So far, I think Smite 2 is on the right track. Since the very first alpha test, there have been many improvements in the right direction. I'll start my review with things that I think Smite 2 does better.
First off, I think the improvements to the god's kits are great. They are porting a lot of gods from Smite 1 who's kits are outdated. When these gods were first released they were great. However, now with newer and more complicated gods to compete with, these older gods struggle. The Smite 2 team has done a great job updating these god's kits while maintaining their identity. These gods still feel like the gods you know and love, but a bit easier to play. I also find that the model updates they have made have been excellent. I like what they did with Nemesis. She still looks like Nemesis, but they fixed her design to make more sense than it did before (fishnets were not the choice in retrospect).
I think the new building system is much better than before. While more complicated at first glance, it is easy to pick up and offers more flexibility than Smite 1. You can still choose to stick to simple builds or even use the same builds you'd use in Smite 1. However, now you have more options for build pathways, allowing you to personalize your builds further. Especially for my mains, I like figuring out my builds for gods, so it's nice for that to be a bit easier now. The new scaling system is also excellent for the same reasons. You get a lot more options that weren't available before.
The last two good things I want to touch on is the changes to the conquest map and graphics. I think the new conquest map looks great and I like the new objectives. My only complaint is that there is no green buff for support and red buff is too far from mid. I think that support deserves to have a buff of its own. Support is already a role that many people don't like and not giving the role a buff is like adding insult to injury.
Also, the new graphics look great. A lot of the graphics for the abilities are a lot clearer than the ones in Smite 1, both the ability icons and the way hitboxes are shown before you channel an ability look a lot cleaner.
There's really only two things I don't like about Smite 2 currently: the way damage feels and matchmaking.
The way damage and defense feel is a bit off from Smite 1. For starters, as a tank, in the late game you don't feel tanky. Normally if I engage in a fight and want to back out safely, as long as I keep my dash up, I can do so easily in Smite 1. In Smite 2 however, I get deleted within a handful of seconds. While I agree that squishies should die relatively fast to teach them good positioning, as a tank player it's hard for me to dive the enemy team if I get deleted before my team can follow up. Along with that, I find everyone does a lot more damage than they do in Smite 1. Tanks in general take chunks of squishies' health while being comparatively hard to kill. When I play solo, if I play right, I can 2v1 into squishies and win by having similar damage output and being just a tad tankier than they are. I think the way damage and defense feel should be brought back to match Smite 1's a bit more.
This is just a minor criticism in comparison, but matchmaking is a bit rough. I regularly get teammates who don't understand how the game works, while the enemy team is competent. It's rough because I'll be doing fine, but my team isn't and I can't do enough to help them. While I know part of this is due to the lower player base since it's an alpha, I think matchmaking has something to do with this. I say this because I had better luck with matchmaking when there was none at all in earlier tests.
Overall, I think the game is in the right direction. Something I would like to see that I don't believe is in the plans to come is win/loss screens for the gods and death animations. I remember the dev team saying that they didn't want to bring the win/loss screens back since people didn't look at them, but I think they add a lot of character to the gods. Sure you get used to them over time, but when you see one you haven't seen before, they are very entertaining and add more soul to the game. Also, I find that the current explosion they use for deaths is visually harder for me to track. It's easier for me to tell that I've died when I see the animation and it adds character to the game. But those are just two nitpicks.
