My Thoughts On Smite 2's First Alpha Playtest

I'm not sure if I'll make one of these for each playtest but this one was the big one so I wanted to gather my thoughts and make a video for anyone interested.
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Intro Song: "By My Side" by DJ Quads
Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: www.epidemicsou...
Outro Song: "Scared of Heights" by Loving Caliber
Game: SMITE 2 by Hi-Rez Studios

[@arr0w769]

I think the item store needs some serious work, its super clunky and hard to navigate, confusing how to buy items too

[@corgimalone2499]

yeah its pretty rough

[@KingsCompanyy]

It’s a lot more simple than smite 1

[@thatoneguy5001]

@@KingsCompanyynot at all

[@KingsCompanyy]

@@thatoneguy5001 smite 1s store is the outlier clear as day smite 2 aligns very similarly to most of the other popular mobas of today, it’s a positive change

[@1366Erik]

​​@@corgimalone2499 yeah it looks pretty damn ugly too

[@gbtygfvyg]

The invisible abilities is not a DX11 problem I can promise you that. I regularly had invisible chaac axe and neith roots.

[@Spiritual_Corndog]

Invisible Anubis wraps over here ✋

[@CrazyJudgeYT]

Invis Anubis wraps for me as well. Felt really bad for sure.

[@lucaswilliams7339]

Inivs Kuku 1 and Anubis wraps for me

[@goose5474]

Same here and on ps5

[@Immortal_coil4]

Lucky sons of guns I still don't have access.

[@ProfessorLink64]

26:51 I never thought I'd see the day where Mast was actually asking for a ward skin to be added to Smite! Hell nobody ever wants ward skins in Smite 1 but here we have Mast asking for such a silly thing in Smite 2. In case someone need me to say this, yes this is a joke.

[@kobbler8956]

I live on the far west side of CAN and I was so excited to try it but the servers were SOO unbearable, happy it went well for others tho

[@dinopower901]

I think they need to make it so surrendering is actually based on the majority cause if 3/5 people want to surrender that's more than half the team

[@avengedhotfuzz7499]

Nah I like how it requires a super majority of your team. Surrendering is a serious thing especially considering matchmaking taking so long.

[@pineapplekun8769]

They need to work on basic attack and ability travel time. I would play Ymir for example and would try to auto attack before an ability to min max when enemies were on range and either of those sometimes wouldn’t register when they would in smite 1. It couldn’t have been my lag as I never had trouble with anything until I tried something like that

[@jordanstone7591]

I been watching your videos for like 6 years and honestly, I'd rather see Pred right now..

[@IsleOfHopelessMinds]

*KOO-KOO-KLAHN

[@nickdavid1846]

Smite 2 looks good, I just couldn't get into it. Played 3 games and every game my team never wanted to end or I just got rolled because of matchmaking. Just waiting for better matchmaking is all

[@Solo-Brit]

is this smite 1 ?

[@Ghostah]

I think that the buff thing is a bit weird as well, but it allows you strategize on who needs what buff more, and at what time. The dc's and the rage quits really ruined the xp for me over all but i enjoyed the game itself.

[@Ghostah]

Also, Zeus 1 did something similar to kuk 1 but that only started the second day of the playtest for me. Zeus 1 *also* displaced minions for no reason too which really threw off the flow of the lane for me personally.

[@Ghostah]

And i believe personally the potion thing is fine, because they essentially turned them from consumables *into* items.

[@Ghostah]

I also feel like the potions will just take some getting used to, similar to playing league after playing smite since they also take an item slot there, but are much less effective

[@charlesbronson2926]

i still dont uderstand why they bohthered with this. just make smite better

[@egg13244]

I didn't have that many rage quits, but I did have one particularly memorable match in which we had 6 players on our team instead 5. Was honestly pretty funny

[@ZZorans]

wait.... what? lol

[@ZZorans]

that is some wild crazy glitch and i cant lie, kinda wanna know how tf that even happened

[@alexluna9422]

I had a similar experience but the enemy team had six but their anhur kept spawning in our base and dying to our titan. lol I did take advantage and got kills on him and went into lane 1.5 levels up with a. T2 item lol

[@Trollmangolo]

​@@alexluna9422 lol wish you recorded that

[@egg13244]

@@ZZorans I honestly have no idea. Eventually the game just stopped like 20 min in and kicked us all back to the main menu.

