The Role
Ryan “Aggro” Bailey on His Time Casting The SPL, His Thoughts on Season 9 Worlds, and His New Position With SMITE’s Design Team
Ryan “Aggro” Bailey casting games at the season 5 World Championship. Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
Ryan “Aggro” Bailey has always taken pride in his role. Before he was a caster for the SMITE Pro League, Bailey played mid-lane for various SMITE Xbox teams, an experience which he frequently leaned on during the early days of his casting tenure. Before he left the casting team, Bailey began a podcast with Bolts Hunter and SPL fan-favorite BaRRaCCuDDa called The Backliners, a label that Bailey has proudly claimed over the years.
As a caster, Bailey and the production team raised the quality of the SPL to its highest highs, then later navigated the league through a difficult crisis as it returned to online for two seasons due to the pandemic. During his time on the headset, Bailey was consistently one of the most knowledgeable casters both in terms of in-game knowledge and broadcasting prowess. He is both a student of the game and a student of quality. Taking on a new challenge as a game designer for SMITE, Bailey brings with him the same attitude of striving for improvement not just for himself, but for the collective to which he belongs.
When titling this piece, I thought about centering it on Bailey’s illustrious casting career, or perhaps on his second act as a member of the game design team. However, doing so felt too disingenuous. Not because Bailey's accomplishments aren’t worth celebrating—they are—but because of how Bailey himself discusses those accomplishments. He is always slow to take credit and fast to recognize the people and circumstances around him that enable his success. Bailey only fulfills his role, whatever it may be at the time, to the best of his ability—as part of a team. His time in SMITE has been a success not simply because of his talents, but because of the talented teams on which he has found himself. With his tireless recognition of those around him who have helped make SMITE and the SPL what they are, Bailey reminds us what it means to belong to something.
[The following interview has been edited for clarity.]
The Long Lane: So I wanted to start things off with your move from being a caster to a game designer. Obviously, your background is in broadcast. What went into that decision for you where you kind of decided that you wanted to participate in SMITE through the design aspect?
Aggro: It was definitely a difficult decision. Casting is something that I am, for lack of a better term, obsessed with, and had really enjoyed over the years of my career. But I think that it was time for me to find a new challenge in a way. And obviously, I'd been asked by friends and family and that kind of stuff, if I wanted to continue casting in a different Esport or anything like that, and I just didn't feel like that was what I really wanted. When I first started casting, that was definitely the initial plan to cast and get experience and improve on SMITE and then ideally use that as a springboard to move into freelance work or steady work at a bigger Esport. But I just have been obsessed with SMITE since I found it in open beta and loved the community so much. And I'm a little bit older than the typical Esports pro and have a wife and a dog and bought a house, and traveling all the time and going through that type of stress didn't seem like what I really wanted. And I was just presented with a really amazing opportunity to interview for this open design position. And I'd been working with the design team during balance meetings and during the off-season and doing what I would call some consulting work with them and also doing some shadowing of guys like Pon and kind of understanding what their day-to-day is like. And it just seemed like the right type of challenge for me to really try and do something a little bit new. Casting I still really enjoyed, but I didn't feel like my final year—I didn't perform the way that I wanted to. And obviously, that year had its set of really unique challenges between the pandemic and losing Finch and all that kind of stuff. I was not enjoying that aspect of it as much as I did and as much as I had in the past. And it was definitely affecting what I was putting out there. And I have a lot of pride in making sure that I'm doing my best work as often as I can. And I just felt like it was a good time for me to step away and let these new guys flourish and at the same time, find a really incredible opportunity that I had never expected to have.
TLL: And obviously this move was known heading into season nine, but you made the decision to cast the qualifier LAN for the SPL. How important for you was it to have that last ride and get a chance to say goodbye to the Esports community?
A: Yeah, I mean, I've just been lucky enough to be a big part of SMITE Esports for a long time, and I really took that opportunity and honor very seriously and I didn't want to just drop a tweet out of nowhere and have that be it. We talked about whether or not I should cast that event because with the timing of my interview and when I officially got the petition and all that kind of stuff, it was kind of all right around that zone. And we just decided that it would probably be best for me to be there because it would be difficult to fill that on short notice for the broadcast. But also, as you said, to have that one final event. But I knew going into the World Championships of season eight that it was pretty likely going to be my last Worlds and that I was feeling pretty confident about my chances of being able to secure this position. So I really viewed that World Championship as a really important event. Obviously. I mean, every World Championship is, but I knew that there was a chance that it was going to be my last Worlds going in. But I was still really glad to get a chance to do that qualification LAN and obviously be able to express my gratitude and say goodbye to that portion of my career in the way that I had spent the last five plus years doing, which was in front of the camera.
