We currently have no plans to implement this. Heres why:

1. Splitting the Conquest playerbase. This type of design has the potential to cut the Normal: Conquest player pool in half, which would be devastating to matchmaking quality or would require much longer queue times. This would be totally reasonable if SMITE didn't already have so many modes. Our mode variety has been a big part of our success, but adding more at this point poses a large risk.

2. Player Experience. A huge amount of SMITE players want to play the game in a specific way, meaning they have a specific god they intend to play before they even queue up. Banning away gods would often leave players dissapointed in the match lobby. Many players want to play the newly buffed, newly meta, newly added gods. Also this process takes a considerably longer time. Many players just want to get in game asap.

3. Redundancy. This is really just ranked but allowing larger party sizes and showing your MMR. I could see people claiming that its a big difference between the two, but its not significantly different enough for a whole new mode with the previous risks in mind (in our opinion). We think a significant number of people who want to play this way are already open to playing ranked instead or are already playing ranked.

This was an option we considered when doing our major matchmaking changes in Season 5 that brought about timed queues. It comes up pretty often (like the suggestion of 5-player premade ranked conquest mode) But the cons still simply outweigh the pros in both scenarios. Id say the most likely path forward to something like either of these would be modifications to the MOTD system to allow for more serious/competitive MOTDs instead of silly MOTDs.

It comes up a lot, so it seems worth our time to provide a more detailed explanation. Hopefully r/smite can help us by sharing/repeating this answer in the future.

buckeye837

One idea though, maybe schedule a repeating match of the day on a weekend day that is basically this "unranked" conquest every week or every other week. Perhaps if done on a weekend day like this the player base would be large enough to absorb the limited time alternative conquest mode?

By saying this could split the player base in half in point 1, you're basically saying half the base wants it anyways. And honestly just bans would do the trick and be much quicker, at least my group doesn't really care about picks.

Saying "up to half" really, and any combination of those players being split is all bad, right?

• 10% go to bans conq, 90% stay - new mode matchmaking is BAD, old mode barely changes
• 50% go, 50% stay - matchmaking gets worse for everyone

Even as a MOTD this "mode" is more likely to be like the first situation, low play count, bad matchmaking, 5 mans vs solos, etc. But hey you can play conquest with no Tsukuyomi!

I still think the positives are minimal. Play ranked.

biznasty26

Hi Ajax what about trying a pick phase in casual? no bans just picks

creates all the problems in point 2 on a very large population. risky, still.

CalvoUTN

I think there is a mode in LoL where each one can ban a god.

So it can be that each one has 15 sec to ban and then proceed normally. Adjusting the times in the lobby would make this feasible without longer queue times.

You enemy team is banning 5 gods, so 4.5% of the roaster, so the chances that someone bans the god you want to play are low. Specially if you consider that normally each god is going to ban a god that they don’t want to fight against. So if you are mid, you are probably ban a god that could go against you.

It would add a simpler layer to the casual conquest mode and would be a good stepping point to ranked, where many don’t know how to ban.

EDIT: Seems like League does offer a normal Draft Pick Normal mode, but they do have far less modes and more players than us

Last i checked, this is their "ranked" mode system, but i may be mistaken.

We wouldnt add this to Conquest for the same reasons i said above. New gods would have 100% ban. Top Meta / Recently buffed gods would have 90% ban. That 4.5% stat is greatly misleading.

CalvoUTN

I haven’t check in a while. But yeah, could hurt the playtime of new gods.

Ty for the answer!

EDIT #2: Seems like League does offer a normal Draft Pick Normal mode, but they do have far less modes and more players than us, but i think most of my points here still stand. I wont change any of the text i had typed before

So if we wanted to use LoL as a reference (which we dont always want to do, our games are different in many ways)

This would be a good argument for changing the Ranked Ban system to be slightly faster and more agency from all players instead of the top MMR player.

Currently I think our ranked players value Ranked and SPL being the same pick/ban system, but I might be wrong.

None of this encourages us to add it to casual modes tho.

CalvoUTN

I like the current system because as you say, it’s consistent between ranked, SCC, SPL and other tournaments.

About casual, even if I understand the point of hurting those that had a specific pick in mind, I think there should be a system for it to work somehow. Let’s say you have the last five gods released not being bannable or recently buffed gods.

I feel like it just makes sense. I know you have ranked for that, but many people just stay away from ranked bc the MMR inherently makes the mode more competitive and sometimes more toxic.

I think it goes both ways when you think about ppl having a god in mind they want to play. If I go solo and pick a warrior, the last thing I want to have in front of me is Loki. It makes the games completely boring. Yes, you could still win. But it stopped being fun the moment I have to rush back to lane because an invisible god is pushing my T2.

It applies to other gods too. Also, it’s a learning tool of counter banning. If you are going to pick, let’s say, Da Ji, banning Ravana would be cool.

Maybe reducing the bans to two and giving the one to each one of the top elo.

Edit: I hope my sentences make sense. English is not my first language and typing in my phone isn’t helping.

That all makes sense.

But if we make a pick/ban system that DOESNT allow people to ban Cthulhu or Tsukuyomi then what players are we actually making happy with this system?

If we change a meta to make Mage ADCs better, but then everyone bans them, why did we even change the meta?

It just creates some really strange scenarios where no matter what we are adding tons of rules and complexity to only make a small amount of players happy.