[@sjengmann8474]

THEY MADE SMITE 2

[@blurgz]

For real, this is accurate. I really enjoyed Smite 2, but the raging (or maybe just getting kicked out of the game) killed me. It made the fun so quickly drain away and made me mad I couldn't do customs. The ward skin issue is so true!!! It's just odd and out of place. Even though things look clunky, it isn't like there's a lime green anhur pillar. Make it fit even slightly, and I'm in it.

[@hunterhofmann-hitt1756]

Yeah like you said, 70% of games having a rage quit in 10 min, its wild how salty people were on literally hour 1 of smite 2. It felt even more toxic than smite 1 within an hour of the release.

[@hfislwpa]

I didn’t have this at all though 🤷‍♂️

[@hunterhofmann-hitt1756]

@@hfislwpa well that’s great for you. You got to have an actual play test instead of people rage quiting 3 minutes in because they were on tower line in mid.

[@ImMimicute]

To be fair as much as that absolutely sucks, smite player base being the most awful folk going isn't really something hirez themselves can actually fix

[@tarik365]

@@ImMimicute this is basically just any moba playerbase, main character syndromed people that think theyre better than they actually are and play for their own ego trip and not for fun, they die once and the ego crumbles and they want to end the game early and go again, its a shame that this mentality seems to seep into every single MOBA, LoL dota smite and even the new predecessor

[@Zathren]

​@@tarik365 I don't want to burst your bubble, but it has nothing to do with MOBA. And everything to do with being an online PvP game. Every single PvP online game is like this. Without exception.

[@MrRogersShorts]

Honsetly, I thought it was all rage quits, but then I noticed a few of my games 2 players would DC around the same time. I thought that was weird, until my friend got DCd from a game due to a crash and when he booted back up he couldn't rejoin the game. It sent him to a lobby screen and was able to requeue into a different match. It looks like the recconect to match feature isn't a thing yet. Hopefully that will be a thing in the next play test.

[@greatbritishgamer1418]

Nah reconnect was deffo a thing. I crashed a few times on PC but managed to reconnect. Usually if you can't reconnect the actual server itself died.

[@MrRogersShorts]

@@greatbritishgamer1418 that’s strange, because I was still in the game and he was able to re-queue. I just gotta keep reminding myself it’s an ALPHA. Looking forward to the next play test though

[@TheGoldPrecision]

Wonder how cool a first person moba could be, imagining like overwatch style thing but on a traditional moba map and all the same mechanics

[@MastYT]

originally I thought overwatch was gonna basically be a moba and I was so sad when it wasn't

[@mr.jenkins8666]

Being new to Predecessor and Dota as a Smite enjoyer, when I play Overwatch I say "This game would go crazy with lanes, minions, camps, items to build into, and a balance around 30min to - 1hour+ games" and not the 5 - 20 min games OV balances for

[@PGGAMINGKj0820]

Battleborn was more moba like for first person

[@grantlawrence4600]

It was Battleborn. Great game that came out at a bad time. And had some questionable development decisions.

[@Daphflrks]

Mast's ward skin stuff made me giggle. And I agree. Smite's art dept is absolutely GOATed, USE THEIR TALENTS!

[@MrLuc237]

I just really dislike the interact button. I feel like this can be solved by automatically interacting. An unnessecary change from smite 1 of reinventing the wheel. Auto pick up and auto open doors is much better. You won't get the problem where it doesn't properly register your input or maybe you're a pixel out of range.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

"Hold to interact" is one of the many modern plagues on video gaming.

[@MrLuc237]

@@HighLanderPonyYT press f to pay respects used with different words. A dumb mechanic indeed

[@TheMr_Phant0m]

I'm glad you mentioned having wards and pots on their own slot. That was probably the thing I disliked the most about the alpha. I also wish the item store was a bit more sorted. In Smite 1 it feels way more organized. I wish I could just see t3 items and not see all the t1s and t2s it really made it hard for me to get into the alpha. Also being that is a 2024 game I expected the store UI to be better than the Smite 1 UI2.0 and its really not.

