Zaire Lancaster, Journal 4

             Ever since I was young, I have had a fascination with mythology. From the otherworldly creatures to the hardworking heroes to the omnipotent gods representing previously misunderstood aspects, every part of mythology intrigued me. Sometime during 2013, I discovered a game called “Smite”. Smite is a third-person, M.O.B.A( multiplayer online battle arena) strategy game focused on you picking a god, buying “items” that give you statistical boosts, and destroying the enemies team titan. However, before you can even damage the titan you must destroy multiple defensive structures including projectile firing towers and a regenerating phoenix. The “items” in Smite are actually famous tools and weapons used by the deities from 16 different pantheons. In total, Smite has 113 playable characters with one being added around every other month. I started playing Smite in 2016 when I got an upgraded gaming system and excluding one 5 month break, have been playing a few hours a week since then. Through the years I accumulated over 1.3k hours of playtime and though I am by no means an expert, I can play and explain the game at a minimum average level. Though there is only one way to win, there are many different ways to play either being mostly passive or aggressive, leading to my disagreement.

                The constant disagreement I have is when with a friend I’ll call B. B believes we should play aggressively, always going to attack the enemy and getting our items through their deaths. I believe we should play passive, at objectives that give us gold to buy items and wait for the enemy to make a mistake then attack them. Though we have differing views on playstyle, we often play together, doing a lot of winning and losing but still having fun. We have fun until we play ranked. Ranked is a skill-based matchmaking game mode in which we play against people with similar skill-level and if you win you get special ranked rewards and higher placement. Ranked is split into different divisions with bronze being the lowest to masters being the highest.  Each rank division has 5 separate subdivisions which help you compare to players in your division. 

         The disagreement takes place every match of ranked we play which is almost 3-4 hours every week. In the lower ranks, B’s playstyle has worked fine, he’s super aggressive and players get overwhelmed, staying on edge every time they turn a corner because they never know if B will be waiting for them. Though my playstyle allows each team a fair chance of winning in lower ranks, in higher ranks players are quick to capitalize on each mistake so it proves advantageous to buy more items and wait for their mistake. Not only overlook certain things only focusing on kills, but it also will not always work so it’s important to adapt to a slower playstyle.

So far the disagreement hasn’t been settled. Right now we’re having a competition in which we play separately and see which style gets us to a higher rank. The competition ends in a year but we have benchmarks every few weeks where we compare our progress so far. The first benchmark is in on the 25h of March next, and though I’m excited about the results even if I lose, I won’t be overly aggressive in trying to prove B wrong.