An Explanation of the Smite 2 Situation.

[FableNights]

The Beginning of the End.

On January 12, 2024, Hi-Rez announced that they were creating Smite 2.
Now, with such a big announcement came a lot of questions. They answered questions they believed would be frequent.
There were some people who were happy, some who were cautiously curious, and there was some outrage.

Primary Issues.

The main issue that was brought up was the lack of transferring skins from Smite 1; a total of 1600 skins, not including mastery skins, would seemingly not be moved over.

It was clarified by Hi-Rez that UE3 (Smite 1's engine) and UE5 (Smite 2's engine) are leagues apart in what they can do. So much so that skins cannot be ported. Any skin that that would have to transferred from Smite 1 to Smite 2 would take; by Hi-Rez's own words, about 2 months per skin. Overall, 247 man years to port every skin from Smite 1 to Smite 2.
For Tier 5 skins; the most requested skins to be transferred, Hi-rez said that each T5 has its own unique stuff behind it, making it take months just for a single skin to be built up with Smite 2's standards.
Personally, I think the number is a bit high, but considering their model artists are more likely focused on just getting all the gods their own Smite 2 Models, it makes sense that cosmetics wouldn't be a primary focus, imo.

Now, the other issue was Legacy Gems. Hi-Rez stated in their FAQ, that any gem you spent in Smite 1; Free or Bought, would transfer over as Legacy Gems. These gems pay for 50% of almost anything in Smite 2, with the only exception; for now, being crossover skins. Hi-Rez has stated they would like to have Legacy Gems apply to Crossover, but that's not up to them as Legacy Gems would cut into their partner's profits.
This ultimately means you would still have to pay for some gems before being able to use the Legacy Gems which have left people upset that they can't use 100% of their Legacy Gems for Smite 2 items.

And this is all followed up by Divine Legacy which is little badges and what not that let you show off that you have X amount of stars on a god or a certain T5 skin in Smite 1.
I'm not gonna sugar coat it; this didn't help people from being upset.

Clarification.

Hi-Rez hosted a Dev Insight Panel; the vid now on their YouTube channel, where they went over concerns, questions, their thoughts, and what they want to accomplish with Smite 2.

A few things that were said or eventually clarified.

Smite 1 skins. If they were transferred; which atm, Hi-Rez is looking at around 300 skins they want to do that with, could be paid for with 100% Legacy Gems. Now this wasn't them saying every skin would be transferred over, but that they want to do some.
More then likely, that's about 2-3 skins per god. You're probably gonna see the more popular skins from each god with the exception of much less popular gods like Fafnir only getting 1.

What's changing? They wanted the game to hold the same magic Smite has, but wanted changes that they believe would benefit Smite 2 as a game.

Any god can now build any item.
Physical is now Strength. Magical is now Intelligence. Ymir critting was an example shown.
Items are now simplified. T1 items now focus on single stats. If you want to build attack speed, you build a bow. This bow can build into ANY item that gives attack speed.

Relics don't exist. They have been changed into Active items that usually give less stats, but a strong, active effect like Blinking Amulet.

Every God now has access to Beads and a type of Ward by default.

And, going back to skins for a quick moment. Cacodemon Ymir was shown off.
The difference between Smite 1 and Smite 2 was so significant, that I cannot encourage you enough to go check it out as to show what Hi-Rez intends to do.

Why the Change?

Hi-Rez gave a few reasons why they wanted to make Smite 2.

UE3 is old. It was made in 2006. Smite was first announced in 2011. It's now 2024.
This engine is 18 years old and it's not helping with the new ambitions Hi-Rez has with future gods.
This engine is essentially putting a stranglehold on any new god idea they want to make.
With Smite being such an old game, there have been years of coding put into it and it's a mess. The dreaded spaghetti code, it complicates any bug fix that should be relatively simple. UE5, not only lets them build the game from scratch (they have to, they can't port anything) but it allows them to use the tools in UE5 to keep the code neat and tidy.

Hecate is such an example of a god that simply can't work in UE3, but does in UE5.

Matchmaking. Their current matchmaking system; from both Casuals and Ranked, is a mess and this is another opportunity for them to improve on it greatly so that the fun factor and the skill level of each match can balance each other out for more dynamic games.

For Ranked Players, this even means having different rankings for different roles. Diamond Jungle. Master Support. Gold Mid. Etc...

For Casual Players, it's to give them a more consistent experience and to properly balance their games.

In both examples, players start at 1500 MMR (which is about Gold V) and they go up or down based on how they do. In theory it's a sound idea, but in practice, it ends up ruining games for people with less skill. So, therefore, everyone starts at the bottom now, to give everyone a better experience.

My Personal Opinions.

I have about 2,250 hours in Smite. I've spent well over $500 on skins and such over the 11 years; going onto 12, that I've played this game. While I haven't been a constant player; may have skipped a season here and there, I have always come back.

