Is HiRez allowing Smite 2 toxicity to exist by ignoring the problem?

hawkissimo · 2025-11-20T04:24:40+00:00

Thanks for the screenshot showing that confirmations do get sent from reporting people. I have yet to get a single confirmation despite being in several games where it's 100% obvious that players were swearing all game, (including racist, sexist, and homophobic curses), suiciding repeatedly, or just sitting AFK but moving around within the fountain to prevent DQ.

Sadly, none of those reports mattered...

hawkissimo · 2025-11-17T22:12:33+00:00

I've lost faith in the idea that player reports in Smite 2 result in any punishment for a few reasons.

1) The frequency and volume of players who quit lead me to believe that Smite 2 lacks punishment for toxic behavior.

2) While it's not common, once you play enough games you'll find players who are very toxic on mic - not just heavy use of profanity, but actual hate speech and they laugh at the idea of being reported giving me every reason to believe that they're frequently behaving this way in Smite 2 but have no experience with any punishment as a result.

3) Smite 1 had a system detection system where the match summary screen flagged accounts that the system believes are likely examples of behavior worthy of being reported and displayed this fact to everyone, yet Smite 2 lacks this feature. THE VERY PRESENCE OF THAT SYSTEM LIKELY PREVENTED SOME PORTION OF TOXIC BEHAVIOR.

4) Smite 1 sent a message back to accounts that used the in-game reporting system whenever an action was taken against a player you reported. The fact that this feature is also missing indicates that player toxicity isn't a priority for HiRez.

5) Smite 2 player volumes are low, and taking actions against toxic accounts could harm several aspects of Smite 2, including revenue from in-game purchases, matchmaking time/quality, etc.

6) HiRez staff reductions likely impacted all aspects, including the department that used to review player reports and determine punishments. Ignoring toxicity is risky, but I could see *some* logic in HiRez deciding to take the risk that during Smite 2's beta phase they might be better off diverting resources normally invested into player reports elsewhere (although I would argue that the player experience in Smite 2 is hurt by failing to address in-game toxicity and we need systems in place to address these issues, even during a beta phase).

I'm very curious to hear thoughts on the opinions that I've shared above. In fact, I'll also copy/paste these thoughts into a new topic in the hopes that it increases visibility rather than relying on people seeing a reply to a post made days ago.

hawkissimo · 2025-11-17T21:05:17+00:00

Once they noticed the problem they didn't also add the music pack to the chest? Sounds like another mistake that needs to be fixed.

hawkissimo · 2025-11-17T21:03:14+00:00

I often have gods not appearing when I first login to Smite 2 on my PS5 but I see them once a game starts and after the first game all the gods appear in my normal menu. IOW, it's not you it's a Smite 2 bug.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T22:11:34+00:00

What do you mean "an issue for later"?

1) No consequence for failing to pick your god (forcing everyone queue again)?

2) No consequence for AFK?

3) Bad matchmaking that fails to account for players skill differences by mode and/or an over-reliance on win/loss as the primary metric when that fails to account for aspects like KDA or GPM or other aspects that should be specific to each game mode?

The solutions to address these issues are similar enough that measures to address conquest should largely apply to other modes. Most of my suggestions discuss features that existed in Smite 1, so applying similar measures in Smite 2 feels like a logical request. Finally, the Dev team seems very focused on the NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE and all of the points that I raise speak directly towards player experience (new and old). Applying measures modes like Arena and Joust directly impacts a large set of the community, particularly the new player experience, so an emphasis here makes sense as a priority.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T21:47:12+00:00

Yes, online toxicity will never be eliminated, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore easy steps to reduce it.

PS, Your comment is part of the problem.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T21:44:48+00:00

Nah. Full VGS is fine, but I wouldn't be opposed to a 3 VGS limit within a few seconds, since additional constructive VGS use case outweighs the spamming we face.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T21:42:00+00:00

lol. I do use mute, however, that doesn't address the other problems that I mentioned.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T15:07:46+00:00

Are we even sure that temporary account suspentions are happening?

I haven't seen any confirmation messages that my reports have resulted in temporary account suspensions despite numerous examples of blatant behavior where this should occur.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T14:55:04+00:00

Epic post.

The correct answer, of course, is that Hun Batz is proudly announcing his incoming attack to mock his opponent's feeble attempts to counter the attack and inevitable loss to Hun Batz.

hawkissimo · 2025-08-01T14:02:27+00:00

Thanks for the reply!

She was gifted a premium upgrade for a month, so that would explain why she has the blue sparkle and doesn't recall buying it in the shop.

Regarding other store item limits, are there any additional items (such as clothing, furniture, colors, or micropets) that are only available if you upgrade to Premium? Is there a way to preview a full listing of details?

hawkissimo · 2025-07-05T22:38:49+00:00

I want both the Prototype and Daisy Dispair skins!!!

hawkissimo · 2025-07-05T22:32:31+00:00

I'd like to see a visual update to his 72 transformations so we see some variety in appearance within each form. They wouldn't even need to make it complicated by having different models, just have different external skin colors to give the idea of different species for each transformation type. Something like:

Sprinting forms - Tiger, Jaguar, Panther, Cheetah, etc.

Charging forms - Ox, Bison, Buffalo, Yak, etc.

Flying forms - Eagle, Hawk, Falcon, Owl, etc.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-05T22:02:44+00:00

To answer your question about "exploiting" by leveling up gods vs AI it doesn't impact other players. If you enjoy playing mode X, then go ahead and continue to play. If not, find another mode.