TLL: You mentioned that you thought or you had an idea in your head that it could be your last World Championships. Did you approach that event any differently?
A: Probably, yeah. Worlds is always an emotional time because it's just so much. It's the culmination of a year's worth of work. I'm happy that I feel like I did a good job of really not letting those moments go without taking time to appreciate them. Before every finals, I would think about the first finals that I did, which was season three, which was my first season working as a caster at all. And I found out that I was doing finals either the day before or two days before. It was certainly after the event started. It was kind of up in the air on who was going to do the tricast with Adonis and Hinduman. And I got told with not a whole lot of heads up that it would be me in that position if I recall correctly. And the night before, I remember laying in the hotel bed just like completely dumbfounded that I had not only managed to get this position on the casting team that I really wanted and really felt like was a great fit for me, but was going to be casting the finals. I want to say my start date was like August 28 or something like that. It was like right before fall split and to go from starting, and I had never cast a game before I came down, except for one practice cast that I did just in case they asked me to cast, I had never done any type of casting or anything like that. And so to go from just wanting to be a part of this team that I loved so much to casting finals in five months, I was definitely aware of that type of weight. And so I try and remember that feeling that I had on that night before every finals. And I definitely thought of it. Season eight was, like I said, just a horrible year for all of us. Personally losing someone so close to all of us, it was going to be really emotionally charged no matter what. But certainly knowing that it was a good possibility of being my last Worlds, and it being Dave's first final and him really deserving it, and wanting to not let my emotions or the moment overtake what was a really incredible tournament run by the Leviathans and wanted to make sure that Dave got to shine as much as he could for his first final. All of that was kind of more in my mind and just wanted to make sure that I was happy with what I put out there, with the understanding that it might be the last one.
Bailey casting with Graham “Hinduman” Hadfield at the season 5 World Championship. Courtesy of Hi-Rez studios.
TLL: Speaking of Finch, everyone in the SMITE community who follows Esports really had the privilege of seeing him seeing him cast and really come into his own as one of the best casters SMITE has ever had. But the production team and the casters obviously got to know him in a way that a lot of us never will. What is something about Finch that you would like the community to know?
A: He was that guy all the time. He would just be completely incredulous at some of the things that I would say or especially Myflin would say. And that look on his face that he'd get with the wide eyes and all that, that was just him all the time. And the big thing that I try and remember and kind of channel from him was that he was someone who felt intensely and was never afraid of that or ashamed of it. He would just absolutely become irate at little things that we didn't expect to set him off, or he'd get really excited about things that we expected to be pretty mundane. And he would never be afraid to say, yeah, I was upset. Here's why I was upset, or here's why I was so excited. And just really embrace that. And I think that, especially for a lot of men and for a lot of people who are really into gaming, being able to embrace and understand your emotions is not always something that I have been very good at. We try and hide when we're upset or whatever it may be. And I think that you hear about people who wear their hearts on their sleeves all the time. And Finch was certainly that, but it wasn't something that he was embarrassed about or anything. He really embraced it and encouraged everybody to be their really weird selves all the time. And if that meant someone didn't like you or what you were saying or whatever it is, then that's their problem and not yours. But also was just the most compassionate person of all time. And that's where a lot of his angry rants came from, was being upset for other people because he just couldn't help but put himself in their shoes. I mean, we had a very famous, long-standing disagreement about if the opening of the movie Up is more sad or the opening of the movie Finding Nemo is more sad. I'm right still, and Up is sadder. I don't care what anyone says. But Finch was just convinced that the only reason I thought that was because I simply wasn't compassionate enough to put myself in a fish's shoes. He would always yell that, “what? Just because they're a fish, they can't have f—ing feelings? Like, what is wrong with you? The man lost his wife and 54 of his children or however the f— many it was, and he's got one kid left, he can barely f—ing swim.” You know, he'd be screaming that at me in the green room all the time. That's just how we were. You know, I think that people know by now that I'm someone who often gets real worked up about real mundane things and has strong opinions about things that no one has any opinions about. And Finch was really the same way. And so it led to a lot of passionate discussions that I very greatly miss.
TLL: Over the course of your casting career, we saw some of SMITE's best moments. Is there a moment for you that you were casting that really ranks near the top?
