Developer Update - Odin

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Developer Update - Odin

By: TitanAjax

Season 7 of SMITE will introduce many exciting changes to the game, and many players would say god changes are among the most anticipated. This year is no different with Odin, the Allfather, the leader of the Norse Pantheon, receiving an ability update. Runic magic will be flowing when Odin sets foot on the battleground with his new ability!

Player response has been positive to our recent reworks that follow our recent God rework methodology. These have been shared before in other posts, but are provided here for reference:

Popularity is significantly low (bottom 10 gods or significantly dropped below previous data for the god).
Balance problems exist (very high win-rate, very low win-rate, extreme difference between skill levels, extreme difference between community perception and actual stats).
Community discussions and requests are asking for a change to occur with significant frequency or magnitude (big reddit posts, constant Twitter discussions in multiple circles).
Kit exhibits clear ways to improve clarity, theming, or frustration issues.

Once we identify a god meets these criteria, we will begin designing the reworked abilities. We keep the following constraints in mind:

We have no plans to rework a god’s complete kit in the foreseeable future. Only certain abilities will be addressed in a rework. Usually around two abilities are adjusted.
Try our absolute best to preserve a god’s core play style. This refers to the kit as a whole, and less to specific abilities.
Try not to remove core unique features from the kit that are only present in the game on this god. Always try to keep their unique features, usually by preserving specific abilities.
Be specific about our goals for gameplay and thematic improvements, and focus rework design toward those goals.

DOES ODIN MEET THE CRITERIA?

He does! Here’s some data looking at each criteria, one-by-one.

Popularity

Currently, Odin’s popularity ranks are not as low as usual rework targets. However, when we look at specific modes we can see his issues.

34th most popular god in Arena, Clash, Joust, Siege
102nd most popular god in Conquest
70th most popular god in Ranked Conquest
Odin is one of the least popular gods in the game when it comes to Conquest, which is definitely alarming.
His popularity has also dropped quite a bit over the last 2 years. He had a low point in 2014 and 2015, and peak post-launch popularity in 2016. These numbers have dropped since then back to the 2014/2015 record lows.

Balance Problems

Odin’s balance problems stem completely from perception vs. reality issues, which result directly from his design.
Currently in the Heimdallr Update Odin’s win-rates are quite high:

4th most winning God in Arena, Clash, Joust, Siege
5th most winning God in Conquest
12th most winning God in Ranked Conquest

One of the strongest gods in the game statistically is being picked very little, and rated extremely low in community tier lists. This qualifies him for rework; similar criteria was used to assess Nike.

Community Discussion

This is one of the most important criteria for us, and the playerbase’s disappointment with Odin has been communicated nonstop.

With his low pick rate, constant posts about his lackluster design, and repeatedly low placement on community tier lists, it’s quite clear that the community believes he could be so much more.

Clear Paths to Improve

Odin lacks a lot of the themes associated with him in mythology.
Many of SMITE’s gods divert intentionally from mythology for certain aspects, and oftentimes this is successful for us. Scylla is one of SMITE’s most popular gods of all time even though she looks like nothing her historical description.

Odin was not an easy case to pass this criteria, but we did see room for improvement. The difficulty comes mostly from dealing with the constraints, which we will discuss next.

This god needed to use his spear and runic magic in ways more accurate to his lore, and once we identified a good way to do this in his rework this criteria was passed.

ODIN'S HISTORY

This next chart shows Odin’s entire history, across all game modes and skill levels. Data starts at the end of 2012! This is a good way to visualize how the god has changed over the years. These stats support the evaluations above.

BLUE line is his match count shown as a percentage of total matches

This makes it immune to changes in total player count
It’s expected for gods to gradually drop down as more new gods are introduced
Notice how this has dropped lately

ORANGE is win-rate

This is shown without any adjustments for player skill or population shifts
His win-rate gradually rose over time, but has dipped back down over the past 2 years
Odin’s win-rate is not really part of his problem, but this is still interesting to observe.

GREEN is ban-rate

This is also shown as a percentage of total bans
Notice how this has dropped lately

SMITE – Odin History Graph Link

WHAT ARE THE CONSTRAINTS/GOALS FOR ODIN’S REWORK?

Target the Points of Rework

In our evaluation of Odin we saw that his ability 3 and 4 would be the best path forward. This will be explained using the next constraints.

