DzNutsKong
Inkling Cadet
(this post will mostly be me talking about my own experience but feel free to share your own!)
Joining the Splatoon community was a bit more daunting of a task than it was for other games. In a lot of other games you're told to not expect to be good right away and for Splatoon that also applies, except now you have three other people who you're probably expecting yourself to be worse than. You're probably thinking everyone's played this game more than you have and you're just going to have a way harder time learning than everyone else because wins will not be because of anything you did. And a lot of people who aren't here probably are telling themselves not even to think of finding other people who are new to the community since that itself would be impossible to someone who doesn't know their way around.
For me it definitely would all have been hard if not for a bit of luck. I've actually happened to know someone who's been in the Splatoon community for a while now (shoutouts @ Lutzi). They introduced me to one place that lead me down a train of thought that put me into another place, so on and so forth, here we are now. This post mainly won't have to do with Squidboards specifically as opposed to the broader Splatoon community.
Although actually I guess I could start with Squidboards. I'm sure many of us who are currently here found out about Squidboards through that one big push on X (formerly Twitter) for a place that has more serious, high-quality discussion. That's how I found out about this website actually! If you're not already, PLEASE don't use Twitter. It's an absolute cesspool of complaints and general negativity that can seriously damage how you view...well, anything, and for no good reason. You wanna hear something crazy? In all of the places I've competed in IRL for Smash, a game that I've since quit because everyone complains all the time there, the two regions that were the happiest were the ones that used Twitter the least. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a sign.
What that friend of mine told me was that there was a tournament series where you didn't need a team to sign up. If you saw my last thread you'd have probably seen me mention something like this, but there are tournaments where the organizers will assign you with teammates rather than making you sign up as a full team. These are not the most competitive tournaments out there by any means but are great for people who are starting out. Great for getting a feel for what the game's like in a place where everyone has similar footing, great for practicing callouts and coordinated play with different people, great for feeling out your weapon pool if you want to think about that, and so on. At the first one of these I joined, I got some very encouraging words from our team's captain and our team didn't do bad at all. Placed 5th out of 10 teams, which sounds very average but two of us had never played in any tournament and a third had played in less than five.
I continued to join these for a bit but eventually found my way into a few tournament servers where people sign up as teams, but can ping a certain role to ask for a sub if they don't have a 4th that day. Subbing for teams is also great. You may be at a bit of a disadvantage since you don't know every team's playstyle and the opposing team will have had more time as a group of four, but it gives you a better idea of what teams are like and what you might want out of one. People will show more of their personality when they're with three people they know better and they'll have more defined playstyles, roles, skill levels, meeting times, and so on. There's a lot you can pick up and if you want to give it some thought and play with enough people, you may eventually play with a group you have few enough complaints with and will want to join.
One funny story I can share with this that I don't think I'll have a better opportunity to elsewhere - during the time frame I was subbing for different teams the most, I figured I'd spend one day looking for a team to sub for a very important event for this community's competitive scene. It was a ladder event that hadn't happened for a year and a half or so up until that point and I knew it'd be soul-crushing if a group was looking to play there and couldn't. I found a team who was looking for someone close to the tournament's start time. Seemed very thankful that I was there. Nice. They get me to sign up with them through the tournament site, make sure they're checked in, and only then do I get added to the private chat and join the voice call.
A few seconds later I get a DM from the captain saying "by the way we're all 13-16 year old girls."
I was 21 years old at the time.
I am a dude.
My screen name is freaking "Deez Nuts Kong."
I kid you not, this was the most downright uncomfortable experience of my life and it's not even close. It was almost funny to me how I knew the moment it all hit me that it would make for a great story. It's difficult for me to describe how I felt and I'm sure a lot of you will get it, but for those of you who don't the best I can say is that it felt like I was invading a slumber party that I wasn't supposed to be at. Imagine if one of my roommates had gotten home and heard that... I have nothing against any of those people but the situation I happened to find myself in that day was one that I hope to not find myself in again. If you look to sub for teams, try to get some background on what kinds of people they are beforehand just to be sure there won't be anything like that.
One of the first teams I subbed for ended up being the one I'd end up liking the most. They had a fun group dynamic, were very open and seemed to enjoy my presence there. Their weapon pools are very flexible and I clicked with everything a lot faster than with anyone else. Fast forward to now and I've ended up joining them for more goofy open sessions where we play random weapons as well as a few party games that aren't related to Splatoon at all. AND! They do need a Tacticooler every once in a while so I do play N-ZAP sometimes, but I get to play Stamper basically the whole rest of the time despite it being a new thing for me. You absolutely love to see it.
Hope this was informative to some degree or at the very least fun to read. Everyone's experience is different, like look at the teams that have formed from this website, but this was mine.