A: Yeah, I figured I might get this question, and I thought about it. And here's the bad part, I still didn't come up with a really great answer. You know, I was so lucky to be a part of so many really, really big games. Some of the ones that stand out the most are PK's season seven run when Paul was just going absolutely crazy the entire time, that definitely stands out. Variety season three very much stands out. I remember very well SK-RivaL game one of season six because we had a lot of unfortunate issues getting that game started. And SK got off to a couple of really good starts. And it required two remakes where they had put themselves in unbelievable positions to win because early games were so swingy that season. And Neil stole a buff on one of the restarts and they killed Mike and another one, I think, and they had to restart twice. And then Persephone got Comp banned because she was the one causing the crashes and Rival was playing at that game one. But Persephone was a much bigger part of SK's strategy than RivaL's. And not only did we have to stall for ever on stage, which is incredibly difficult, but then these players have got to, like, stay in it mentally. And Graham and I have to try and make sure that the viewers and the crowd are invested in what is currently happening and trying not to think about how screwed over SK has gotten from this start. That game definitely stands out to me as one. And I've always said that I never rooted for any particular team to win in any game. I just always wanted good SMITE games and that is 100% the case, except for in some extenuating circumstances like that one where I didn't care if SK won worlds, I just wanted them to really win game one. And I was very happy that they did. Those are some from Worlds. And there are so many other really awesome moments that I think back to the Kalas and Wlfy Ares play was really awesome. The PBM casting from probably season three or season four group stages, I remember being on the mic for that and that was really fun and doing all the charity events and all that kind of stuff. I was very lucky to be there for a lot of really fun stuff and unfortunately it has turned my brain to mush and makes it kind of impossible for me to pick even a top three.
TLL: Any chance we'll see you make a guest appearance on the desk at SWC?
A: That's a Hinduman question more than me question. I don't know exactly what the plan is yet. I've certainly got my hands full with getting stuff ready on the development side that I'm not as tuned in as I would like to be over there, but through no one's fault. It's just very busy schedule and making sure that our team is taking care of our stuff and trusting the Esports team is going to take care of their stuff, which I know they will. I'm going to bring a suit and a couple of shirts and a couple of ties. I don't know what they'll need, if they'll need anything at all, but it doesn't take up a whole lot of room in the suitcase, so I'll be prepared. But I don't expect to do a whole lot of anything if anything at all. As much as I will be incredibly jealous of all the guys who are going to cast. I think this Worlds is going to be crazy just not having it in person with fans for so long and getting to travel outside of Georgia for the first time. I think that the crowd and the energy is going to be absolutely awesome. I can't wait. And I'm certainly going to be very jealous of all those guys getting the cast of that experience, but I'm really happy for them that they get a chance to do it. A lot of those guys haven't really casted in front of a live crowd for SPL games. So all those guys getting a chance to come out and experience that is going to be really awesome. They've put in the really hard work and the long hours and all that kind of stuff to get to this point. And I'm excited for them to get to experience what is the greatest feeling that I've really felt in any type of professional setting, which is getting to cast in front of a crowd.
TLL: That was a very good "free agent being asked about contract negotiations" answer you just gave.
A: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I've done this a little bit on both sides. I did a lot of athlete interviews before I got hired to do Esports stuff and did a couple of player interviews during that short stint. So I've been around the block a few times.
TLL: That was back in Pittsburgh, right? What sport was that?
A: All of them in Pittsburgh that are the major sports. So baseball was the one that I did the most and I covered the Pirates as a primary focus for two years, but went to four Steelers training camps in a row, covered a ton of Penguins games, all that kind of stuff. I was doing it all the time and it was very fun and definitely set me up well for moving over to Esports.
TLL: Now for this upcoming placement tournament, who do you have advancing?
A: I think there are a lot of really great SCC teams who will do a lot of good stuff, but I would be very surprised if any non-SPL team advances. These SPL teams just have such an advantage when it comes to practice quality, number one, being the biggest difference maker, and also just having the luxury of having it be their full-time job. A lot of SCC players go to school or have other jobs on the side, and it makes a really big difference for these SPL teams. They don't have to worry about any of those other things. They can focus full-time on practicing. So I definitely expect SPL teams to make it through. Barra and I talked a lot on our podcast right before Christmas about what our expectations are and for some of those teams that have been pretty inconsistent, like the Warriors and the Scarabs, and the Valkyries. Titans, their whole jungle situation is obviously very difficult, but I would be very surprised if they don't make it. And every SPL player I talk to is speaking highly of the Scarabs right now. So they must be doing pretty well in Scrims, which leads me to believe that they will perform. So think Titans, Scarabs, Valkyries, and Warriors all look like they should be pretty safe. But for as much as I have criticized the Warriors all year on the podcast, I have a hard time seeing how they don't qualify. I think the team that is most susceptible is definitely the Valkyries. But at the same time, you look at the qualification tournament at the beginning of the year, they crushed, they dominated the NA SCC and the EU SCC, all those types of teams, the Valkyries crushed them. So I think that we're just going to get a bunch of SPL teams, but I'm hoping for some exciting close matches and definitely would not be upset if there were a good amount of upsets. I think that'd be really fun.
