I'm Quigley, the designer handling Nox's Smite 2 port. With all the posts, concern, speculation about Nox's kit changes from PTS, I thought it was best to send out a post on Reddit, X, and Discord talking about the current kit for base + aspect, known issues on PTS, and the design decisions that are both fixed and still up for change in the next 2 weeks.

Feel free to leave feedback and concerns here, on X, on the Smite Discord, or bring them to Titan Talk live tomorrow (10/16) where I will be for live Q&A. I'll be checking in throughout the next day or so and responding.

Nox Base TLDR

Passive

• Unchanged from Smite 1 outside of QOL +1 that gates loosing multiple candles at once

Shadow Lock

• Unchanged from Smite 1, Root + Cripple unaffected by diminishing returns

Siphon Darkness

• No longer Silences
• Applies a Scaled version of Night Terrors weakening debuff
• Cancels channeled abilities on cast

Shadow Step

• Unchanged from Smite 1 outside of now granting Damage Immunity while inside an ally

Night Terror

• No Longer weakens enemies
• Now applies a Silence to all enemies Hit in the blast

Nox Aspect TLDR

Passive

• No longer gives intelligence, instead gives a Max HP magic shield at 5 candles

Shadow Lock

• Unchanged

Siphon Darkness

• Silences as it does in Smite 1
• No longer does damage

Shadow Step

• No longer does damage when exiting an ally, instead fears
• Gives a Magical Protections magic shield to Nox and the ally she enters

Night Terror

• Has less Intelligence Scaling and gains Magical Protections Scaling
• No Longer Silences or does damage overtime
• Leaves a blinding "night dome" on end that weakens all enemies inside
  • will have another debuff/cc effect but that's still up in the air
• Can be recast to stop the projectile early

On Nox's Siphon Darkness Silence and Identity:

When coming into Nox, the frustration around her silence into burst combo was the main pain point to tackle. Especially going down to 1 relic, the silence in it's current form couldn't stay. Overall the goal is to make sure Nox feels good as a great pick/setup mage with consistent damage + cc but not crazy kill pressure while alone.

On Nox's 2 + 1 Combo:

How straight forward Nox's combo was one of the key things people enjoy about her and something we want to preserve in the port (with the understanding that the silence can't stay as it is). I'm hearing the concerns around her combo now being in the range of hard to hit to useless and am focused on addressing it. Additionally we want to make sure that as needed Night Terror can be subbed in sequence with the Siphon Darkness so you can still silence into root if need be.

What's locked and what's open to change:

At this stage of production, the shape and visuals of the abilities are largely locked. Early in production we experimented with fully swapping back some of the abilities but we landed largely keeping the same kit. No matter what we want to make sure we're addressing the frustration around Nox's one-shot potential along with the enemies ability to respond while preserving he ability to deliver a silence when needed. How that is applied, especially around the effects coming out from Siphon Darkness and Night Terror, is still open for discussion as long as it doesn't require unique SFX/VFX (ie a root vs a slow is an easy add/swap out).

Known PTS Issues

• Shadow Lock cripple not applying or ending early
• Aspect Siphon Darkness not applying the silence
• Aspect Night Terror applying the silence and having full scaling

When Nox was introduced way back in Smite she was crafted with “maternal” and “motherhood” as her foundation since a lot of the roman pantheon comes from her. Yet to me long ponytail does not scream feminine “maternity”. I like this mock-up of her with long hair, which to me is more definitively divine feminine and motherly. What do y’all think? I gen love everything else about her design, but those ponytails just do not give roman mother goddess. and to be fair neither does black lipstick. Nox is a primordial mother, not a goth baddie. (okay she can be both I guess)

I seriously don't understand the current vision for Nox, why pick Nox when Scylla is around?
Since Nox is so hated, was the design angle to just make her even more garbage tier than she was on Smite1 already? Was the fix for her really just killing her whole identity and viability completely, so no one talks about her anymore?

Scylla can root/cripple multiple close targets and early detonate her circle for morbillions of damage and one of, if not the best poly user in the game with Eset. Nox circle no longer silences, and can't be detonated early. Her 1 roots but becomes a cripple only if you land the ult before rooting. Her ult now have the silence. Her new kit feels terrible and is a downgraded Scylla 2.0.

