some major complaints.
So you're taking a mode that people like Silent go to because potential time constraints, and automatically adding more time due to the picks/bans phase. Sure, counter-argument is that it's the players' choices, and if they're willing and able to dedicate a few more minutes, more power to them. At least there's always an end point to an Arena match, whereas a Conquest match can go on indefinitely.
But just imagine the influx of serious ranked Arena player feedback/complaints/demands for better balancing for that mode. We know how MOBA players behave. LOL.
Arena is typically a place for all players to go to play a quick game with little stress in actually having to perform well. The mode is shorter so it's not like losing an elongated, 45-60 min Conquest match.
If you're going to do ranked, you probably want to be able to ban, right? Otherwise you're likely to get very similar comps over and over and over due to some gods being OP in that mode. Remember, the game is balanced for Conquest, not Arena, so you're automatically bound to have some major complaints.
So you're taking a mode that people like Silent go to because potential time constraints, and automatically adding more time due to the picks/bans phase. Sure, counter-argument is that it's the players' choices, and if they're willing and able to dedicate a few more minutes, more power to them. At least there's always an end point to an Arena match, whereas a Conquest match can go on indefinitely.
But just imagine the influx of serious ranked Arena player feedback/complaints/demands for better balancing for that mode. We know how MOBA players behave. LOL.
I meant to put some of what i put in my response to your post above but tired and forgot to, but i don't really think that it would add much time, again, with 5 players on each side..just give each player one ban pick and bam, that's it. one thing that hi-rez could automatically just say from the start is that in any mode some gods are better suited than others and/or you have to equip/play differently than other modes and there would not be balancing support for just arena. There are characters that shine in arena much more than in some of the other modes and vice/versa. that is a balance of sorts already. Just because you have a favorite god or gods that players will have that they want to be great in arena, doesn't mean that they would get their wish. Players would have to decide to stick with characters they love while having to deal with their limitations in arena or suck it up and try other options there.
I think at this stage it could potentially go pretty well. Maybe once or twice a month i will get an arena queue reset on me for not being able to find enough players. The bigger problem there is that probably 3-4 times as much I will have someone not make a selection(though i doubt that will continue to be as much of a problem with the stiffer and progressive ban penalties for that)
exactly..