TLL: You actually cast the biggest upset of an SCC team over an SPL team. That was Armada over Rival, and of course, you'll remember they did some really weird stuff. You got Meerkat on the Erlang mid.
A: Double chalice, yeah.
TLL: Which in hindsight is weirder then than it is now, which is kind of funny to think about. But what is it going to take for an SCC team to upset an SPL team? Is it going to be these weird strategies that catch people off guard or are they going to need to play really clean, sound SMITE?
A: I think that there are two ways that SCC teams are able to beat SPL teams with any amount of consistency. And that is either via creating absolute chaos on the map, the Armada strategy where it just does the weirdest thing you can do and turn the game into an absolute fiesta, drag them down into the mud and roll around and just see who comes out on top. And that has proved to be a very good strategy for SCC teams in the past. The other is to just not lose and let the pressure win for you. Everybody knows in those games that the SCC players have no expectations, they have no pressure, they're playing with house money and SPL has everything to lose. They've got all the pressure on them, all the expectations. And especially for teams like the Scarabs and the Valkyries who have really struggled this year, it's not even just about making this event right. It's about Securing your spot in the league next year and feeling confident that if and when teams blow up, other pros are going to think you're good enough to talk to about forming a team, or that your team won't have to go through qualifiers or anything like that. That matters a lot. And that definitely factors into an event like this where you are playing against the people who are trying to take your living just a few months from now, or not even a few months, right? A few weeks probably. So that all weighs into it. If you're an SCC team, let's look at Hex Mambo, they are a team with a ton of veterans who know how to play the game, who can probably just come in and effectively not lose. And if they can just not lose and let the SPL team they're playing throw a fight at fire, throw a siege, botch a defense on a Phoenix. If you get one game in that manner. Now that pressure is amplified, right? Everyone knows, oh my God, we just lost to the SCC. Now we have to win two in a row or whatever it may be, it can really compound. So I think those are the two best ways. It's either quick and dirty, or it's sitting around and letting the pressure of the moment win for you. But a lot of SCC teams also don't have super clean early games. They aren't as efficient at defending buffs or objectives and getting around the map. And so if you're playing that “let the pressure win the moment for you” type of style, you can't just do nothing in the early game, because if you let these SPL teams get into their rhythm and show up on your buffs all game, show up on mid harpies, that will get them into a headspace that they are comfortable in. If you can just neutralize the early game, all you have to do is not lose early and then let the fire giant dances build later on in the game or let them misposition and get your picks. But anyone who has heard me cast or talk on my podcast or anything like that in any amount of time knows how much I hate we will simply lose early, win late strategy. I don't think you can do that with any type of consistency. You have to be competitive through the early game. You kind of have to stay even and then late game you can kind of let the pressure of the moment take over.
TLL: I think that's something that might surprise people from Hex Mambo in this tournament. We saw a little bit of it when they played the Dragons at Summer Masters, but we're looking at Zyrhoes, Deathwalker, and TrixTank. These are not players who will show up to a big game feeling nervous.
A: No, definitely not. Those guys are not going to be nervous and not only are they not nervous but they also don't care if they lose, which are two different things, right? And to be clear, they want to win. They're going to try to win in every sense and it's going to matter to them. But they aren't going in expecting to be the best team there or anything like that. They're just going to go in with whatever they've decided they think the best thing to do is, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, it doesn't. And that type of freedom is really liberating for a player. It really helps their mentality and lets you just kind of play your game without worrying about the stakes, or what you lose if you lose, or anything like that. And that can really make a big difference.
Bailey casting with William “Goremiser” Newberry V at the season 8 World Championship. Courtesy of Hi-Rez Studios.