Seriously, her current kit is DOA, and a masterclass on how not to rework a god.
Her whole combo is near impossible to confirm now. People can just jump away from the root of her 1, and the bubble is useless. Forcing the Nox player to kit dump and always initiate with her ult to get value out of the 1, and even then you can only cripple 1 god affected by the silence. Her damage is underwhelming for how rare you will confirm the 2-1 combo, most other mages have an easier time confirming their damage and will always be better picks than her for that reason. (I won't even talk about the beyond garbage passive that is still useless to this day)

You can tell this rework was made with the fear to not upset the vocal majority of people that hated being silenced by Nox in S1, but somehow don't care about Ganesh that does the exact same thing but better and with even less skill involved, since he is an assisted walking silence nightmare that follows you around the map and doesn't let you play the game.

Just a couple recent clips, quite amazing how you can deal so much damage in .5 seconds.

I don't really understand what makes nox different enough from horus to where he gets +1s that make him more frustrating to play against (faster landing in ult) while nox has her identity stripped from her and has all of her power put into an ultimate. The changes they made to base nox are really boring and uninspired too. I'd have liked it if she had a similar playstyle to old nox where she was a poke mage with a low cd 2 and a different raven. But what we have on pts is just nox but bland. Not even a blind or anything is crazy.

Horus can cc you to death just like nox can/could do, and he even has a knockup while doing so, which is the strongest form of cc.

This just makes me wonder why nox isn't allowed to exist but horus is? And why she gets TWO of her ccs taken away? In my opinion they share the same level of annoynace and frustration.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/xm2c5s/celestial_father_kuzenbo_skin_concept/

It took me a little while to determine a rough metric to compare all the defensive stats but as they fluctuate throughout the game my data best shows the items in early to mid periods of games as for example plating and dampening will become more beneficial then.

What I roughly found was

100 prots= 1000health = 34 dampening = 4.2 plating = 11.67 hps

Could we get faster Fafnir auto animations so the 3 of us that auto cancel with him can do it better? 👉👈

Getting tired of having to find a small red dot inbetween every character, just to unlock 10 Gems

Just wondering because I have a friend who despises Poseidon, and was wondering what gods you hate going up against or playing as

After Yemoja, Gilgamesh, Izanami, and Hel had their auto attack lines added last update, I figured I'd thoroughly check the whole roster to make things easier to keep track of. This isn't something that's being immediately demanded at once, instead something that can hopefully be slowly worked on over time where there's breathing room. Voice grunts are one of the many small parts of gods that give them more life and feel less muted while playing. Many of them in Smite 1 had grunts that weren't actually used in game, instead in victory/defeat screens. With those being gone, it'd be nice to see as many gods as possible use the lines ingame so they aren't sitting unused taking up memory, give more life to the roster, and more of the roster feels on the same level of having the full package.

Cu Chulainn has grunts in human form but not berzerk, I don't think there were any recorded for it. Ullr has his in axe form but not bow.

The 3rd Tier is a mix of those who used them ingame in Smite 1 but currently aren't playing in Smite 2, as well as those that have always had them recorded just never used them ingame.

The 4th Tier I couldn't find default grunt voicelines in the uploaded Audio Files but their skins had them.

For unported gods, I don't think there's a site that has all Audio files uploaded anymore but I'll try to keep track of them going forward

If this kind of post is appreciated, I might do some more to help the devs and community keep track of things like this like out of combat animations, intro animations, etc.

imma need them to full commit to the "not wanting aura items back" mindset or start giving supports their defensive aura items back

All games were real matches no bot matches this time. Completed in 17 hours 1 session .

Finally, she is here!

I wrote it as a comment but adding also here:
She has her "new" taunt. 1 seems to be the same but now only roots. While used on ulted god it crippled - may be then adjusted in her PTS. 2 is just damage, I guess, didnt see any other effect. Ult now silences. 3 and passive is unchanged.
Aspect - passive gives her a shield and ult creates a huge dark globe at impact - similar to Xbala ult. The rest may be the same, there are no numbers or descriptions for anything.

