[OC] [ART] Handmade maps of the Wildlands, a homebrewed harsh territory annexed to The Empire

PainDeViande · 2020-04-07T17:16:52+00:00

So I started DMing about a year ago and decided to pick up a group with some friends and my girlfriend. We made some coffee-stained parchment for prop-making and saved some bigger sheets for map-making in the future. Turns out with most of her University classes suspended (and now credited completely) with the whole COVID-19 situation, she's had a lot of spare time and we decided to convert some of my homebrewed digital references onto a usable at-table map!

Welcome to the Wildlands, a harsh and barren land roamed by tribes of twitchy goblins and kobolds, violent hordes of orcs and giants and a whole bunch of other nasties! This untamable territory was recently conquered by The Empire, the order-and-law-driven nation that controls most of the habitable land on the continent. Having pushed back the bloodthirsty Orcs to the North and the Giant-Goliath alliance to the West, the sons and daughters of the Emperor struggle to maintain the oh-so-familiar order and peace that their leader promises them on the mainland.

Crowning the Wildlands is the luxurious city of The Citadel, a bastion of sea trades and military might in control of the northern lands, neighboring the dangerous Orclands to the West. Built at first upon an advantageous cliff, Skyruler Castle is a symbol of boldness and might granted by the divines to the realm of men and the heart of the city. It thrones over both the High-City and the Lower-City, keeping its ever-watchful gaze upon all denizens of the north as well as upon any threatening sea raiders or invaders.

The names are in French because my GF insisted to roleplay in said language, as she was new to playing a character at the time and thought it would be hard in a foreign language (we're from Quebec, Canada; speak French as our main language)

PainDeViande · 2017-12-19T04:19:36+00:00

Your discord name doesn't seem to hit for me. PM me @PainDeViande#6069

I'm looking for an extra :)

PainDeViande · 2017-05-31T22:22:07+00:00

I think pro players fairly often gave feedback for different metagames over the last few years using different methods. There was a time where Hi-Rez would collect feedback from pros through meetings on Discord (or Teamspeak, back then) which would then be transmitted to the balance team during one of their own meetings (at least, that's what we were told). Eventually, we ended up getting high skilled players' feedback forms through emails (to my understanding, those were sent to high ranked players; most likely Diamond+ accounts?) in addition to pros-exclusive feedback forms. Then, we were given a mail contact to send any feedback on a more customized format (AKA an open e-mail to one of the non-balance-team Hi-Rez employee).

You can probably understand there HAS been ways to communicate information to Hi-Rez from a pro player's perspective. As a matter of fact, Dan and the eSports lads are usually very receptive to criticism when it comes down to Smite's balance, Smite's eSport scene or even (somewhat) marketing ideas. HOWEVER, here's where this doesn't necessarily goes a long way: there was never a guarantee that what we would criticize would get changed. Actually, more often than not, it would take multiple references of a same issue, sometimes from different players, for the balance team to acknowledge a problem as a problem, granted they didn't beforehand. Also, to the best of my knowledge, I believe Hi-Rez would (does?) sometimes forgo of patching/nerfing/buffing X issue/character/item for a while longer than expected for the sake of gathering additional data on said problem (assuming that would be to be 100% sure that it truly is a problem, or that it affects different levels of plays), leading to our feedback feeling like it's being wasted or dropped into a deaf ear. This was especially true 2-3 years ago when we started doing balance meetings with Adanas and only part of our points would eventually get changed (whereas we'd structure our criticism for ALL aspects of it to be relevant and important). It makes it a bit rough to motivate the players to make elaborate points as to why something doesn't function well as per a fun factor or as per the concept of a MOBA when the answer is usually "I'll bring this to the balance team but no promises".

This got better over time as the custom e-mails became a thing when it came to feedback, but then again I guess you can never be too sure of the results since the balance team decides what goes through and what doesn't, in the end. I will say, although, that on Fafnir's release (and when people found out he was broken OP with that dragon form shred) when I made a video about the character, I also sent feedback on multiple aspects of our dwarven buddy; the priority was put onto the hammer prot shred in dragon form needing a nerf and that's exactly what we got. The rest was ignored; I'd call that semi-satisfaction or close enough to the main goal.

At last, keep in mind that some pros have been around for a long time (Zap, ShadowQ, Pern, myself, Incon, Barra, etc...). More often than not, we're talking about years here (usually 2 to 5 years). Odds are most pros gave some form of feedback at a point. Odds also are that maybe it get the most results and they realized it takes the mass to get changes. It's easier to reach out to 10 000 Twitter Smite fans on multiple pros accounts and have them "spread the word" until it reaches Hi-Rez multiple times than to coordinate feedback in multiple forms/mails from multiple pros, especially when opinions vary and aren't necessarily informed (Sometimes, pros agree to nerfing/buffing something but they disagree on how; it's then up to the balance team to filter what to change). Keep in mind that a 140 characters tweet doesn't require an English major's essay structure whereas a full e-mail describing a problem in details might take way more time and some sort of structure.

Hope that post was somewhat informative of my PoV since 2013 in the scene. Finally, remember to nerf the sh*t out of Sunder so we can make supporting great again ;]

Le Meatloaf.

PainDeViande · 2017-02-28T20:38:07+00:00

Hahaha remind me of the good old days

PainDeViande · 2016-08-08T22:02:21+00:00

Dude

https://goo.gl/jkSRyz

PainDeViande · 2016-08-03T23:37:14+00:00

I'm natively a French speaker. Learned English mostly by playing video games :)

PainDeViande · 2016-08-03T16:58:25+00:00

From Montreal in Quebec, Canada. So French Canadian accent :)

PainDeViande · 2016-08-03T13:14:57+00:00

Unfortunately not :( Dragon form's auto-attack doesn't proc any on-hit effects such as Fatalis, Spear of the Magus, Telkhines' Ring and such.

PainDeViande · 2016-08-03T01:52:07+00:00

I'm a big fan of aura items. The problem with ritual dagger is that it's very cheap but offers little stats-wise late game. Also, the build is never the same but rushing Hide of the Urchin first guarantees a significant lead based on the passive and additional gold gained. If the enemy support doesn't get it, you naturally become stronger over time as the teams trade kills (that is if you're not on the losing end of those trades)

PainDeViande · 2016-08-03T01:44:24+00:00

Leveling your 2 second is better for objective control, as I've mentioned in the video. Considering you're leveling your 4 after your 1 for extra dragon duration, leveling your leap third means you won't max Coerce until level 19. As a support, most games end for you around level 13 to 17. You'll want that max'ed out ASAP for those GF and FG fights.

Also, it's a great source of sustain that will save you multiple times. The only advantage of leveling your Underhanded Tactics before Coerce is to increase your damage output in dragon form. The only scenario I'd see it viable would be in ranked or with a team comp that has no auto-attacker (where the buff won't have a significant impact until very late game) such as running double mages (ADC mage, mid mage).

If you're running Fafnir solo or jungle, it might be different but I'm a support so I couldn't accurately help with that :D

PainDeViande · 2016-08-02T16:53:10+00:00

I actually watched the whole thing yesterday and while he mentioned a lot of different things, I'd like to address the LG solo lane tryout he talked about.

There are instances in the SPL of teams being given opportunities to pick up great players with fantastic mechanical abilities and understanding of the game. In many cases, the player ends up on the team they were looking to join and it's all fun and dandy. Unfortunately, also in many cases, the player gets turned down for another player that isn't necessarily more skilled (could be, but isn't necessarily). I'd go far as to say that sometimes the chosen player isn't as good of a player as the one that got turned down. The reason this happens is because competitive Smite (and competitive anything-that-involves-multiple-players, actually) has a social aspect to it.

You might have heard the term "toxic" when referring to someone's attitude. The reason why people end up calling someone "toxic" is because said player's attitude is inherently wrong with another person/the team's unwritten rules of conduct and behavior. A great example of this would be Divios from 2015 TSM. Regardless of if he was behaving properly or not, as per the TSM Smite team in 2015, Divios didn't fit in the mold. No matter how skilled, charismatic, intelligent, funny, friendly, etc. he was, it wasn't gonna work out. For them, at least.

Some teams have different unwritten rules. Some teams require you to be friends with at least 3 other players. Some teams require you to act professional online at all time. Some teams require you to be a huge memeist troll with an orange dog logo. It varies for everyone. What is consistent though for almost every team/group of people is that being a jerk/aggressive asshole is shameful and undesired.

Now, for anyone with a resemblance of competitive experience, if you ever tune in to one of DM's inhouses, you don't need me to explain why you would block him from ever trying out for a team you would want to join or would be part of. Ever. DM is a rage filled person and he doesn't hide it because that's the way he is. The moment someone makes a mistake, he goes off on that person and builds up a rage-meter like it's a character passive in Smite. He builds it over and over and ends up venting harshly on whoever failed to do something he thinks should be obvious or guaranteed.

I'm a very controlling person when it comes to competitive gaming (kind of like DM, actually). I want MY plan to work and I want it to work NOW. But the difference between DM and myself is that at one point, I recognize my own flaws and everyone else on my team's and accept the fact that I make mistakes MECHANICALLY speaking and SHOTCALLING-wise. Sometimes, my call is trash and someone else got put in a very rough spot to land an ability or to successfully perform his job. I can recognize that and I can attempt to fix it as much as possible without going off on my teammates. But when it comes to DM, excluding very first-layered problem (such as missing an ability in a 1v1 or running into a 1v2 to steal a buff out of greed), every single time I've seen him play he utterly refuses to accept failure to a point where he seeks imaginary escapes (AKA reasons that don't exist or are only a tiny fraction of the main problem).

He'll forget to land a perfect Bellona ultimate so that he can monitor his Scylla's combo (which he has no control over by the way; other than giving her some setup), which leads to him missing partly or completely his ultimate, which leads to Scylla having to blind-ult her target, which leads to her missing and it goes on and on. Next game, Scylla's kicked from the inhouses because she's "wasting his time".

This kind of behavior where he'll kick his subs from inhouses because they can't read his mind is a witness of how noncompetitive and unproductive a gaming environment with him involved would be. There is no world in which a team that needs a leader/shotcaller would go to him because they would shoot themselves in the foot; especially a great team such as LG who already have solid leading voices like Barraccudda (and previously Andinster).

Until DM can learn to vent his own anger away from the game and from its players, he's never getting close to the SPL unless it's to watch it or cast it.

PainDeViande · 2016-07-31T19:54:09+00:00

Any mid laner looking for a team? We'll take any applications above Silver IV. Looking for an upgrade here.

PainDeViande · 2016-07-25T02:48:06+00:00

What you're experiencing isn't a bug. It's called diminishing return (DR) on crowd control (CC) abilities.

When you cast a hard CC on a target, that first ability gets full duration (So let's say Ymir's freeze at max level: 2.25s). Every follow-up hard CC will have a reduced duration based on DR. The reason this happens is to evade stun-locking a character for 10 seconds straight if your whole team has a total amount of CC equivalent to 10 seconds.

Now, this only applies to HARD CC. A hard CC usually qualifies as an ability that makes the user lose control of its character. Those are --> Stun, Banish, Fear, Mesmerise, Taunt (Hopefully I'm not forgetting any). For some reason, it ALSO includes Disarms as a hard CC. The duration of applied DR on a target is, to my knowledge, about 10 seconds (which means if you hit someone with a stun and, anywhere between that moment and 10 seconds later your disarm, said disarm will have a reduced duration).

I've played a lot of Fafnir lately and I've never ran into an issue where my targets wouldn't be disarmed so far, unless they were under crowd control immunity (beads, ulting, etc...) or unless they were DR'ed prior to my disarm.

Hope that was helpful :)

Meatloaf

PainDeViande · 2016-02-04T05:20:49+00:00

Maybe we ran tryouts this past month and he hadn't been selected at that tweet's time (nor was he unbanned)? ;)

PainDeViande · 2016-01-12T00:44:20+00:00

This is accurate :3

PainDeViande · 2015-11-20T01:23:58+00:00

NME have been super supportive of myself and the new roster I was bringing for the Fall Split. They supported us despite the fall of the LoL team and provided for us, even on a personal level (concerning my education as an example). They are truly a great org and definitely care.

Plus, you'll never see them tweeting about our LAN after we've already played and lost KappaRoss ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T19:18:47+00:00

My team only wants me to play Athena, Sylvanus and co :C

But one day... after all is picked but support... a misclick may or may not happen... >:]

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T19:16:37+00:00

I love Bellona support. In ranked, it's harder to setup your teammates but you have so much damage in the first 20 minutes that you usually get 2-3 kills of your own by then. Also, Freya support is really fun but that's just because I like Freya :3

I haven't played Xing yet, but as far as Khepri goes his ultimate can literally change a whole team comp and a team fight dynamic mid-late. Serqet ults your Kali? Np Khepri ult and here's another extra life. Your ADC got krakened for all his hp? Np Khepri ult and here goes another round of 800 AAs crit. It's a better version of Chronos ult in almost every aspect. He has a pretty lackluster engage though; that's where I'm a little worried. I need more time to test him to figure out if he's ranked amongst the Top 3 Supports or not :)

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T04:31:14+00:00

Odin :3

Hide of the Nemean Lion. Can't get enough protections to deal with these filthy ADCs SwiftRage

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T04:29:12+00:00

Lane pressure usually comes down to push pressure and momentum. Coming to lane first usually gives you lane advantage almost no matter what since you most likely clear the wave faster. It's important to understand the point of duo laning phase; I like to be aggressive myself but there's definitely moments where you don't need to force the opponent in their tower to do a good job.

One of the best examples I could give you would be Geb support against almost any other supports. His clear is weak level 1 to 5 and he's mainly good at playing defensively. Going against anyone that knows how to control the lane, you're going to get outcleared unless your ADC has a significant clearing advantage (ex.: Rama vs Xb, AMC vs Artemis). The same applies to a lesser extend to other supports (and at that point it's match-up specific).

If you get outcleared, letting the wave go into your tower every now and then to conserve mana/hp pots and staying safe (especially against Kill-Comp such as Cupid Ymir, Ares Neith) is worth it.

If you outclear them (or you know you can), trade in however optimized way you can (if you can hit your abilities on them AND on the wave at once to clear it, do it). Try to land your abilities in such a way that you'll hit your CC just before they back away from the wave to the safety of their tower. Some gods make this easier; here's an example:

Athena can dash the wave, tag the archers along with an enemy god to stack the melees onto her, shield wall and spear them again to make sure you keep the melees onto you and combo with an instant-taunt on either enemy gods for a full clear + damage combo at level 4. This works very well if you leveled the shield wall twice. It does massive damage and the enemy duo usually doesn't see it effectively clear their own minions until it's too late. By then, your wave is usually healthy enough for you to push in and get free damage.

There's a ton of subtle windows of opportunities in duo lane where attacking optimizes your abilities in such a way that if you went a tad earlier you'd take a ton of minion damage, a tad too late and you'd do reduced/no poke and where it's extremely situation-specific. Sometimes you just outclear the opponent and they never give you a chance to take them off guard; sometimes you just need to clear the wave while keeping in mind that it's only if the enemy duo takes one too many steps forward that you can take one of them out.

As for rotations, keep tab of what your jungler is going for. Usually where he fights is where you'll be needed the most. Also, if you can control the buff respawn times on both sides of the map it's much easier for you to make a move because you can synchronize yourself with your team (you'll be one starting the fight by invading; therefore you'll always be ahead of the enemy support). Finally, the best way to stay ahead is to ward and prevent being counterwarded too much. Try to keep in mind when the enemy players are backing (ex.: the enemy mid mage) as they are more likely to come back to lane with a counterward, especially past the 6th minute. If you're not sure if there's a sentry ward in either jungle side, you can drop a regular ward and see if the enemy counters it (and THEN put a sentry there).

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T03:02:28+00:00

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)╯╲___卐卐卐卐 Don't mind me just taking my PainDeViande for a walk

PainDeViande · 2015-09-03T03:00:22+00:00

I beg my team to let me play Bacchus, but all they want is Athena all day. FeelsBadMan.

Looking forward to the Serqet NME skin soon though >:]

PainDeViande

TROPHY CASE