TLL: It's a deadly combination of the confidence that comes from playing the game for so long. These guys have obviously played on the biggest stage, all of them several times, but then also have nothing to lose. I don't know if it's enough, like you said, to unseat one of the SPL teams when it's their full-time job and they have access to better preparation. But I think it'll be really exciting to see. Looking ahead at the main event, all year, or at least down the stretch, it's been a three-team race between the Dragons, Kings, and Leviathans. Bolts and Warriors have had their moments, and I think if Titans made a run, it wouldn't be the most surprising thing in the world, looking at their personnel. But where do you see this tournament going?
A: Yeah, I think if you gave me the Leviathans or the Kings versus the field, I would feel very confident in taking the Leviathans or Kings. I think those two teams have just been playing on a level lately that is hard to beat. That being said, I wouldn't take either the Leviathans or the Kings individually against the field. I have just seen too many wacky things happen. I've watched RivaL be the best team in the league, like three years in a row and lose in finals, like every year. It's not to discredit what particularly SK and PK did in those years, but there is a difference between a World Champion and the best team that year, and I think that is a very good thing. It's the same, the same is true in every sport. It's what makes it really, really fun. I mean, does anyone think that the Cavaliers were a better team than the Golden State Warriors when they came back from a 3-1 deficit when the Warriors had lost only nine games that season? No, of course the Warriors were the better team, but it's what creates the drama and the anticipation and the excitement is that it isn't always the best team that wins. So, you know, even though I think that the Leviathans and Kings are pretty clearly the two best teams, in my opinion, it would not surprise me if someone else won. I just think it's a little bit more unlikely. I think that you can pretty safely group a lot of the teams together in that way. I think that Leviathans and Kings are the two most likely teams. I think the Dragons are alone in the next echelon of teams that are most likely to win. And then you've got kind of a hodgepodge of SPL teams underneath the Dragons that are real contenders to win. I don't think that even with the Bolts looking better at the qualifications or playoffs and auto-qualifying, I don't think that most people, myself included, would assume that they have as good of a chance at the World Championship as the Dragons do. But that's what's great about all playoffs and all World Championships is that you don't have to be the best team all year, you just have to be the best team for one weekend. And so who knows. The Scarabs have a bunch of players who are historically very, very streaky, high highs type of players just who don't always play at that level consistently. If Netrioid and Snoopy show up and are just the two best backliners in the entire league for an entire weekend, why couldn't they win? I just think that the Kings and Leviathans are playing at a level of consistency and experience that is hard to match. But I really don't feel super confident in any one team being the favorite.
TLL: We've been fortunate these last few years to see some really impressive runs by non-top-seeded teams at Worlds. Looking at that last group, the sort of outside-looking-in, Valkyries, Scarabs, Warriors, Titans, and Bolts. Looking at those five teams, who is your dark horse to really pull off an upset run?
A: That's a good question. It is worth noting that for as catastrophic as a lot of the sets have ended for the Nika, Dardez, Vote core, they usually happen deeper in the playoffs or deeper in the tournament. So if we're talking Warriors going to the semifinals being an upset of some kind, I could definitely see that happening. As I said, I think the Scarabs have a lot going for them in that they don't have a lot of expectations on them. No one is expecting them to be a real contender because of how tumultuous their year has been, but they have players who have looked completely dominant in the past, just without that clean consistency all the time from them. And if you aren't a team that is expecting to win, those are the types of guys you want on your roster because they can just, "oops, I quadra-killed killed them, and we win the game." They could just kind of do those types of things, and that's really valuable to have. So I think that the Scarabs are a team that I think a lot of people, just based on what I'm hearing around the league, might have as an answer for that question, and because there's so little data on them as a team in comparison to other squads who have been together longer. But we've seen good stretches from the Valkyries. The Titans have a ton of experience, even with a new jungler. It's Cyno who's won a world championship with Aror before Paul, who's the greatest player of all time. So it's hard to ever rule them out. It's not a very satisfying answer to your question, I suppose, but I think that basically all of those teams have a real chance to surprise us come January.
TLL: It's interesting that you just threw out that Paul was the best player of all time. What makes Paul that guy for you?
