The Smite on Xbox One Alpha went live this week, and with that an entirely new audience will try the game for the first time. For many of these it will be their first taste of a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), and the immense complexity this genre brings can be daunting to say the least. Hi-Rez Studios implemented a lot of features, like the auto-buy and auto-level features, to make learning the game a lot easier. But that is not the only way Smite helps you learn the game: the game modes themselves can help you get comfortable with the game quickly! Each game mode allows you to work on a specific set of skills, preparing you for the next step on the road to the classic tri-lane Conquest mode. This is the first of a X part series detailing the game modes and the aspects of the game they allow you to learn and work on.

ARENA
The first game mode to consider is Arena, a 5 vs 5 full on deathmatch staged in the most classic arena of them all: the Colosseum. Minions pour forth from each ‘base’ at either end of the circular battleground and meet in the middle to slug it out in classic MOBA fashion. Each team starts with 500 tickets, and the goal is to get the enemy team’s counter to zero before your team’s does. Each minion that is killed by a god, opposed to dying to another minion, subtracts one ticket from the counter, and killing enemy gods subtracts five tickets. Every minion that reaches the portal at the other end of the arena also subtracts a ticket, so guiding them can be worth the effort. What’s more, every ten god kills your team has a large minion will spawn, looking like a medieval siege tower, that’s worth ten tickets when guided through the portal at the other end. Additionally, on either side of the arena you will find three neutral camps carrying buffs. I will delve into these later on, as they aren’t as important in this mode as they are in the others.

Sound complex? Not at all. It’s basically just kill everything in sight!

Now, what does this game mode teach you? First of all, it’s the best game mode to get used to controlling your god and just getting a general feel for the game. Respawn timers are pretty short and mistakes aren’t nearly punished as hard as they are in other modes. It also gives you some practice in teamfighting, as it is pretty much a 15-20 minute non-stop all in brawl. You learn how to position yourself when huge ultimates go off and how to juke (dodge) the abilities that are flying around (in abundance I might add). The last thing it teaches you is the importance of minions and pushing. This is done more subtly, but there is a very direct reward tied into the game mode (the tickets) for ensuring you keep up your clear (short for ‘clearing the minions). This subtle encouragement will be key in later game modes when farming (getting gold and experience) becomes more important.

JOUST (3V3)
So, you’ve played a couple of games of Arena and have gotten somewhat comfortable with the controls. It’s time to move on to the next game mode: Joust (3v3). This is a small medieval themed map with just one lane and a jungle path on each side of it. As the name implies, each team is made up of 3 gods who will joust it out in this single lane. This is the first mode where you will encounter the main objectives of the game: Towers, Phoenixes and, most importantly, Titans. Your main goal in this mode, and every other mode except Arena and the Match of the Days based on that, is destroying the enemy Titan. You do this by first destroying the Tower at the end of the center stretch of the map, because as long as it’s up, the Phoenix and Titan are immune to damage. You do this by killing the enemy minions, pushing yours under their tower so they can tank it (take the damage from the tower shots) as your gods attack the tower to bring it down. It is important to note that Towers and Phoenixes are immune to abilities! You can only bring them down with basic attacks, and hitting a god causes the Tower to refocus on (aggro) the first one that damaged that god while under tower range, attacking that ally.

It’s pretty much rinse and repeat with the Phoenix, with one major difference: three minutes after being taken down a Phoenix will respawn, but with reduced health and damage. This is indicated by a slowly filling circle on the minimap, so keep your eyes on that when it has been a while since you destroyed it. Games have been lost due to a wild Phoenix appearing, making the Titan immune to damage with the tiniest sliver of health left.

Finally, there’s the Titan. Unlike most other MOBAs, the final objective is not a building you need to take down, though it is about as large as one. The Titans will fight back with very powerful attacks, but use the same guides for targeting as the Tower and the Phoenix. Use this to your advantage! Push hard and get your minions in the base so you and your allies are free to burn down the Titan.

But that is not all that is on this map. Along the jungle paths you will find three neutral camps, and you might recognize them from Arena. These are the jungle camps that contain the blue (mana), red (power) and purple (attack speed) buffs, giving you mana regeneration, increased damage and increased attack speed respectively. These camps offer a lot of experience, and ensuring they’re cleared as much as possible can give you a good edge over the enemy. Like the phoenix, the time it takes for the camps to respawn is indicated by a circle on the minimap. Do note that these are the new season 2 buffs, and there is a chance that the Alpha isn’t quite there yet on release.