[@Demonrifts]

You expected an early alpha to have better UI than a game that has been released for over 10 years?

[@Zathren]

People are saying this looks awful?! They clearly haven't played the first ps2 looking ass game.

[@russellg9622]

For me it just looks like a slight increase in graphics. Smite 1 was like late ps2 graphics and this looks like early ps3 graphics. Predecessor just looks so much better I doubt I’ll be able to get into this.

[@Demonrifts]

For all the people complaining about graphics: Would it help to understand that the graphics are also alpha? Seriously, compare Smite 1 beta footage to the game we have today. Models, lighting, animations, effects have all improved quite a lot within the same engine. You have to build the foundation and walls of a house before you can worry about the paint and décor, and this is comparable in many ways. Once the foundation is in place, then they can start worrying about shaders, tightening up animations, varying levels of graphical detail in environments and models based off user settings, and many other things that can really harness the capabilities of UE5.

[@tacolord2561]

would you playing in customes mean you would play mainly with other content creators/long time smiters because if so i would love to see you and skipper just go and fuck people up in smite 2 against other creators, or honestly just see skipper in smite 2 love that guy

[@Aldruon]

Adding other buttons for consumables while also adding buttons for all the new active items may make the game more difficult for players with disabilities, such as myself (I only have one hand with fine motor function so all inputs are currently mapped to a mouse). I'm already a little worried because the mouse I use has only a few unused buttons just in smite 1. Even accounting for the "removal" of item slots that's 5 new buttons I will have to fit onto the mouse (6 active items, -2 for the freed up consumable slots, +1 for jump/interact). I probably can fit them all, but it will be extremely tight. If there are two more I would not be able to map them all and I wouldn't be able to play the game nearly as well. Thanks to anyone who read my mini-essay!

[@Cazyman24]

I know you said that you should be banned in the playtest if you leave the game but for me I have had to leave a couple of games due to my internet. If I were to get removed from the playtest I would be livid.

[@Ravendore394]

Playing a smite match against mast... Talk about a nightmare. I don't want to see my gold tier ass getting bodied by my favorite content creator on my favorite channel. You can keep that😂

[@chrisa.2323]

Talking about the 'meta' for a game that's existed for like 90 hours feels a little short sighted imo 😅 More conversations about the building blocks of the game, like the button mapping problems for potions and actives, are more important

[@SnackPack_Gaming]

I agree 110% percent

[@DrProdigist]

Brother, there’s no way you watched the whole thing

[@MastYT]

@@DrProdigist no he legit commented within 1 minute of upload LOL

[@SnackPack_Gaming]

@@MastYT man’s out here outing me

[@Zidizzle87]

The timestamp betrayed you bruv 😂

[@MrDv1lowes]

I completely agree with you. I've been playing Smite for over 9 years, and I decided to buy the $100 Smite 2 package. I played one game during the alpha and left completely disappointed. I understand what he point of the alpha is, but you can't help it if extinguishes that hype you had originally. It made Smite 1 feel perfect. That says so much lol.

[@norsefaka6679]

I want to prefrence this I hate active items so i have a bias towards them but I miss my relics and not having to worry about pressing a button on a active that I tend to forget about also zues having a stun whos Idea was that lmfao other then that I agree with most of what Mast said so good alpha Im excited for the game and where they go with it

[@alexaxy3328]

I got lucky. I only got 1 dc in 10 games. And what was funny is that the enemy team couldn't win. The game last for 1 hour and that because we finally managed to f6, 'cause they were unable to end, lol.

