Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I was playing Smite (the relatively new God Centric MOBA) and was fooling around with the new patch and this suddenly came to my mind

If you are at all familiar with mobas you know that you purchase items to make your character more efficient in combat. However the new patch changed many items from buffs to nerfs, even getting rid of some items, adding new ones, and on top of that adding a completely new stat. And then theres all the changes to the characters thanks to the new stat, including various number changes whether buffs or nerfs or just a slight shift.

So pretty much a good chunk of character guides for this game online are......useless/outdated. I can imagine fans of certain builds to be a bit peeved that they have to change their strategies now and figure out new combos

But that is not limited to just mobas. Normal MMOs, Shooters, Fighting Games, pretty much anything that gets changed via updates online all get different from their original forms. So whether it is paid (eww who buys those) or free guides, are many games near pointless to make a (assuming static) guide for in terms of specifics since games these days change too much? Especially those silly printed ones

The printed ones and paid are a odd thing.

When I started playing new MOBA I often spent some time reading through the guides / builds. But that was before ingame "recommended items" like each and every game has now.
I always read something before picking new hero. I still do read the guides, but mostly after some games. Sometimes I read the ones about the hero I don't intend to play but have problems with.
For me it changed from: 'how to play', to 'how efficiently play'.

I don't play MMOs but I would probably read some builds / guides about a class / race I wanted to pick and maybe reconsider if the majority of comments were negative.

I have never read Shooter guides. It's way easier to test the combination / guns than the two game types mentioned above.


Also: thanks for mentioning Smite. It looks fun and I am going to get a closer look on that one.

Internet guides are adaptable enough that it takes little time to update them. Smite is in Beta still so things change quickly for it.