As someone who came from the original SMITE since its first season, SMITE 2 has a lot of potential. I think the overall foundation of SMITE 2 is better than the original, but as it stands with the first closed alpha build, it has its problems like any early alpha. My one main fear is balancing, something we will see how they’ll deal with in the second closed alpha.
With some of the gods being well overtuned scaling, like Bacchus or Susano, and gods having undertuned scaling, like Odin or Zeus, I’m worried S2 will fall under the weight of balancing, similar to some of the gods in SMITE 1. With the smaller god pool, I do think they should have an easier time with balancing the over and undertuned, but they all depends on how they are listening and who they are listening to.
I love and much prefer the 1 relic system, but one thing I wish they could carry over from smite 1 is the evolving of said relics. I think it would help nerf/buff the relics in terms of early, mid, and late game (Sunder is just too good in the early game, but I can see it staying the same for mid or late game in which most abilities outside of Sunder can one shot camps.)
The performance of the game is at a consistent 60-70 FPS, which is way better than how SMITE 2 started out. There are a few hiccups here and there but overall games run smoothly.
I expected bugs to be in the alpha, but some are more annoying than others. The fact my settings can just randomly revert back after each launch is probably the most problematic one outside of god bugs.
I love the items and building in SMITE 2, but I am still not a fan of the shop. It feels much less intuitive than its SMITE 1 counterpart. The role tabs aren’t all that effective either as there are items that should be in one tab, but it is in fact in another. Purchasing from the shop just feels a lot slower compared to SMITE 1. There are definitely some item buffs that need to occur though, specifically with anti-crit and tank items.
The jungle practice needs some work. Like being able to change the god bot, sellable starter and relic, have a moving target for aim practice, etc. I personally think even adding an empty conquest map to practice role starting positions and rotations would be a nice touch, especially for the esport crowd. I’ve heard that a tutorial is on the way, so I hope that improvements on pre-game practice will also be implemented. Also it would be neat to be able to change gods without leaving and coming back to the jungle practice, though I don’t know how practical that would be.
Skin/cosmetic costs definitely need to be looked at. There aren’t a lot of legacy skins in the game yet, but the fact that Joki Loki, a skin that originally costed 400 gems, now costs 2600 legacy gems? The founder pack’s 2x legacy gems are essentially useless now since the Joki skin costs 6.5x MORE gems. Also the fact that SMITE 2 exclusive skins cost legacy gems is kind of idiotic, legacy gems should ONLY be used for cross gen and legacy skins in my opinion, but even then Legacy Gems feel kind of pointless at the moment as all the skins except Joki and Meltdown require the S2 currency (which everyone starts off with 0) Diamonds.
Lastly, I hope they don’t ONLY test balancing with the flash tests. I think what they should do is use the flash tests as a good ground to balance the pre-existing gods in the closed and use the feedback for a bonus patch and keep the new gods and features saved for the upcoming true patch.