[@TrueLawbringer]

I had problems with smite 2 mainly with the new store is NOT optimized for controllers, so I’ll hop in in the next alpha

[@KingsCompanyy]

Had a very weird issue while playing a couple different characters where I would pop an ability and it would just not go off at all noticed it a ton with fenrirs 3 where I’m clicked it I’m not stunned or anything and my ability would not come out until I used another ability then tried it again very weird

[@mrdhong2143]

Glad somebody said something about the toxic playerbase its insane to me these people either got keys or actually paid 30$ just to troll, smite 2 should of had a report system from the start id say about 60% of my games my teammates would just leave or they would mess up the laning phase so badly it was impossible to come back from the enemy teams lead

[@hisen3.146]

While a lot of the changes were good, there were some that just seemed backwards from what they've done before. Fenrir's 3 used to crit and proc item effects. Then that got removed so they buffed him in other areas to be in a decent spot. Current Fenrir was ported over except he now gets a CC immune 3 that can crit and proc item effects. Loki's invis having a reset mechanic, keeping Decoy and removing the ult cripple. Zeus just getting a boat load of attack speed for pretty much no reason other than "funny AS button go brrrr." It's more AS than Awilix ult or Olorun 2. (Zeus is just a really dumb change in general, even though I like that his 3 can stun.) It makes me distrust that the team have genuinely learned from the past 10 years of making SMITE 1, meaning we can expect the same issues from that game to pop up here. Disregarding issues from the old engine, of course. I wasn't expecting the game to be balanced. I was expecting it to be reasonable without some blatant bloating of old kits just to say "This is Zeus. But 2! Look how fast this Zeus can basic attack at level 9!"

[@TheRealChacorta]

I like the new Zeus- I hate the shield arc lightning. I do agree that Fenrir is incredibly overtuned as is Bellona.

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Bellona overtuned, shocker. /s

[@MercyBanisher]

These were my problems with the first alpha, disregarding bugs and poor balance (obv its an alpha) * The range on the archer minions makes hitting all wave with 1 aoe skill almost impossible. * No chat is really bad, specially with the surge of new players who cant navigate VGs, and i think it may account for a lot of the rage quits. * Gold and Horn are very useless objs imo * Not sure if anyone else have this, but holding down LMB to attack seems to lower my sens on ranged gods * Game flow feels slow, except when a tower is targeting a god. Towers feel to act at 1.5x game speed if that means anything Which is really good because most of those are just a tweak away

[@horia43]

This is among the first videos about Smite 2. I heard about DC's too. Just asking, what if they crashed ( running DX12 perhaps, like you did? ) or some other reasons for crashing and they couldn't get back in ? I'm sad I didn't get to test the game, didn't receive a key.. D: But indeed some of the problems that you mention seem to make Smite 2 a possible big fiasco, like Payday 3 launch had..

[@popeyeclapsgoku774]

Koo-Cool-K-AWWWW-N His game character says his own name “I am Kukulkan” You keep calling him “Koo-Kul-CAN” which sounds like Cu Chulainn Appreciate your content tho

[@AlecAstaire]

IMO fire giant felt too hard to do vs the reward. Often times it’d lead to a team fight over fg and whoever started it took too much damage and would get cleaned up. If you got the buff free, it didn’t feel that impactful either. Ancient fury felt too OP, and it was a free win every time we took. Like if you’re ahead and take ancient, I don’t understand how you don’t just win the game instantly. 3 minutes is too much time to walk in Phoenix. Imagine too split pushing with ancient fury. Idk I think ancient needs a bit of a nerf, or fire needs a bit of a buff. I’d rather give up fire 10/10 for ancient and just send my Apollo or Loki to kill all their phoenixes.. doesn’t seem balanced

[@mrsato7508]

No, free wards on cooldowns is just better. Spending 50 gold for something you always need is annoying. They just need to add charges to ward shard, or make it refillable on the base. They could also place active potion effects on tier 1 items

[@YR-jg1gk]

Loki invis sucks?? Like it’s harder to get out of engagements or enter into them on smite 2. I was chilling because I mainly played anhur, Anubis and bellona . But when I tried him one game. Idk it feels off??. Like the enemy team knew where I was most of the time.

[@scottvmorrell666]

Let’s face it having all these keyed abilities is gonna make console difficult and we need all platforms playing, prob wouldn’t survive without them, also totally agree with moving two slots back. I get that building can be some much better with no physical or magical but with relics being intergraded such as blink, u are stuck buying that item which might not help ur build but what choice do you have, that feels bad

[@LoneWolf-jp4bz]

It makes me mad I didn’t get in but baby ragers did! Like HI REZ IM RIGHT HERE LET ME GET TO BONKING!