While Hi-Rez has said Smite 1 isn't being shut down and is going to live alongside Smite 2, I'm not dumb. I know this essentially means focus is moving towards Smite 2 with Smite 1 being manned by a skeleton crew. Smite 1 will eventually be shut down once Smite 2 is running at full capacity.

I have a decent sized collection of 500 skins. I already have one to two skins I use on each god except Awilix; I own every skin of hers except 1.

That being said, I genuinely do not believe Hi-Rez isn't doing this out of greed, but more so longevity. It's not a secret that Smite is more then showing it's age and that all the years of coding being overlapped on each other isn't helping the game's stability in the slightest.

I played A LOT this week and I think every day I played, I had 2 to 4 games in which someone dc'd. I'VE dc'd a couple times in the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ loading screen and at this point I just want to play a stable game.

Hi-Rez isn't a big studio. If they just wanted more money, they'd pump out more T5 events, Recolored Limited Skins, and Neith/Aphro skins until the heat death of their servers.

I've already had to deal with several live service games that have died, are dying, or just shut down throughout my years of gaming. All the money I spent? Gone. Doesn't matter how great the game was. How unique it turned out to be. It was money lost to the wind.
Nothing to show.

The fact that Hi-Rez is giving us Legacy Gems; while I wish it could be more, is honestly better then nothing. On paper, being given a 50% discount on any Smite 2 stuff while Smite 1 stuff is fully purchasable with Legacy Gems is just a breath of fresh air compared to, well, literally nothing.
Imo, as long as they don't pull an Overwatch 2 and start regularly selling $20 skins; and using Legacy Gems to cover is as a 'discount', I think I can remain cautiously optimistic about the system as a whole.

I do think the reason why Hi-Rez is pushing Smite 2 so hard is because of two main reasons.

The biggest one is that it can try to build up a new audience again. If you ever tried to introduce a friend into current day Smite, you probably already know how well THAT goes, but if not... It's a pain.

The next is genuine excitement. Did you know that Hi-Rez didn't intend on originally making Smite 2? It was something a very small group of devs worked on as a 'test'. Apparently, this janky, scrapped together version of Smite 2 was such a sale that the entire company is pushing for it.

I'm not a coder. I can't say what can simply be done in Smite 1 and Smite 2. At the end of the day, Smite is Hi-Rez's baby. It's the only game they actively put effort into making it as engaging as it can be. If they see an opportunity here to turn the game into something better, well I'm going to want to see.

To me, it's not a scam. It's not an 11 year long pyramid scheme. It's not a ploy to rip me off of my oh so precious money (what money, I'm broke af). It feels like a genuine attempt to make Smite the best it can be and Hi-Rez are actively doing stuff to give back to the community without going broke.

[Romza]

Originally posted by Twig:

So all the money your customers put into your game mean ♥♥♥♥, because you do not want to do the work to port the skins? Yeah no chief. Especially when the game is pretty much gonna be the same damn game.

prime example of someone skimming over the discussion and not seeing everything.

here let me help you:

they have stated that they will be working on putting some of the Skins from SMITE 1 into SMITE 2, they what skins those would be though. but considering they have to remake them from the ground up. i'm sure it's not gonna pop up right away. unless they already have a few that they've made and are just holding off on telling us.

also... have you ever seen what goes into making a skin? it's not like there's a button you can click and it's done. you have to build each part, make sure the colors are right, add the details and render (rendering, depending on how many polygons their are in a skin model, and how fast their computer is, can take a long time to do....). Then, even after you've finished making it, you have to test it for bugs, which takes even more time. and after finding the bugs, you have to go back in and correct/fix them, before testing again. it's not something that you can just sit down and do in an 8 hour work shift. if you could LoL would be pumping out new skins for all of their champions daily.

[Arc]

Smite is 10 years old. Even if they started dev as much as 5 years before release, which they probably did not, that's 15 years to make every god and skin.
But now for Smite 2 just porting skins alone takes > 200 years
???

[Celkat]

Originally posted by Chimeric:

Wow OP. That has to be the world record for longest way to say "I lick corporate boot & more."

bro sums it up

[TragicallyFae]

Read the whole thing, still think this is sketchy. So what? Those of us with special skins you get from the end of an event like Totem Caller Hou Yi and Queen of Cards Izanami are just expected to get over the time and money we spent on some really unique and cosmetics?

Hell, most of the reason I'd try a specific god is if there was a cosmetic I'd really like for it. It made the game play a lot more fun. Does the game need to be updated? Yeah. This is just one of the worst ways they could have gone about it, and the whole "cutting into their partner's profits" bit is a big red flag.

[YeehawMattTTV]

Literally paid so much money for these ♥♥♥♥♥♥ ass skins only for them to drop this bucket of crap on us, this decision is just making players want to leave smite alltogether instead of even trying it. I would play this if they refunded us all the gems we PAID for instead of just giving us half off for any future skins. Dumbest decision yet ngl, and here I actually enjoyed this game lmfao