This game mode teaches you to push (attack and eventually destroy) lane objectives, how they behave and the damage they do to your god. Tower diving (attacking an enemy god under his or her Tower) can be a painful experience, especially for damage oriented characters who tend to dish a lot more than they can take. Mistakes are punished a lot harder in this game mode as well, so playing smart and punishing the mistakes the enemy makes are key features of this game mode, and all the others. The final thing this game mode teaches is the importance of jungle buffs, and what they allow you to do, as they have a significant effect on the flow of the game.

SIEGE
After getting comfortable with pushing and becoming familiar with how the lane objectives behave, it’s time to take the next step in your growth in Smite: Siege. This map is located in the midst of the Mayan jungle and consists of two lanes with a jungle in between that contains camps for each of the buffs and the first neutral objective: the Siege Juggernaut. Right in the center of the map is a giant monster playing around in his little circle, and killing this monster spawns one of your own to push one of the lanes. The Siege Juggernaut is a beefy beast that quickly destroys Towers, and focuses these above all other targets when in range. The other way to get one to spawn is through killing minions, jungle camps and enemy gods. Each kill gives you a small amount of points, and an indicator on your screen shows the progress of your team towards this objective. As soon as your team has a Juggernaut a portal appears on the wall across the fountain, allowing you to instantly teleport to it and aid the friendly giant in pushing the lane.

This game mode is the final step in preparing yourself (and your body) for conquest, and teaches you the last fundamentals. First of all, Siege teaches you to pay a lot of attention to the minimap and how to rotate effectively. A big part of the game is ganking the other lane and creating an advantage for your team. This does come at a risk, as you leave one of your team members behind. As an extension of this, it also teaches the importance of warding. Knowing what the opposing team is doing when they’re not in the lane can be the key to success. The number of wards in this mode is severely limited, so make smart use of each one of them, and every member of the team needs to contribute.

It also makes you aware of the neutral objective. Losing control of this beast of an ally can set your team back greatly, especially when the enemy spawns (or just is just about) one from killing minions and jungle camps. Conversely, it can give you a major advantage to have two Siege Juggernauts push down a lane, or one in each.

Finally it further reinforces the importance of the jungle camps. The camps give significantly more tickets than regular lane minions do, and ensuring they’re under your control is essential to having the upper hand over your enemy.

CONQUEST
Finally, you’re ready. You have practiced the core mechanics, are comfortable with a number of gods, know how to ward, rotate and contest objectives. You are familiar with your deity of choice and how far you can push him or her. It’s time to put on your try-hard booties and jump into Conquest!

The key features of this map are quite different from all the other modes, and even after all your prepping it will take some time to get used to. The neutral objectives are the Gold Fury and the Fire Giant. The former is a relatively nasty beast early game, but gives each member of your team 300 gold upon defeat. When the game progresses she forms less and less of a threat, up until the point that certain gods can kill her alone. The Fire Giant is a completely different story, and is best considered the raid boss of Smite. The fight is hard if you’re unfamiliar with his attack patterns, and almost always requires a concerted effort from your team to take down. But killing this monster is absolutely worth the struggle, as it grants the entire team drastically increased mana and health regeneration and boosts the damage you do to lane objectives immensely. It is a major advantage for your team, and can turn a game around completely.

The other major difference is the size of the jungle and the camps that are present. There is a fourth buff introduced, the speed buff which increases your movement speed, and a number of camps that don’t carry buffs, but grant increased experience and gold. This is also where a dedicated jungler steps into the game, whose main task is to keep the camps under control and provide pressure on all lanes.

THE OTHER MODES
There are two other game modes that I haven’t discussed in this piece, but are part of the game: Assault and the Match of the Day (MotD). Assault is a Norse map with just a single lane and nothing outside of this. No jungle, no buff camps, just a single, slightly winding lane with Towers, Phoenixes and Titans. Gods are selected at random (though if one team has a healer, the other one has one as well, unless someone rerolls the healer), and once you leave the base, you cannot return to it until you die.

MotD is based on one of the other maps, but with a gimmick added to it. This is hilarious stuff like an Arena match where everyone starts with 100,000 gold or an Assault game where everyone is the same god. While these modes can teach you a lot about the game, their main purpose is just fun. They tend to be too random or just simply too far out there to have a direct impact on your performance in Conquest.

There you have it ladies and gentlemen: the guide to not being overwhelmed by a MOBA. Now grab your system of choice, boot up the game and have at it!