[@BigQuadsOnCampus]

Smite wasnt my game when I tried it way back when and Smite 2 isnt any different. At least the dota guys came up with a new map. Good for them for updating to a newer generation of UE but thats about all it chalks up to.

[@talosisoursavior3061]

Day 314 of asking on behalf of that other guy for Bacchus adc with full mage adc build/attack speed so late game when autoing you become a beyblade

[@jecampos149]

Me waiting for if they change Bastet ult for the 4th time.

[@ZeroFlameX]

I feel like this game’s worst enemy, is the smite player base itself. People whine, cry and DC over anything. It ruins the fun of the game and the fact that this is happening in the alpha stage, isn’t a good sign.

[@treymeadows6904]

I know someone who bought into the alpha and complained about bugs and jank and refunded it. Doesn't understand what an alpha is but the same just can't play a game without complaining

[@melatuca1]

I've never heard of Smite until this video. And it looks fun, something I would check out for sure.

[@kazutokirigaya4208]

I’m against the key binds being needed on the over world map like buffs and gold camp I think it’s to much

[@holybearjew9254]

They need to work on the UI for console, the shop is atrocious on console and there are a decent about of gods that have bugs. The invisible abilities are a thing for me to and Zeus 1 telaports minions around the map

[@OmegaIL]

Guys, does he say anything about matches length? Does take the same time? Less, maybe? More action packed?

[@theBlackbriar]

it would be cool if Kuku dash had the ability to convert his static tornado into a mini susano ult that sends the tornado forward in the direction of the dash. instead of a knock up, also give it the spin animation from the mercury ult lol.

[@Mazz1118]

The match were bad bcs ppl dont surrend being 0-30 in a 3v5 game and the game goes to 50min 😭😭

[@Dimi421]

Smite 2 felt very clunky and overall just a very underwhelming experience for me.

[@twistedjoker7944]

Hope they put select your role before you que back in instead of after. Rushing to get your role before someone else sucks. I thought the game felt good.

[@phaverd3017]

There was a really bad bug where u would fall through the map it u are fen ulted and beads near the end of it that doesn’t fix it’s self until the game is over

[@chibuikeodibeli2232]

great vid!

[@Dezzy2178]

It’s pretty bad in every aspect, looks terrible outside menus on console

[@Malstrx]

I had the same projectile problem on PS5 on west coast.

[@ProdByAngus]

If smite 2 is so good, why didn't they make a Smite 2 2?

[@SeleckPlays]

The chat system is the worst part of Smite 1.

[@Xeggr]

I just made a comment for the engagement, don’t hate me plz 😭 ごめんなさい！

[@SnowieGinja]

So maybe as a temp fix for the chat system: Add more VGS and add the missing VGS. I want to call Enemy Ult down and then push 1-5 for a god on the enemy team (so VBD[D,1-5]) but the 1-5 might not be able to be consistence enough. Same for beads or active defensive just make a new VGS for it.

[@contractslivid5118]

The graphical update was needed a lot.

[@JetSe77er]

I don't like how they made the items look like LoL.

[@GDub356]

If people can give games like Tarkov,Star Citizen etc. games that have grossed millions and millions and still remain in “beta” for 6+ years slack saying things like “dude it’s in beta it will get better” I think smite 2 in its first alpha can get some slack lol

[@Cutter-o5f]

The active item inputs for controllers are the only major thing I disliked. The left most item slot was mapped to right stick plus right shoulder and the next item to the right was mapped to right stick plus left shoulder. Why? Confused me all weekend. After that the items were mapped to right stick plus face buttons. Idk how I’m supposed to press that without holding the controller like a psycho. At least if there is no better solution, when the time comes for balance they can just try to make buying 3 or more active items trolling.