Nox's 1 and 2 are core to her identity but also the source of other players frustration playing against her.

My suggestion is make the 2 silence only if she roots someone in it. This solves a few problems:

- It allows players to react to her combo without having to use beads

- She can no longer instant cancel chaneled abilities with a very safe and low cd ability

- It ties her most frustrating aspect(large aoe silence) to a skill shot.

- She can no longer just drop her 2 at her feet while running away for extremely easy self peel.

It still keeps her core identity but provides the enemy with more counter play options.

I’m not a Nox player. But personally I think removing her silence is rough

Maybe it could be something that takes more skill

First option : there’s 2 areas in the A02, the big circle and a bullseye in the middle. If you hit the person in the middle area. You have the silence

Second option : You still have 2 circles. But the silence expands till the timer ends. So you could silence someone for the entirety of your A02, or you could clip someone on the edge and silence them for 0.3 seconds for example

If no options apply. At that point I think we should just fully rework her imo

Up until this point, SMITE 2’s monetization has been largely respectable: offer a skin as a direct purchase through the Travelers system, alongside a cheaper alternative via randomized chest rolls. This applied to 99% of SMITE 2’s skins (even seasonal ones). The few unpurchasable exceptions were special milestones stuff, like Cacodemon Ymir.

However, during today's Titan Talk stream, Hi-Rez announced the return of a despised SMITE 1 tactic: Chest Exclusive skins.

Pumpkin Spice Discordia, along with her 3 color prisms, is being locked behind a chest containing 33 additional filler items at 1,000 Diamonds per roll. If you're a new player who owns none of the items in that chest, guaranteeing the skin will cost you up to 34,000 Diamonds, which translates to roughly 230 fucking dollars at its cheapest. And since you can't roll any prisms prior to getting the base skin, you might have to cough up another 3,000 Diamonds just to grab the specific prism you actually want.

To Hi-Rez's credit, they are offering a "Buy All" bundle for 2,700 Diamonds to grab all the Halloween items releasing this patch. That is roughly the price of a standard direct-purchase skin in SMITE 2.

At first glance, it's a solid deal—you can bypass the chest and buy Pumpkin Spice Discordia straight up. Problem solved, right?

But wait, what's that?

Oh dear. It's a limited time offer. And when the patch goes live on Tuesday, Oct. 20th, you get a strict two-week window to buy it before it vanishes and gets permanently locked behind the chest. Tough luck if you're out of town or a new player discovering the game later. Better cough up that whale money, I suppose.

So, seeing what I saw, I decided to ask them the following question on Titan Talk:

"What is the logic behind moving back to chest exclusive skins, when the direct purchase approach has been widely praised? Can we expect a regression back to SMITE 1 monetization tactics?"

And Killgoon had this to say:
https://www.twitch.tv/smitegame/clip/EncouragingAssiduousMarrowPoooound-c5ehinjWupIjDK2M

Let's break down everything said:

Killgoon: "I think that this is misreading what we're doing here pretty intensily. So, a new skin that is available in a chest, that you can also get as part of a bundle at a discounted price, to me does not reek of 'we're trying to do scummy things'.

• Yes, getting it as part of a bundle is cheaper, but bundling a skin with tons of other crap you might not want doesn't replace the freedom to just buy the exact item you want. Granted, travelers usually cost 2,400 Diamonds, so 2,700 isn't a massive stretch given the amount of free Diamonds you get in this game. The real issue is the time limit. Every other seasonal skin remains purchasable year-round; nothing makes this skin special enough to justify treating it like artificial scarcity.

Killgoon: "Some people like getting Chests, right? Because Chests give you a lot of random content that is at a discounted price versus the Direct Purchase."

• I don't doubt for a second that there are people that enjoy Chests. Of course there are, otherwise they wouldn't exist. Chests aren't inherently a bad concept, for those who do not care what they get. The issue is that this argument is completely pointless, cause there is absolutely no reason you couldn't have this chest, while also offering a truly Direct Purchase for the skin. That's what you did with the end of SMITE 1, and that's what has been done throughout the entire lifespan of SMITE 2 up until this point.

