Franco Abrina
SMITE 2 is now in alpha as of writing this, and there are a couple of ways that you can gain access to it right now. If you are one of the lucky ones or just straight up bought your way in, you might be struggling to figure out how your settings should be, well, set up. In this guide, we aim to help you solve this conundrum!
Best Settings Guide
A lot of this is honestly completely dependent on your own hardware and preferences, especially when it comes to graphics settings. Remember, the game is currently in alpha, so a few issues with optimization and bugs should be expected.
Video & Audio Settings
Everythingunder the video tab is going to be completely subjective. There is no inherent advantage in playing at minimum settings, so just go with whatever gives you the best framerate without compromising visuals too much.
In fact, there are cases where it’s harder to tell what’s happening with lower settings. Plus, I’m sure a significant number of you actually want to appreciate the game’s visuals in general.
If you have some decent hardware but are experiencing some mild frame drops or just lower FPS than you think you should be getting, consider setting the following options to low:
- Reflection Quality – You can also set Reflection Method to Off.
- Foliage Quality
- Shadow Quality
Driving these settings down will help you push your framerate up a little higher without drastically affecting the overall visuals of the game.
Also, turn off Motion Blur. This is more of a personal preference thing as well, but I generally find it to be a nauseating and unnecessary setting in any game.
Play around with anything related to anti aliasing based on how things look on your own screen as well. Some people find that the graphics on their end look weird and blurry due to the game’s anti aliasing implementation, even though others with similar settings don’t experience the same problems.
As for audio settings, these are all personal preference once more. The only thing to keep in mind is your microphone volume if you plan on using the voice chat feature.
This menu is where you can adjust it and select the proper Microphone Device in case it’s incorrect, which is occasionally the case if you use a standalone microphone.
Gameplay Settings
As far as I know, cast mode is something that you can adjust for each god in the game. Generally, you’ll want to get used to either Instant or Quick casting as you get better. As usual, this boils down to personal preference, but to help you decide, here are the differences:
- Normal – Pressing an ability and then aiming it before clicking once more to actually fire it.
- Quick Casting – Allows you to aim by holding and then firing by releasing. You will get a visual showing where you’re aiming during this, or it will just instantly fire if you don’t hold.
- Instant Casting – As the name implies, you just fire off the ability instantly wherever you have your cursor hovering.
Double Tap to Fire should also be set to off as it just feels awkward to use. Feel free to try it out if you want, though it is usually considered to be particularly clunky.
Restrict Camera Pitch should also be turned off. If it feels a little weird for you, consider adjusting your Y Sensitivity settings first before you think about turning it back on.
On the topic of sensitivity, that’s just something that you will have to play around with until you find the sweet spot for your own preferences. Personally, I tend to be a low sens gamer, but I won’t subject you to that if you prefer the opposite. Just tweak it until it feels comfy.
Finally, if you are playing on a PC and have an NVIDIA GPU¸ scroll all the way down and turn on NVIDIA Reflex. Aside from some very unlikely edge cases, there’s no reason not to have this setting on for literally any game that has the option if you’re an Nvidia user.
UI Settings
Keep the Item Store Layout option at its default setting for now unless the placement really bothers you. If you are on console, you could maybe try Split as it is said to feel better for controller users.
Aside from that, you may want to set Item Purchase Popup Detail Level and Item Store Grid Detail Level to Descriptive. This will help you learn more about what the items do.
Alternatively, we also have a list of all of the items so far in SMITE 2’s Alpha Version. That article contains literally every item as of the time of writing this, which should be pretty handy.
Nameplate Name Display should ideally be set to at least God Name. On the flip side, Self Nameplate is even more subjective. If you prefer to have your health bar, among other things, visible over your head, then you should set Self Nameplate on.
Finally, Movement while in Menus is generally nice to have on, so set it to Allow. It’s nothing too significant, but it does make the overall gameplay experience feel a little smoother.
Usability Settings
Under the Usability tab, there are actually more than just plain accessibility options here, so let’s go through each of them in bullet format:
- Color Correction – This should be kept off unless you are colorblind, in which case, yeah, turn it on if you have to.
- Auto Skill – Keep this off, even if you are new to the game. Turning it on may stifle your growth as a player.
- Help Tips – Keep this on for now, as a lot of things might not be the same from the original SMITE.
- Distance Line Indicator – Set it to Ruler.
- Ground Target – Set it to Arrow.
- Bracket Highlighting – Turn it on.
- Reticle Shape – Personal preference.
- Show Targeter 3D Elements – Not really too significant, but you can keep it on.
Controls Settings
Finally, controls are completely subjective and I have absolutely no idea what may or may not be comfortable for you. I highly recommend playing with the default controls and then just adjusting a few things as you go.
For example, you could set your relic keybind as one of your side mouse buttons if yours have any. You might even want to change all of the ability keybinds to something easier to press while using WASD controls.
It’s all a matter of preference here, and you have all the freedom to get weird with it. Just note that if you have a 60% keyboard (the ones with no F-Keys), you might actually need to rebind a few things before hopping into a match.
And that wraps up this guide on all of the settings in SMITE 2’s alpha version. Once you have finished tweaking stuff to your liking, hop on in and help with the testing efforts and have fun!
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