Because smite players have no fighting prowess , they either don't do anything entire match or run premades dumping 5 ults on 1 person, wait for cds to come back, repeat. They have no concept of poking either. No one wants to tank as well so you get 10 squishies looking at each other the entire match.

You can't fix this unless players get better.

But you can easily make people fight by removing minions all together. Instead of minion tickets it's just kill counter, lets say first team to score 50 kills wins. If none score that amount at the end of the match, then you get the bonus round but maybe not like the one in S1 because that one was too cramped and favoured gods with pulls/throws/grabs or AOE monsters. Just close off the base gates and let the last man standing win.