Want to talk a little bit about practice mode

I've talked about my experience in practice mode somewhere else and I am repeating myself a little here but I just like to talk about it though.

Obviously, with no XP and favor awarded, one can assume not many people are playing practice mode conquest these days. That being said, it's a game mode I like. I need the practice. Actually, sometimes I only want to get better against bots and pubstomp them. Maybe I'll never want to play in a real competitive environment as I am only playing the game to kill time.

I understand why practice mode do not award XP because winning against bot says nothing about your skill against a player and should not factor into matchmaking. I certainly do not want to level up so if I do want to play against a real player I am out of my league. However, I think a more logical thing to do is that practice mode gives favor but not XP and co-op mode also gives favor and not XP since it is the easiest game mode there is. On the other hand I understand the decision since HiRez would like the community to grow and they don't want to award people playing alone.

Not sure how many people cares, but I'd like to talk about practice mode a bit about the pattern of bots:

* Ra is formidable against lower skilled player because he has very good aim and is quite slippery (poor positioning though and easy to exploit). Anubis is supremely stupid and can't hold his lane even if I constantly help him gank Ra kill Ra for him many times. The skill disparity between the two mage bots is really annoying. Anubis' ability of losing tower is so great I am not sure if we can lose tower quicker if I just leave the mid tower unattended. At least there would not be anyone feeding Ra. Sometimes I hope the game can give me ability to kill Anubis bot so at least the XP and gold go to me and not Ra.
* Guan Yu bot can hold his lane against 2 opponents even if his partner is absent (killed or distracted by me) Herc bot less so. He will constantly die/retreat if I play as an assassin and have to leave my lane to assist Anubis even for a moment
* Sobek bot dies or lose his ground way too easily compare to Ymir
* In 1v1 scenario, Thor bot always kick Kali bot's ***. In team fight Kali bot do ok and sometime can even gain upper hand alongside Herc (like 30% of the time)
* It's a toss up between Neith and Artemis bot. If we ever lose right lane it's always Sobek's fault. If we don't it would be because Artemis is being effective.

When I first played the smite like 2 months ago. Bots are randomly assigned to both teams so my team would sometimes have a couple of stronger bots I don't have to baby sit. Now I am constantly stuck with a team with all weaklings. As a result I no longer practice as guardians because there's a little hope to win as guardian. It's just too hard to help out Anubis as a slow moving guardian and Artemis bot obviously can't hold left lane alone. Playing as a mage (except Ao Kuang) is still easy because I can push effectively against Ra and help out other lanes afterwards. Hunters are ok because I would just push fast and split push with Anubis when I have got some free time.

Playing as an assassin or a warrior is kind of fun at times because I would need to run around a lot, help assassinate Ra and come back to right lane. However, sometimes my team is just beyond help. I played Thanatos yesterday, lost track of how many kills I got. I've reached level 20 while my bots teammates were still at level 12~13. Anubis still managed to only take down 1 enemy tower (I did most of the damage on the tower), lose both tower, allow Ra to start attacking the phoneix and lose most of his health and teleport back. I tried to hold the phoneix for him while both left and right phoneix are being breached.

Well' then again, what's the point of playing a game if there's no possibility of losing right? Might as well play co-op mode if I don't want to lose.

Before SMITE, I don't remember playing any PvP game.
Just because the competitive aspect reduces the fun of the game, for me at least.

I've played League of Legends, up to level 25, without playing any single game in PvP mode.
I've stopped because Riot changed it so CO-OP games don't grant IP / XP anymore, so I was stuck at this level and with those champs.


When I started SMITE, I've played in CO-OP, and I'm pretty sure I was leveling XP and Favor.
Maybe it was changed, I don't know.
However, the bots in SMITE are so dumb it's not even funny.
At least, in LoL, we could lose a CO-OP game if one of the player was not good.
But in SMITE, it's not going to happen.


So I went over my PvP hate and started playing against people.
The only reason why I didn't leave is because I have just too much fun playing this game, even when I'm bad.
I'd really love if Hi-Rez would increase the AI of their bots, but after 2 years, I don't think it's going to happen.


Also, on a side note, when you'll start playing PvP, you'll notice that there are plenty of players at your level. Don't think you are alone in this situation, we all started somewhere.
Plus, and that's the most important, if you want to improve, you have to see some shots/combos/tacticts done in your face.
Let's face it, bots would not teach you much in the game, and it will only for 10 out of the 70 gods.

Also, according to the SMITE Patch Notes - September 30th 2015


It could mean anything, but since they cannot be worse than what they currently are, I guess we can hope for better bots in the future.

Hi Again!
Co-op mode still gives favors and XP but I wish I am only getting favor and not XP as I don't wish to level up, practice mode gives neither. So I was thinking it might make sense for co-op mode to no longer give XP as well. Not sure they would risk the community uproar and stop giving XP in coop mode though.

this was done against the account selling stuff (that's still hapenning)

I'm not sure to get the point to prevent CO-OP games to give IP / XP.

I mean, if the player plans to seel the account once he hits max level, he will just play PvP, as the XP reward is much better than in CO-OP games.

not really as in PvP people lose and when you lose you gain less XP (and most people win around 50% of the games)

most people recommend buying XP boosts and then do bot games on easy from lvl 1 to lvl 15 or even to lvl20 and after that intermediate bots till lvl 30.

even a site that sells already lvled smurf accounts says doing normals will take around 250 hours of play time (without boosts though) while bot matches will take around 150 hours (with boosts)

wow ok, did it change in the past years ?

Because from what I remember, a PvP match, even if lost, rewarded more than a CO-OP match win.
I reached level 21, and it took me a long time to get it, by playing only CO-OP matches.

Also, when I played, there wasn't bot difficulty yet.
We "could" select it, but "beginner" was the only option in the list.
I think it was in around end of 2012.


What is the use of a smurf account already leveled ?
If you are max level, you aren't smurfing anymore.

Which brings me to this :

If you are leveling an account for selling, you probably already have a max level account.
Which means you are creating a smurf account to level.
So, a smurf would usually have way more than 50% win rate, unless he's bad.

amount of smurfs is so high in LoL that beginner player play agains smurfs.

Smurf accounts are considered all alt accounts you have which are placed lower then your current elo

people buy them because ranked.

and lvling smurfs by those sites happens by botting those bots don't win unless lucky with a player in a team against them

Wait ... Why would anyone want to play ranked with a lower elo ?
I could understand for casual games, but for ranked games, I don't get it.

Also, you say there is so many smurfs that beginner always end up playing against smurfs.
If that is the case, then I am even more glad that I didn't try PvP at all.
I might try a comeback just to try the new bot difficulty, but if they still dont reward IP / XP, I don't think it will last long.

Anyway, thanks for these info.