A: His results. It's just the way that he has performed in those really big moments. It's hard to find a player who has ever had that type of success in his amount of time. It's the eye test. We say it all the time, that players now are better than players were back in the day. I think that is pretty unilaterally true across the board. And the thing that I think the casual fan doesn't understand about the reason why Paul gets so much respect, among other SPL pros, is that he warped the game in a way that very few players ever have. I think that Mike is a player who has done this in the past, Aror is a player who has done this in the past, where their play styles begin to define the entire meta and what other teams are picking and banning on a level that is beyond your usual amount of target banning. Paul has a very unique play style that he has shown to be able to grow. He was not always playing traditional physical assassins. He Bo is, in my opinion, a magical assassin, but is labeled a mage and all that kind of stuff. That's a different discussion, but he's shown that he can expand his repertoire. If you would have asked me when I was playing against Paul years ago if he would be an Aphrodite player, I would have told you you were crazy. That is not a Paul god, but he's been able to add that to the repertoire and be really successful on it. And so his ability to warp the way the game is played, and he so rarely makes a mistake. Mechanically, positionally, for backliners in particular, relic usage is a huge factor in how good you are at a pro level. Being able to reaction aegis a Ra ult that you barely hear, or an ability that if you get CC’d for 0.2 seconds then you're going to die, but you're able to get your beads off in time. I think Paul's relic usage has always set him apart and he just has an understanding of the way that he wants to play the game. That is really, really hard to make other people understand how hard it is to have a clean identity, I think, as well as Paul has understood his identity as a player. And for me, I've always said that Yammyn is hard to top for who I think was the player that always stood out to me the most. People always take these types of discussions as disrespect that you're not bringing up guys like Adapting or whatever, and that's certainly not the case. There is room for everyone who has had great careers to be discussed in these types of discussions. And by naming one person, it is not putting down another. But when you look at for me, it was Yammyn for a long time, now I think it is pretty safe to say that Paul, just because of coming later, being in a more competitive environment, regions being combined, all that kind of stuff, I think it's pretty hard to argue against Paul being the best player of all time.
TLL: We see this debate in sports a lot about how to weigh championships. If you look at, and this is probably the most popular example, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Obviously, Tom Brady has kept playing for several years, which has become a new consideration. But before, when Manning retired, it was who is the better quarterback? You've got Manning, who's the regular season monster, and you've got Brady who always seems to win in the postseason. So now, looking at it this way, you know Zapman is not a regular-season monster. He's not going to put up crooked numbers, he's not going to beat you by himself every time he's in the chair. But he does have the most championships and it's something that's sort of interesting to think about. How would you weigh those championship results?
A: I agree with you that it is very interesting. First of all, to directly answer the question, I weigh those three championships very highly for Steve. Steve has proven to me, without a doubt in my mind, that he is the best team leader in SPL history. If I had to win, if I was putting together a team that was going to win a World Championship at the end of the year, and I had to pick who I would want to lead that team, first and foremost, Steve would be my number one choice. That is certainly his most valuable aspect of his game. It's his in-game leadership and his understanding of how to make his team identity work in any given meta. That being said, is Steve the best individual ADC mechanically of all time? I don't think so. And again, it's not to discredit, but I don't think that's where his strength as a player lies, and that is completely acceptable. If I had to win a World Championship, I want Zapman to be my ADC, and that is different than being the best ADC of all time. And I don't think it's worse. I don't think it's better. It's just different. I weigh those championships very highly for Steve. I don't want to sound like I think he doesn't hit his autos or is bad mechanically as a player, because neither of those are certainly the case. He made a lot of really insane plays during some of these Worlds runs that kind of get forgotten about, like that Hachiman play he had in the SK series where he just went like, absolutely psycho by a Gold Fury fight. And then he had an Anhur play where I was like, oh, this series is over. Steve is just so far in the zone that I don't think that he can lose. And those were decision-making plays, leadership plays, but also mechanical plays. So he certainly has that aspect of it. I just think it's two slightly different, like, related but different discussions, if that makes sense.
TLL: So pivoting a little bit towards the design side of things, the god lineup for season nine was decided before you even knew that you were going to be on the design team, and definitely before you announced it. When did you kind of learn that you would be leading the design for Maui?
A: I started the design position on January 24, which is my birthday. That's why I remember. That was my first day on design. I think I was told officially when I took the position, they gave me a quick rundown of what they expected my schedule to look like and my pipeline to look like. It was like, yeah, you could be working on Maui, you could be working on something else. We want to just try and feel out how our team structure is looking and how your schedule is looking and if everything's going well for you and then we can make the call later on down the line. I remember starting Maui in early March, so sometime in February, probably right around the middle of February, a few weeks after I had started, was when I probably got the confirmation that was going to be my first god. So probably like mid to late February is my guess.
TLL: What goes into the god design process?
A: Yeah, so like you said, the god schedule is already set up so we know what all the gods are going to be in a given year, what class they're going to be, what role we want them to play. The directors or designers have already had some discussions when deciding who to put where and what gods to select and all that kind of stuff, what type of gameplay we are looking for from them. Sometimes it's a little bit more open, it just depends god to god. So I knew that Maui was going to be a Guardian, with a duo lane focus. We didn't want a Jormungandr or a Cthulhu. And the only other directive that I got outside of that was it might be cool to have him play with his hook a lot, but that's about it. Which is really great because it doesn't limit where you can come from, but it gives you enough structure to understand what to look for and what to try and gravitate towards. So when you first start out on a god, you have a little bit of a research period where I just did a ton of deep diving on the internet looking for good primary sources on lore stories and who Maui was, how did he act, what did he look like, what did he do. And then we put together a presentation to a bunch of different teams to give them that rundown. Because making a god takes a ton of people. Just so much work from so many different departments and we can't have 20+ people be looking up all the lore stories that I'm trying to reference and all that kind of stuff in order to get their work done because it just wouldn't be efficient that way.
So the designers kind of compile all of that and give some really good references. So I kind of give a presentation on like here's Maui, here's what he did. I think this is pretty cool. Here are some examples of old depictions of what he looked like, or some descriptions of what he looked like, or some fan art people have drawn that we can check out to see what people are expecting him to look like. Everything from how he looks to how his hook looks and all of that kind of stuff. And then I hold a bunch of brainstorming meetings with a bunch of different teams. So one with design, one with programming, one with animation, and so on and so forth about, okay, I told you all the stories of what Maui did and what he looks like. We want him to be a duo lane guardian. What would be cool, what came to mind, and what types of ideas do you guys have? And just having a bunch of those brainstorming sessions which are always super fun and in particular for the more technical teams like programming or animation, they're usually coming at it from "oh, we found a way to use this cool new tech that might be applicable here. What if we did this, which we can do easily now that we've learned this lesson from this other god or this other skin" or something like that. Or animation usually has a very clear visual representation of what their abilities are looking like and that's really helpful for me whenever I start putting the kit together. And so every team kind of brings something a little bit different to those meetings, which I think is really fun. And then I take all of those ideas and a lot of my own and make a bunch of different kits that are all different and cohesive that I then present to the design team. And the design team kind of picks and chooses what they like. “I like the passive from the first kit, I like the ultimate from the second kit. I like the movement ability from the third kit. How do we kind of combine these into something that feels cohesive and good.” It's a lot of iteration at that stage.
And then once we've got that kit ironed out and we're down to one with four abilities, basic attacks, how they feel, passive, etc., then I present it to all of the team leads of tech, art, programming, animation, FX, all that kind of stuff and make sure that we are all on the same page. Then from there, the designer really becomes more like a producer. I'm still very actively involved in setting up temp FX and prototype abilities and all that kind of stuff, but a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the actually smart people in programming and in animation and tech art and all that kind of stuff. And the further you get in the process, the more it is just checking with all of these different teams that everyone's on pace, no one's being blocked by anything, no one has any questions and giving feedback from play testing and all that kind of stuff to make sure that it comes out looking as good and feeling as good as humanly possible. It's a pretty long process. For Maui I started in March and he released in October. So it's a long process that takes a lot of people being on the same page, but it's a really fun process for sure.
TLL: The community response to Maui during his reveal was probably about as good as you could have hoped for. It seemed like everyone reacted positively or with excitement to just about every aspect of the character from his visuals to the aspects of his kit, the new tech. How was it for you to see how enthusiastic the community was about this character?
A: Yeah, it was amazing. It was really gratifying, and I was very thankful that it went well, because my confidence certainly swayed a lot during that process, which all the designers tell me is very normal. But it's a constant "oh, I'm feeling really good about this, and then all of a sudden, I'm not feeling so good about it, and I'm good about it again, now I'm not anymore." It's a constant back and forth and there are so many aspects that go into designing a god that it's easy to lose the forest for the trees, so to speak. And I talk about this when it comes to like big patches as well, mid-season or a new season launch, that you're so in the weeds all the time. I'm in there freaking out about if we can afford to shave 0.1 seconds off of the post-fire animation for the one for weeks. You just kind of get so locked into those minute details that you kind of just have to give up that feeling of control over the situation, in a way. In a way that feels better. It feels healthier to just like forget about if everyone's going to love it and all that kind of stuff. Because you worry about that every step of the way for so long that once you start getting into the nitty gritty play, testing numbers, adjustments, timing adjustments, feedback on animation and FX and timings and all that kind of stuff, that you just have to let go of all of it. I worried about if the kit was fun whenever we were deciding on what the abilities all did, and the time to worry about that has now passed. I need to worry about making sure that it feels smooth, it looks good and the feedback is there and the sound is right. And so at the end of that process when he locks, I was kind of like, shit, do I think people think he's going to be fun? I forget what I was really focused on at that point because I had done so much in the interim, but very unbelievably thankful for all of the community reception that, I agree with you, was as good as I could have ever hoped for.
I definitely, and this is common for all gods, but the designers definitely get too much credit. It takes so much work and effort. And I don't think anyone is underplaying the amount of work and effort that other teams put in, but I think that they don't understand how much these other teams contribute to the vision and the feeling and all these types of things that the designer will ultimately get credit for because they're the one presenting it. But the animation team took what my suggestion was for the three, for the rope swing and made it to something that was far, far better than what I had initially brought up. Or Clumsy on the design team took a problem that I had with the two, that it wasn't feeling right and came up with a great idea, and in my opinion, like, saved that ability entirely. Khaos, one of the programmers, did the exact same thing for the one. We had a lot of problems with it feeling right and it wasn't fitting my vision. And he had a really great idea for a solution that completely saved the way that ability feels. Designers get a lot of the credit and it is a lot of work and I'm very proud of the work that I did and very happy with how he turned out. But it really is a massive team effort that is really like wild to be a part of.
TLL: Have you seen that there's a video by a SMITE player named innocentrabbit where he and Brutal Magllini Time, another YouTuber, used Maui along with Morrigan, Da Ji, and Ares to do a pull from fountain to fountain, then back again, and back again. Had you seen that?
A: [Laughs]. I haven't seen it. I know innocentrabbit well. That's Max. He's a good man and I know he loves messing with that kind of stuff. He told me as much when he first saw Maui's kit. He was like, "oh, Aggro, this is my type of stuff. I'm going to be able to do some messed up stuff here." And I remember that. But I haven't seen that particular video. But I'm pretty familiar with Max and Brutal Magllini Time's typical shenanigans and have a pretty good idea of how that went.
TLL: When you hear that your god is being used for something fun like that, how does that make you feel?
A: Proud. For sure. I'm just glad that people are really liking him and that the big thing for me is that it's not only that I obviously want to provide something really cool and fun and unique to the game, but what really is important to me and the way that I want to make sure that I deliver. That is because the designers are really leading everyone in the initial direction, and then all of these very talented people are taking over with their expertise and tweaking things and making it feel good and sound good and look good and all that kind of stuff. I want to make sure that all of that work and dedication and time that is put in by everybody else results in something that people are going to enjoy because otherwise, I led the team down the wrong path. That is always my ultimate concern is that I want to make sure that I am setting up the people around me to be as successful as possible. So I feel very proud when I hear about things like that and think about things like that. But the work Alli, the lead animator on Maui, put in to making that ultimate look really good and really epic, and Shane, the effects artist, put in to make the island splash come out right, the work that Chad did on the sound. Those are the things that always come to the forefront of my mind. And like I said, I'm very proud of the work that I did, and I know that I know how important I was to the process. But I also always feel a little guilty whenever people are saying, “oh, Aggro's God.” I really feel like it was our work together that really made it happen. I know that that's just the nature of the Internet, that I'm a more public-facing figure and these people are people who have been putting in great work behind the scenes for a long time. But I always like to try and make sure that people know that it wasn't just me that made a lot of it the way that it is because they deserve all the credit in the world for Maui turning out as well as he did.
TLL: Anything you want to shout out here at the end?
A: No, not really. I think everyone's going to be tuning into this SMITE World Championships that would be engaging with this content. So I just want to thank you for doing all this and it's been a lot of fun reading all of your other articles and happy to participate. I guess one thing: everyone should vote. It's lame when people say that their votes don't matter because it just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course your vote doesn't matter if you never use it, but if everyone who says their vote doesn't matter simply votes, then they will matter. So I encourage all my fellow gamers who don't want to leave their house. It is unbelievably easy. You don't need to leave your house. You can get a mail in ballot. Politics is hella depressing, and I question my engagement level with it basically every day. But you don't need to be obsessed. You can be informed very easily. And it's important because people's lives depend on it. And so the more people that vote, the better.
Aggro will continue contributing to SMITE as a member of the design team. He will be present at the season 9 SMITE World Championship.