[@nozomashii821]

Chat is definitely necessary, I'm mute/aphonic and obviously communicating with friends was very hard since not everyones gonna be tabbing out to discord eveyr few seconds to check what i'm saying, whereas in smite 1 i can just party chat and be like 'neith beads down ymir ult down'

[@ras_benda7647]

Navigating the item shop as console player on controller is a nightmare. I only played 6-7 matches but it was very cluttered and if I sold something with the auto builder on, it would stop working completely! Seriously hope they address this in the future😊

[@mikeongomg]

How has nobody mentioned dissappearing/teleporting minions? I swear almost all my games I had at least one lane minion dissappear into thin air or pop into existence. In the games I played with a friend they would call out a minion just disappear from their lane at the same time one appeared in my lane, like they were teleporting to another lane. Sometimes it happened like 6 times total in a match. Also some lane minions were just stuck in the jungle buffs.

[@theBombbrigade]

The no dedicated consumable slots, brings it more in line with League of Legends. HiRez is probably gonna keep it that way imho

[@Athraxas]

One thing about the wards that annoyed me more than them being a green dot is that you can't see their range after you placed them. They do generally seem to have a much bigger range than in Smite 1, but I'd still like to see on the map what exactly they cover and if there's blind spots an enemy could hide in. I also hate the normal ping sound it made. Made me not wanting to use it at all, because it was so damn loud. But I'm sure they're gonna change that with the next Alpha. At least I hope so 😂

[@AceOniFlyer]

Also I’d say for the rage quitting, don’t just do it on the number of times. But instead see if you can measure how long it takes for them to join a new match. As someone who gets work calls at random times, I don’t want to get screwed just because I get a major off shift call.

[@xoheartss662]

I’m all for voice chat coach me tell me what to do

[@legendaru9767]

Hey i thought this match looked familiar I’m that Anhur in the Bacchus game! It’s too bad that Zeus gave up you guys could’ve definitely beat us then!

[@ayodelingyeti5654]

I'm all in for smite 2! There were plenty of bugs and things to polish but we knew that going in, it's just a test and early taste of what's to come, I personally can't wait to continue playing smite 2 and see how much better it gets.

[@winns35]

DotA 2 is technically still in beta state.

[@laxson1675]

On you first video you said something about how the items move into the first available slot for actives and I didn't like that at all I'd rather them stay in the slots they were placed and like you were saying just add consumable slots and deal with more key binds but I could see that being a controller issue.

[@angelchavez3226]

I agree smite 2 has promise and i think will be good after polish tbh ik there gonna be bugs but i say by beta stage will be hella good the store kinda reminds me of predssors cant spell sorry but yea it does feel like it has promise and love what they tryna do hopefully the way ppl be about games now in days dont try to kill it bc they suck or just cuz some things are not good or buggy even full release cuz there will always be bugs but all about the feed back if the devs listen and keep working on it all i wanna see tbh

[@maximiliano_alegri]

took two minutes to realise it's a voiceover

[@AceOniFlyer]

My only worry against the separate consumable slots is for the console players. I’ve never played with a controller, but for those that do, are there enough buttons for it?

[@Jeraco24]

For the item store I'd just go immediately to the teir 3 items and just buy from there as it auto shows the tier 1 and 2 items

[@giftapfel]

revert loki to an auto cancel god again

[@db5143]

First!

[@AfRoNlNjA]

My Anubis wraps were invisible as well. I was on DX12 and on the West Coast.

[@RoxxManiaFR52]

Zeus changes feels sooo bad tho

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Paying to beta test. Lulk

[@sethmoreland1278]

I had a bug where their teammate that didn't connect spawned repeatedly in our fountain the entire game and insta died

[@MrShalabii]

i know the first alpha is over but if you use msi after burner thats caused the crashing for me

[@cryptochronos4099]

I think you were right on the invis abilities being a ping thing, fellow west coaster and while on max settings not using dx11 i was having a similar experience with kuku 1 and anubis wrap.

[@rjthegreatyt9139]

When talking about buffs you forgot red which from what I was seeing is OP

[@DantesDeception]

I like the potions and wards being tied to inventory slots. It means safer early game and riskier late game.

[@mikeycastillo2364]

i thought smite 2 was soild, reslly excited to see what it’ll be like full release

[@RareDolo]

i love you mast

[@Justic3ree6ixty]

Predecessor ❤

[@darkpistol96]

I think they announced it too early. They should have waited another year

[@Hung_Nguyen_90]

That Anubis really wrap you like a burito 😂

[@firstername]

predecessor 2 gameplay when