Preserve Core playstyle

Odin is known for his aggressive warrior gameplay highlighted by burst damage and his ultimate, and these elements we decided to keep.
His bird-bomb combo is simple yet satisfying, and integral to Odin’s playstyle, so neither of these abilities will be undergoing any changes.
Odin’s Ultimate ability to cage in enemies is extremely iconic to him, and is also being preserved. However, quite a lot of design changes are being made to it
His ability 3, Gungnir’s Might, will receive the biggest rework.

Preserve Core Features

In Odin’s case this overlapped heavily with his core playstyle. Bird-Bomb combo and his Ultimate are his core features. This gives us even more confidence in keeping them. Not only do they define his core playstyle, they are also his unique features.

Have Clear Goals

Preserve his core play style of an aggressive, high damage warrior with an Ultimate that blocks player movement.
Improve his perception vs reality issues, and get his balance point to more closely match player evaluation.
Give him more meaningful choices in a fight, specifically through his ability 3 rework.
Make his Ultimate have more varying effects. Currently this Ultimate feels like an execute or basic attack, and never anything in between.
Add more mythology to his kit through runic magic and the use of his spear.

THE REWORK

With all of our evaluation, stats, constraints, and goals clearly defined we can now describe the changes to Odin’s kit. Here are Odin’s full kit patch notes summarized:

Passive - Path to Valhalla

Unchanged design
May or may not have minor balance tweaks as we fine tune the new kit

Ability 1 - Lunge

Unchanged design
May or may not have minor balance tweaks as we fine tune the new kit

Ability 2 - Raven Shout

Unchanged design
May or may not have minor balance tweaks as we fine tune the new kit

Ability 3 - Gungnir's Might

Complete rework
Point Blank Circle + Line Targeter
When Odin fires this ability he raises his spear to a throwing position and begins channeling. As he channels, he will progress through 3 different runes, pulsing out damage to enemies around him and slowing them each time he changes runes. Refiring the ability will cause Odin to throw his spear, and it will gain bonus effects based on the rune he was channeling at the time.
Rune 1 – Odin pulses out an Attack Speed buff to himself and nearby allies, Gungnir deals damage.
Rune 2 – Gungnir will become a homing projectile, guaranteed to hit the target Odin was aiming at, and will damage and slow them.
Rune 3 – Gungnir will Stun an enemy god it hits.

Ability 4 - Ring of Spears

Partial Rework
This ability still summons a Ring of Spears that blocks enemies in or out, but many rules have been changed
The ring is now a clear octagon with eight individual walls
These walls can be broken individually by enemies who attack them
Enemy gods who leave the area over or through an unbroken wall (phantom, leaps) will be damaged by Gungnir itself flying from the ring to hit enemies directly as they leave the area.

EXPECTED EFFECTS

The Ability 3 rework is designed to check a lot of the boxes for what players want from Odin. It brings his mythology to life, gives him an ability with more depth, and allows him to apply himself in a wider range of situations. The ability can buff his basic attacks for a longer duration advantage, or more pressure in the solo lane 1 on 1s. The homing and slow can be used to secure kills. Finally, the stun can be used to set up for Odin or his team to get a kill.

This ability brings a new twist on the charge-up ability archetype. A charge-up that provides different effects instead of just scaling effects is unlike any other ability, and will add an interesting Dynamic to Odin’s Kit.

The changes to Odin’s Ultimate are designed to decrease variance, and honestly these changes will nerf him in a variety of scenarios. As seen by his win-rates Odin is actually overperforming in most ways except possibly high MMR Conquest. The main problem we are looking to solve is how absolutely binary the effect of this ability is.

If enemies cannot escape it and Odin has any DPS help, they are almost surely dead. If enemies can escape it, or Odin is alone, the Ultimate does next to nothing. This update will not be adding ways for Odin to use this ability for more solo kills, but it will smooth out the effects of the other situations. The ability to break sections will have the biggest impact on Odin’s performance, nerfing him in most team-fight scenarios, especially Arena and late-game Conquest. This is effect is offset by his buffs to ability 3 and another new effect on Ring of Spears: escaped Gods take damage. Odin’s Ult could be easily negated by certain abilities or the Phantom Veil Relic, but now there will be an additional cost to using those strategies against Odin.

All together these changes should result in a god that feels more consistently impactful, but steals less wins off a single play. His win-rate is already strong so it most likely will go down when averaged into broader categories. However, if Odin presents more ways for players to flex their skills at higher levels, and has a more consistent effect on a teamfight, these changes should work nicely together to create a better feeling Odin for players on his team or the enemy team.

Be sure to tune in to the Season 7 Update Show January 8 at 3pm ET to see The Allfather in action! We’ll see you on the Battleground!

Source: https://web2.hirez.com/smite-media//wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Odin.jpg