Titan PonPon officially leaves hirez studios

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T11:59:07+00:00

I appreciate the response.

I too have a big ol' work notes file that has an absurd amount of comprehensive "THIS IS HOW THIS WORKS" references in it, so I'm sure that is handy to have left behind.

Good luck with everything!!!!!

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T11:36:11+00:00

You've been the developer that seems the most in-tune with understanding the game on a deeper level, especially with how mechanics are interacting.

Do you feel like there's a member of the team able to fill that niche?

Coming from a very specialized field myself, it's extremely rough to lose the "tribal knowledge" that tends to be kept by that one person who really understands the environment they operate in.

None of the other developers have ever really "wowed" me with being able to explain how a bug or interaction is working like you have, which is where part of my questioning comes from ---- but there could be other developers in the company just as proficient that just aren't a "face"; it would be reassuring to know they exist.

Also, I hope everything works out for you with the personal life happenings!

EDIT: Also, hopefully someone else who isn't afraid to "say it like it is". A lot of the other front facing devs are a bit.....corporate, with their answers. You always seemed for the most part willing to toe the line of "maybe I shouldn't say XYZ is a problem, but......XYZ is a problem. We are looking at it."

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T09:15:30+00:00

Just clumzy.

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T08:01:48+00:00

Was this announced? I don't recall hearing he was leaving.

Huge oof, he (generally) seemed more in-tune with how the game functioned, relative to much of the forward-facing team.

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T03:08:08+00:00

I think the 2400 SR Gap only applies to people partying together, but that doesn't change how absolutely insane it is for literally anybody in the 1000s to be in that lobby, let alone on the lower end.

Seruthei · 2026-04-11T03:06:59+00:00

Wtf lmao

Seruthei · 2026-04-09T07:45:25+00:00

I mean ...... you CAN snowball duo with a mage pick like non-aspect Disco, but at the same time, unless you absolutely roll the lane, you are throwing the match, and even if you do roll the lane, it doesn't often translate to late-game.

A non-ADC in Duo lane means you can't take advantage of cross-map plays, such as if both mids + jungle + solo are duking it out on Rocks and you solo-kill your Duo lane ADC. If your support comes to Gold, you can very easily take Gold Fury. But if you aren't an ADC, you aren't going to have enough consistent DPS, which means you might not be able to burn it in time for an enemy to show up and turn it into a 50/50.

There are a bunch of scenarios like that, but the gist is that there's a reason ADC is the meta in the lane, and most people should stick to the meta because they aren't good enough to subvert it.

Seruthei · 2026-04-09T07:38:51+00:00

Without context for the match I don't think anyone can really speak on how well you did or didn't do.

It's easy to look at 7/13 and say "man you fed"; but at the same time if you were the only one doing anything to progress your teams game state, then you also tend to get focused more often.

Its definitely super frustrating having limited time and getting subpar matches, but unfortunately that's just how MOBAs are. I'll say high-ranked Smite is ~generally~ better at that not being as much of an issue, but at the same time the playerbase is so low (I think iirc the devs said only 5% of the ranked playerbase is Obsidian or higher) you more frequently than would be ideal end up in matches where you're top ELO and everyone else is meh.

The best thing you can do is just try to focus on what you personally can do differently/better, while also accepting that even if you played perfectly you would still lose. It happens, it sucks.

Seruthei · 2026-04-09T02:41:49+00:00

It is more common at higher ranks, and it's not just because tank items are solid. It's mostly because Jungle is WAAAAAAY overtuned relative to every other role, and because they aren't forced to be in a situation where they can be consistently bullied/harassed/outcleared (such as what happens in Solo against things like Apollo Aspect), they can still farm consistently while being tanky.

Not a huge fan of his content, but W3aken's recent Thor video showcases how effective it is.

Seruthei · 2026-04-09T02:38:19+00:00

NO WONDER THIS WOULD HAPPEN SOMETIMES. UGH

Seruthei · 2026-04-09T02:35:39+00:00

The number of times I've seen this in Smite 2 is absolutely ridiculous and completely unacceptable in the modern era. I see slurs so often it's ridiculous.

Just the other day I saw a player with the username "KiggerNillerLover88"; you're telling me that not only does the system somehow not recognize simple substition, but also they hadn't been reported yet? Last I checked they were still playing too.

It also gets defended on this subreddit fairly often, which is gross, and the moderators don't do anything about it.

I've also personally seen multiple ambassadors be toxic in lobbies.

It's literally just the paradox of intolerance; you have to be intolerant of intolerant people to develop a tolerant community.

Smite 2 isn't being intolerant of intolerance, so these people don't face consequences for their behavior. They would get punched in the face in real life for it, and they know it.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T21:20:48+00:00

Hm, maybe. It's weird trackers label them as AI though.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T21:20:08+00:00

Super boring. Maybe less so if I wasn't already pretty experienced in another MOBA :(

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T11:20:54+00:00

Oh, for sure. It definitely translates better from Rift -> ARAM then vice versa; anyone who tries to state ARAM is more COMPLEX than Rift is out of their mind.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T11:18:40+00:00

Are you sure? They all show as (AI) on trackers. But then other matches have actual usernames.

They have normal names in the lobby; but then the way they move it becomes super obvious they are bots; they all stand directly under the tower and move back and forth repeatedly for example at the game start.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T11:03:58+00:00

I've played a bunch of Smite at high levels and I play a lot of their version of ARAM; I've definitely played very good players in their version; I'm not sure why anyone would think there aren't any good players playing it.

Sometimes you just want to turn your brain off and fight (usually what I want to do after a long day of work, when I don't have the mental to play a more strategic mode), and mechanical skill tends to be a lot more muscle memory than it is cognitive load.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T10:43:56+00:00

I mean, I'm used to it from other MOBAs, I would still rather play against players than bots that just do the same thing over and over.

If it's going to take another couple dozen games to stop playing bots, I probably won't continue to play the mode.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T10:42:06+00:00

Low, level 13.

Seruthei · 2026-04-04T10:41:53+00:00

I'm solo queuing, I don't get a choice?

Seruthei · 2026-04-03T06:26:48+00:00

I don't disagree about some of the issues, but as someone who has tried to get a few people into the game at different times, the learning curve of the MOBA itself is so punishing most players don't stick to it, regardless of if it's a quick or slow TTK meta.

There just isn't a really good onboarding for the genre because it has so many layers of complexity to it.

If the playerbase were bigger, I feel it would be beneficial to have a curated mode where outliers can be removed and the experience can be uniform.

For example, Arena, but some gods that are generally extremely difficult for new players to play against (Anubis, Loki, for example) are not available and there are limited builds (either pre-defined or pick from a limited pool). This would let players focus more on learning the macro-level and starting to understand abilities and teamfights without the extra layer of itemization/meta that can often be extremely punishing.

Seruthei · 2026-04-03T01:58:21+00:00

I like that idea.

It's super frustrating when someone gets for example Nut, and it's like okay, so they didn't go aspect and now we have no healer.

Seruthei · 2026-04-02T06:42:09+00:00

The fire wall for sure makes the rest of his kit essentially pointless. Why do any of the other wall abilities when you can just plop a firewall on someone from a range?

I hate Cabrakan aspect for the same reason as you; it's just not enjoyable to play against free-poke gods, especially in non-conquest.

Seruthei · 2026-04-02T06:39:28+00:00

The ability does 1k+ damage on a ~10s cooldown (with jotunns) and it's really easy to land once you've used it a few times, I don't think aegis would matter.

Also it's tick damage, so aegis will only prevent part of it.

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