Joining the Splatoon community was a bit more daunting of a task than it was for other games. In a lot of other games you're told to not expect to be good right away and for Splatoon that also applies, except now you have three other people who you're probably expecting yourself to be worse than. You're probably thinking everyone's played this game more than you have and you're just going to have a way harder time learning than everyone else because wins will not be because of anything you did. And a lot of people who aren't here probably are telling themselves not even to think of finding other people who are new to the community since that itself would be impossible to someone who doesn't know their way around.
For me it definitely would all have been hard if not for a bit of luck. I've actually happened to know someone who's been in the Splatoon community for a while now (shoutouts @ Lutzi). They introduced me to one place that lead me down a train of thought that put me into another place, so on and so forth, here we are now. This post mainly won't have to do with Squidboards specifically as opposed to the broader Splatoon community.
Although actually I guess I could start with Squidboards. I'm sure many of us who are currently here found out about Squidboards through that one big push on X (formerly Twitter) for a place that has more serious, high-quality discussion. That's how I found out about this website actually! If you're not already, PLEASE don't use Twitter. It's an absolute cesspool of complaints and general negativity that can seriously damage how you view...well, anything, and for no good reason. You wanna hear something crazy? In all of the places I've competed in IRL for Smash, a game that I've since quit because everyone complains all the time there, the two regions that were the happiest were the ones that used Twitter the least. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's a sign.
What that friend of mine told me was that there was a tournament series where you didn't need a team to sign up. If you saw my last thread you'd have probably seen me mention something like this, but there are tournaments where the organizers will assign you with teammates rather than making you sign up as a full team. These are not the most competitive tournaments out there by any means but are great for people who are starting out. Great for getting a feel for what the game's like in a place where everyone has similar footing, great for practicing callouts and coordinated play with different people, great for feeling out your weapon pool if you want to think about that, and so on. At the first one of these I joined, I got some very encouraging words from our team's captain and our team didn't do bad at all. Placed 5th out of 10 teams, which sounds very average but two of us had never played in any tournament and a third had played in less than five.
I continued to join these for a bit but eventually found my way into a few tournament servers where people sign up as teams, but can ping a certain role to ask for a sub if they don't have a 4th that day. Subbing for teams is also great. You may be at a bit of a disadvantage since you don't know every team's playstyle and the opposing team will have had more time as a group of four, but it gives you a better idea of what teams are like and what you might want out of one. People will show more of their personality when they're with three people they know better and they'll have more defined playstyles, roles, skill levels, meeting times, and so on. There's a lot you can pick up and if you want to give it some thought and play with enough people, you may eventually play with a group you have few enough complaints with and will want to join.
One funny story I can share with this that I don't think I'll have a better opportunity to elsewhere - during the time frame I was subbing for different teams the most, I figured I'd spend one day looking for a team to sub for a very important event for this community's competitive scene. It was a ladder event that hadn't happened for a year and a half or so up until that point and I knew it'd be soul-crushing if a group was looking to play there and couldn't. I found a team who was looking for someone close to the tournament's start time. Seemed very thankful that I was there. Nice. They get me to sign up with them through the tournament site, make sure they're checked in, and only then do I get added to the private chat and join the voice call.
A few seconds later I get a DM from the captain saying "by the way we're all 13-16 year old girls."
I was 21 years old at the time.
I am a dude.
My screen name is freaking "Deez Nuts Kong."
I kid you not, this was the most downright uncomfortable experience of my life and it's not even close. It was almost funny to me how I knew the moment it all hit me that it would make for a great story. It's difficult for me to describe how I felt and I'm sure a lot of you will get it, but for those of you who don't the best I can say is that it felt like I was invading a slumber party that I wasn't supposed to be at. Imagine if one of my roommates had gotten home and heard that... I have nothing against any of those people but the situation I happened to find myself in that day was one that I hope to not find myself in again. If you look to sub for teams, try to get some background on what kinds of people they are beforehand just to be sure there won't be anything like that.
One of the first teams I subbed for ended up being the one I'd end up liking the most. They had a fun group dynamic, were very open and seemed to enjoy my presence there. Their weapon pools are very flexible and I clicked with everything a lot faster than with anyone else. Fast forward to now and I've ended up joining them for more goofy open sessions where we play random weapons as well as a few party games that aren't related to Splatoon at all. AND! They do need a Tacticooler every once in a while so I do play N-ZAP sometimes, but I get to play Stamper basically the whole rest of the time despite it being a new thing for me. You absolutely love to see it.
Hope this was informative to some degree or at the very least fun to read. Everyone's experience is different, like look at the teams that have formed from this website, but this was mine.
Last edited:
