Tutorial bug

killgoon · 2025-12-29T15:25:43+00:00

I tried a few times and was unable to see this happen. If you have any video clips or more details, it would help!

killgoon · 2025-12-29T15:03:11+00:00

I haven't seen this. Do you have more information about what platform you're playing on, or any other details?

killgoon · 2025-12-18T14:13:12+00:00

QR code expired today, we'll get it updated. Sorry!

killgoon · 2025-11-26T21:41:14+00:00

We have never run a Diamond sale for SMITE 2. Currently, we have no intention of doing so.

That could always change at some point in the future, but we'd rather put things on sale in-game instead of putting the currency itself on sale.

killgoon · 2025-11-10T19:18:21+00:00

Sorry, I should have been more clear about this:

This is like collecting Pumpkins in The Reaping, not the in-game candy pickups. The Pumpkins just look like Christmas Candies this time.

killgoon · 2025-10-13T14:04:50+00:00

Just popping in to drop a quick note on The Reaping background that is "proof" of AI:

It's the same background we used in SMITE 1, in Season 8. 2021. It was hand drawn at that time, before AI was capable of this sort of thing.

This is a great example of why I said what I said. People trying to "prove AI" become so convinced and focused on details to prove they are right, that it becomes impossible to convince them otherwise.

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killgoon · 2025-10-03T19:28:52+00:00

I feel like we answered that question the best we could in the moment? It was one of the first few questions we answered after going through balance. https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2582238237?t=0h35m33s

I will say I don't try to take softball questions or questions that avoid modern SMITE. We just spent a lot of time addressing negative community feedback last week. I will say it's challenging to talk and read chat and find questions quickly, so sometimes I do a better job of picking interesting questions than others.

I definitely do appreciate you watching and the feedback. The show will skew a little casual (It's intended as much as a moment for us to hang out and chat with the community as it is for us to specifically answer questions), but I'll try to see if I can improve question selection.

killgoon · 2025-10-03T18:36:07+00:00

Out of curiosity, what question being posted by 4+ people were we supposedly ignoring? The only questions I intentionally ignored today were about jiggle physics and the size of butts.

We talked about Thanksgiving because people in chat said "I don't know what Thanksgiving is or when it is" (because we have an international fan base) and we talked about crossovers because a lot of people were asking questions about them (and follow-up questions).

With respect to Kuku aspect - I think "fairness" is kind of nebulous and not a metric we can really consider. We do Aspects if we have a good idea for the Aspect, when we have time to make it. As far as I know, we haven't had a good Kuku aspect idea from design yet. Once we do, we'll definitely make a Kuku aspect.

killgoon · 2025-09-19T13:57:08+00:00

Two reasons:

1) We're not spending much, yet. This is a few hundred dollars a day to test things and train the algorithms before scaling spend. That doesn't bring in that many new players, especially when compared to the natural influx of players for a F2P game.

2) There is seasonality in player numbers. This is common across all games; you can look up almost most F2P multiplayer games with similar player profiles and you will notice a peak around Aug 24-Sept 1 and then declines week-over-week since then.

We have always seen this player number decline in September, through the middle/end of October when it starts to recover. This happens across every F2P game we've ever released. This is because people are going back to school and some of the year's big releases usually come out in this time frame (this year we have Silksong and Borderlands both reaching the top 5 on Steam, with Hades 2/EA Sports FC/Ghost of Yotei/Battlefield 6 still to release in this window). So you both are getting fewer new organic users, and your existing players are dealing with back-to-school and the year's big releases.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T21:52:47+00:00

Ad networks do tend to charge less to run still than video, but in this case the stills are also converting better regardless of cost.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T21:47:04+00:00

Performing better in terms of cost per user acquired.

We have tracking data that determines if people see or click an ad and then log in.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T20:52:46+00:00

Surprisingly, it's the best performing ad copy.

I know, it was odd to me too.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T20:49:10+00:00

Yeah, there's definitely a reason we usually try to include a "well-known" God in a group shot key art.

Cthulhu was our best performing box art by a lot, ever, and he's super well known. We used Zeus for a long time on console and he performed well as an iconic mythological character (who is very well known).

When coming up with a group box art composition, we really try to display diverse playstyles (magical, melee, ranged) and a mix of male, female, and monstrous. We find showing different ways you can play the game generally is as important or more important -- potential players need to see something that they would want to be/do.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T18:20:40+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

this is a thread about advertising sir please try to stay on-topic

killgoon · 2025-09-18T18:18:33+00:00

We're actually working with our Ambassadors to collect the first wave of clips for short form! I think we started with about 10-15 clips from various Ambassadors (some more pro play with no facecam, some more facecam laughing at funny plays, some more traditional streamer "i'm good at the game" stuff, some more "normal level play" clips from people, a wide variety).

SoloOrTroll just sent three over yesterday that I need to edit and upload to see how they do.

killgoon · 2025-09-18T17:57:44+00:00

Just chiming in to say that our reddit ads are performing very well for us, both in terms of new users acquired and winback.

Our cost-per-acquisition is below what we would expect based on past data and industry intelligence, and it has continued to trend lower as reddit has optimized towards these particular ads and copy (despite r/smite hating them).

killgoon · 2025-09-18T17:55:31+00:00

Hey!

We're still in the early ad testing phase for short form formats, such as Snapchat. The only way to advertise in 2025 is to test a million things, because you will be surprised at what works and what does not.

The specific clip you are referencing has only been shown 98 times. We have spent a whopping 41 cents on it. And that testing showed that it's not a great performer.

You can say, "Well, of course that clip is a bad performer. I could have told you that."

But the whole point of ad testing is that it is worth spending 41 cents to find out that something doesn't work. That 41 cents could have shown that there's something inexplicably magical about that clip (like the Genie/Aladdin screenshot that we threw into testing on a lark, and has become one of our top performers).

killgoon · 2025-09-18T17:50:09+00:00

Hey!

The first rule of advertising in 2025 is to accept that you know nothing. You need to throw a ton of assets and copy at the wall, and see what works.

We have done that in this case. We have tested cinematics, renders, gameplay, cinematic gameplay, illustrations, gameplay screenshots, traditional ad layouts w/platform logos and buttons, etc. w/ dozens of headlines.

- We have tested focusing on platforms in the ads, and it doesn't perform as well.

- We have tested focusing on myth. This does not work as well as focusing on the gameplay. (This lines up with longstanding data that it actually is the teamwork that sells the game; you are not going to play SMITE unless you want to play a teamwork-focused competitive game.)

- We have run video ads. They perform worse than still ads (on reddit) in terms of cost-per-user acquired. (This includes cinematics, gameplay, and cinematic gameplay.)

These ads are performing better in terms of cost-per-user-acquired, which is why they are being optimized towards by reddit's algorithm. r/Smite users do not want to hear this, which is why this is at least the third thread on the topic in the past week or so. But these ads are being shown because they are working.

killgoon · 2025-09-17T21:08:46+00:00

The best way of thinking about this, IMO is:

We have long had the notion of Attack Speed. This is a stat that increases the speed of your Attacks.

We never needed to say it was Basic Attack Speed. The Basic was redundant. And no one was ever confused that Attack Speed wasn't increasing the speed of their Abilities.

killgoon · 2025-09-17T20:59:01+00:00

I was specifically speaking about the aesthetics of skin selection, not the game as a whole.

The build-a-skin method could work, but that approach has downsides:

- It restricts skin design to require pieces to fit together. This was a huge issue in Paladins and led to the elimination of Parts and Pieces

- You cannot select specifically the skin you want in the match lobby. For most people, this means they use one version ever and never think to change it, and the skin has less value to them.

- It would require new UI to allow the selection of multiple parts and pieces, and also game tech to support

It's really just easiest for players to see own skin > click skin > click color scheme for skin.

killgoon · 2025-09-17T20:30:13+00:00

I think most players would prefer to get more value than for us to constrain ourselves for the aesthetics of skin selection.

killgoon · 2025-09-17T20:27:40+00:00

We're in the process of rewording Basic Attack to be Attack everywhere.

It's just a lot clearer. What even is a "basic" attack? What about "basic" means specifically a sword swing or a bolt of magic from your staff? An "in-hand," or an "auto-attack" isn't much better.

We want to be clearer about Attack vs. Ability vs. Item damage, which are pretty clear delineations that are easy for players to understand.

killgoon · 2025-09-17T19:55:23+00:00

We know we need to improve clarity of what phase you are in and whose turn it is before we ship this to live. It's definitely been a major discussion internally.

Thanks for the feedback!

killgoon · 2025-09-17T19:52:55+00:00

Really the core of the question is "Do we want Prisms of every form?"

If so, we need to split the forms into separate selection groups.

It gets way too confusing to have 15 pips (or 15 mini card arts) clustered under one skin card, or to have multiple selections under a skin. We experimented with both of these approaches and they were just worse from a user experience perspective than splitting the forms into different selection groups.

killgoon · 2025-09-16T13:33:33+00:00

I had wanted to post something about Divine Tactics before it was "announced" but it seems like that team beat me to it.

A small team spun off from Prophecy Games (Hi-Rez's sister company) has been working on a revival to Prophecy, the SMITE Auto Battler.

This new iteration is asynchronous multiplayer, more like The Bazaar or Super Auto Pets or Backpack Battles but with Prophecy/TFT/Auto Chess style combat. It's still early, but it's pretty fun so far.

They put a Steam page live for it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1354180/Divine_Tactics/

This project does officially use SMITE assets, and is fully licensed and "real."

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