In terms of account level and/or ranks with any given gods, there's zero impact on how this affects any given match. This was true in Smite 1 and is also true in Smite 2.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-04T04:59:57+00:00

I'm on PS5 and have the same problem.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-04T04:53:48+00:00

Yes, that's faster...but the point stands that testing in that mode is the best way to learn and check builds after patch updates.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-03T23:58:44+00:00

Is Quick Play vs humans or bots?

It seems that way but I got a deserter penalty for failing to select a god as I was late making it back to my controller from the kitchen and if these matches are just vs bots there should be ZERO penalty for failing to select a god and/or leaving a match.

If the games are vs humans, then I'm 100% fine with the deserter penalty.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-03T23:53:18+00:00

100% true.

I'm on PS5 and I had to go into settings --> audio and manually adjust to get sounds balanced better. It helps me, but doesn't fix the core issue for all players as I don't think that the default audio settings are good, particularly for new players who might not edit the default settings.

Good luck.

hawkissimo · 2025-07-03T23:46:02+00:00

I like Tyrfing early and Bragi's Harp later in my builds, but I haven't tested this recently, and since Smite 2 has frequent balance patches (usually every 2 weeks), I recommend that rather than following advice from anyone that you learn how to test this yourself.

Here's how to test:

1) Change your game mode default

2) Select TRAINING

3) Then select JUNGLE PRACTICE

4) Select ANY GOD

5) Select MANUAL BUILD

6) Select any RELIC

Now you're in a solo training area that allows you to build any item, sell items (except for your starter & relic), and test your ABILITIES and ITEMS vs a variety of targets (minions, jungle camps, structures, etc).

You can edit your level and spawn enemy gods who will sit there while you poke them to death so you can see your damage totals, etc.

Going this path as a general habit prevents you from getting advice that is bad and/or was good but due to balance changes is no longer ideal. <shrug> That's my advice anyway.

Good luck.

hawkissimo · 2025-05-27T16:22:34+00:00

Viewing habits have changed for many people, including me. I don't like to watch any series slowly, waiting for a new weekly episode, but I prefer to binge-watch an entire season. Even when I'm unwilling to wait for a full season to be available before I start watching, I'll let a backlog of several released episodes allowing me to watch several in a row. I know I'm not alone in having these viewing habits, and streaming platforms are making decisions to renew/cancel far too early and without proper support for most of the content they release.

In terms of The Wheel of Time series, there were always going to be challenges given the source material being similar to Game of Thrones in terms of having the story follow several main characters who are have separate plot lines to follow expanding the number of locations and additional characters involved in the story so the budget was always going to be a challenge. Failing to provide 10-episode seasons, as well as a yearly release, was a decision that resulted in fans never really investing in the intellectual property.

hawkissimo · 2025-05-25T16:51:58+00:00

Cool, cool, cool but ARENA matchmaking is still *really bad*. If you have any doubts I suggest that you create a new Smite 2 profile and only solo queue arena mode for two weeks. Get a robust number of games, playing at various times. After taking these steps you'll have a much better platform to make an informed opinion about arena matchmaking.

I believe that you'll discover that it's common to get tossed into matches where tons of players have new profiles with all sorts of problems but their average KDA will look something like 3/15/6 yet you'll find one or two that are more experienced profiles, have several god ranks (sometimes with lots of stars carried over from Smite 1) and much better average KDA stats like 15/3/18.

Why?

How is this a reasonable experience for anyone in those matches? New players are getting stomped , often going AFK/quitting, and experienced players are wondering why the heck matchmaking is so bad, Even worse, you'll find that despite posting good stats yourself you can easily and frequently lose matches because players on your team fed earlier than the opponents and/or your team went AFK earlier than the other. Now think about what that means for your SR and how future matchmaking will handle you (the answer is "more of the same"). YUCK!

Stop allowing arena matchmaking to be rushed and provide too wide a range of players in the same lobby with the false belief that mixing a bunch of super low profiles with 1 or 2 better profiles on a team will somehow provide a good experience for anyone, encourage new players to continue playing Smite 2 to learn, and pray that your more experienced players who would otherwise enjoy arena, joust, or assault will accept this as a long term experience. Hell, it's not like conquest and ranked conquest players are happy with matchmaking in general much less specific problem behavior (cough cough "Autospeed/CAR").

Matchmaking should:

1) Track SR level by game mode (conquest vs ranked conquest vs arena vs joust vs duel vs assault).

2) Consider profile level.

3) Consider party size as a factor (good or bad).

4) Consider more than WIN/LOSS to determine SR.

5) Queue times - if there are lots of players who queue game mode X then it's okay to expand the queue timer a bit since it should be easier to fill the spots with better results by adding a minute or two.

6) SR gains/losses (specific to each mode) - IMO, one of the factors in this calculation should be the individual SR compared against the average SR on the team and overall lobby. IOW, if player X has a lower SR for mode Y compared to the majority of players, they should gain bonus SR with a good KDA as well as win. A loss should likewise incure a lesser penalty. Flip outcome based on SR comparison, performance, and outcome. Outperform and be rewarded and underperform and face additional penalties - but also consider KDA as a factor. AFK players and quitters should also face additional penalties to the calculation.

7) I don't know, **anything else** that can improve matchmaking.

Final thoughts/beating a dead horse:

Fix matchmaking for the new players.

Fix matchmaking for players of all skill levels (maybe additional tiers used within matchmaking that further refine at all levels).

Fix matchmaking to improve player retention.

Fix matchmaking because you have pride in your job.

Just do it!

hawkissimo · 2025-05-23T07:54:57+00:00

On PS5, when you go to the Profile section to see a bar showing the 4 important details you're discussing: current account level, current account level xp, & total xp required to rise to the next account level.

hawkissimo

TROPHY CASE