Killgoon: "And we do make our Chests, I believe, the fairest in the business, cause you don't roll duplicates, there's no odds to anything, so everything is equal drop chance."

• I wonder how this could be said nicely...
  • Just because your pile of shit isn't as stinky as the other guys' pile of shit, doesn't mean that it isn't still a pile of shit.

Killgoon: "At some point in the future, as a Classic skin, it will be available Direct Purchase or in the Classic Skin Chest."

• So the argument here is that if you don't like this Chest, you can either wait for the possiblity that is might at some point become Direct Purchase, or wait until it goes into the other Chest, that has double the amount of stuff you could roll instead of that skin? Great.
• I mean, sure I'm a veteran player. I have 400k Legacy Gems, so stuff in the Classic Chest is basically free to me, but what about those who don't have the Legacy Gems, like new players for example? Seems like they are just shit out of luck.
• And what happens when they start doing this to non-Classic skins, and are no longer morally obligated to put it in the Classic Chest or offer it through Direct Purchase? It isn't hard to see where this is going.

Please, folks, do not buy into this shit again. We went 10 years through it in SMITE 1, and they finally fixed it in this game. This is scummy business practice, praying on FOMO or their players, and should not be encouraged for one bit.

Oh, and as a side note, of course you cannot use Legacy Gems to roll the new chest, or to buy the bundle half-off, why would you ask such a dumb question?

Playing Nike feels awful. Her leap doesn’t work as intended. You have to jump at least 1.5 seconds before an enemy uses a CC ability or deals damage to you, because literally anything can interrupt her jump startup. She can also take damage and get CC’d while already in the air, even when the ability technically didn’t hit her before she jumped. Please fix her.

As the title says, im very new (4 and a half hours on smite 2) the games an absolute blast and ive found gods i find very fun. The game feels engaging and fun especially when i get kills but I have yet to have a single conquest match without a toxic leaver. They surrender after 10 minutes and just leave. I want to keep playing but its genuinely almost impossible for me to get a full game bc everyone quits, is it like this for everyone or is this a new player thing only?

In the reaction to this post by the lead designer Quigley https://www.reddit.com/r/Smite/comments/1x6tln0/an_update_on_noxs_port/

I revised my proposed rework of Nox from almost a year ago. I am interested in the feedback, why would my changes wouldnt work in game? I think it would reduce the frustration from the silence on her 2 but keep her identity as a god with stronger CC and frequent silence in the kit. Also her combo would eventually stay the same withot massive changes.

Main change: Remove silence on 2 and add it to the skillshot 1 that requires a good skill to land. Then some other bonus changes (lets say +1s) and a suggestion for a minor rework of her passive.

Passive: 3% Magical power for every spell you use up to 12% (4 lit candles). Candles no longer decay after taking damage but the bonus is comsumed when you use a spell at 4 lit candles, giving your ability additional 10% Int scaling. Then you start again with 0 candles lit.

(1) Shadow lock: Silences + root-cripple, main CC output. It deals 60% of the damage on hit, the rest 40% is done in 2s every 0.33s The silence in her 1 will allow Nox to retain the crowd control but reduce the frustration from her original 2. Also people usually clear this ability, so it drains her hard CC at once. Also when enemy cleansed her 1 in S1 (happened a lot), she barely did any damage with this spell. Thats why I would add the initial hit + faster ticks (was 0.5s now 0.33s).

(2) Syphon Darkness - main AoE damage, slow: No longer silences but causes 15% slow in the bubble area for its duration (2s), if you are hit by the ability, you will be shrouded in darkness for another 2s and have applied 25% slow for that duration.

(3) Shadow step +1: since you transform into a cloud of darkness, now the dash cannot be stopped by other dashes/pushes (e.g. Hercules' dash that would cancel it if you went against it).

(4) Night terror +1: Lights all candles for the highest passive bonus on your next ability cast.

Side note:
Overall, I think there is a huge potential in her abilities to work together well in some kind of combo. Lets say you are marked by 2 explosion, if I hit you with my 1, you are rooted-crippled and additionally silenced - if the silence+root-cripple I suggested would be too strong. Also, her passive can be played around of these ideas, what happens when all 4 candles are lit? I expect some kind of bonus, new effect or whatever.