Hmm, have you tried seeing what's the minimal amount of ink required for a squid to hide in? I know it's possible to hide at that little ledge up the two walls near the base on Camp Triggerfish when 1 minute is left. But in the firing range, I tried hiding and the best I could do is in the same size that an ink mine occupies.
Yea some things are definitely not intended by the developers. Ideally they're observing data and still testing on their side to consider if such a thing is 'broken' in their opinion.
Yeah, when my team is the one doing the spawncamping (I refuse to participate) I get lots of time to play around with ink dots in my base :D Also, as a CEliter much of the time, I often don't have time to ink the perch properly before I have ot take a shot, so I'm used to having to squid to refill fast in the little spatter of ink that actually landed there as I approached ;)
It takes VERY little ink to hide. Specifically they probably made the smallest unit of hidable ink the width of the smallest ledge they intend snipers to be able to perch on. It's hard to actually get spatters that tiny in the firing range since it's hard for your own weapon to create them - it's best when the enemy partially covers broader strokes or squidsplosions and ignores a tiny dot. The maximum surface is smaller than the camp triggerfish ledge which is fairly thick. A better example would be the ledge that makes up those "half walls" on each pillar island of Hammerhead Bridge. I often snipe from up on those thin little ledges. That's probably the thinnest one. You might be able to get away with even less however.
I really doubt they considered people walking through enemy ink to hide in dots that small. it kind of breaks the results of inkstrikes and bomb rushes. Even squidsplosions. The problem is I doubt it's something they can fix in Splatoon 1, not overtly. That would be part of the whole inking mechanic, and would be too risky to fix without breaking other more important things.
The game is generally more dynamic than we are making it sound though, I'll try to illustrate a possible example:
Let's say you have one ninja squid,
Cool story.
Then something is going really wrong if 3 of the enemy wipes out 4 of you while this ninja is waiting at your base, not to mention, I already addressed this part when I said if your whole team moves out and gets ambushed together, that means no one is paying attention (at this point I think I can safely suggest that most players don't look at the gamepad map enough).
Oh most players definitely don't look at the map much. To be fair to them, it's weapon dependent. With a carbon roller, I'm not going to have time to look at the map much myself, I likely know where I need to be and I go there and see what's at risk or what needs to be done there. It's different with hydra or eliter where I'm staring at the map as much as the screen. There's too much action and danger to look at the map that often with a carbon roller. We're generally not wiped out together, but if they're wiped out first while I'm elsewhere, it's unlikely they'll jump to me, and if I'm wiped out first, usually they're in unsafe situations that should not be jumped to. And like I said, it usually takes 2-3 splats to figure out what's going on. At first the priority is to clean out the trash in the base before you realize the intensity of the camping. By then it's too late and everyone else is with you.
Though it occurred to me if they're going to resort to spawncamping, there's always the similarly dishonorable "valid tactic" in return. Squidparty on the spawn. Then kill them.
:p
I feel like this is ignoring the really short flick range of the Carbon rollers. The weapons that might have trouble inking the splotches from a relatively safe distance would be SSJs (use splat bombs or disruptors to flush out suspicious spots), Aerosprays ought to be fine with how they cover turf.
See, if the rest of your team is at least of a decent level, ideally there would be at least one squid out there near the mid, which you can SJ to. If your team mates are newbies, they'd typically be moving out with you from spawn point together, which isn't really what a Carbon can handle unless he's got an inkzooka ready and even then that requires all of you to be bunched up tightly (Port Mackerel corridors).
Generally in the lobbies I'm in, if there's a squid near mid, they're fighting. If there's no fighting in mid, then my team is in the enemy base fighting, or trapped with me on spawn. Though part of that point is that I often am the squid in mid on the team - so if I got splatted, the midsquid was undid. ;) And, in most of these cases, once the ninja has us captured, the enemy team inked everything else, thus there no longer is a mid.
Keep in mind the Carbon Campers will generally be running stacked run speed, with the exception of ink resist, and possibly cold blooded. They don't need swim speed because they don't swim, they run over your own ink. So two carbon rollers of equal ability, the camper covers more ground faster.)
The reason these weapons use these tactics is obvious, they can't win in a head on fight. Just like why Splooshes love to keep invading and planting beakons and then coming at you from behind. Getting infiltrated in this game is a reality (and I think it's interesting, even if it can get annoying if you're not properly equipped to deal with it).
I don't mind the splooshes. Irritating, yes, but that's the play style. They generally don't camp in your path. I'd disagree that the melee weapons can't win a head-on fight. For inkbrush that might be slightly true, but their advantage is their rediculous above ground mobility in enemy ink. They're arguably the most head-on weapon in the game. Octobrushes have some misleading range to them and that huge arc. Carbon rollers have a ranged weapon on them, be it burst bombs or seekers, Fully using the weapons there's no excuse to say they can't win an open fight. Stealth is advantageous in an attack/ambush, but it's not an excuse to have to camp. There's a big difference between lurking/ambushing/flanking and genuinely camping. I'd love to face the campers in a head-on fight, same weapon in hand, and see just how bad they really are at using their weapon when they don't resort to camping. Camping is what you do when you know you don't have the skill to win (or escape) an open fight.
Why do you think they put lasers on the chargers? Specifically so that they're always fighting in the open despite their campy nature so they're not blindly attacking from nowhere. Even if they hide their laser, when they shoot you, it still gives the killcam a straight line to their operating area.
Do remember that you get a killcam (assuming you're not stacking QR for that zombie mode) so the Carbon at least needs to pretend to stay in the same place until he sees your squid icon at the top light up again. If he's near base, that gives him little time to relocate. I started out annoyed with these tactics but got used to them because I played for like more than a week with a group of people, one of them was basically a ninja carbon, though he didn't tend to camp near the spawn, he'd generally be in the places where their ink was most prominent, swimming in it like a shark which you can't see and then OHKOing you anytime he could. Also uses burst bombs like a main weapon. I thought of how to deal with him and I did, with a variety of weapons no less.
Yeah, I only do the QR/Comeback stack for running aggro in TC :) And, yes, they do seem to pretend to stay in the same place, or you see them walk away and go ink something, but when you respawn they've moved to camping somewhere else. I believe they are waiting for your respawn, and with their run speed stack, it gives them enough time to re-camp before you can leave the spawn area enough to see them (remember they're not at your spawn, they're at the exits from it. )
The way you describe the carbon you played with sounds like the way I play carbon (which is to say, the normal way you play carbon if you're not a camping dirtball ;) ) Swimming like a shark within his OWN ink is what carbon does best and going for the ohko. It makes it dangerous for the enemy to approach enemy ink forcing them to be cautious. That's "offensively defensive" but allows increasing your own ink zone between attacks. A very different thing than hiding in stray dots deep in your ENEMY'S ink and waiting for them to walk by. And I also use the burst bombs like a main weapon. I learned how to do it with vanilla eliter, so it transferred over very well! And that's what makes carbon so versatile including head-on. It can lurk in your ink, expand your ink borders fast, inch by inch, and HOLD that territory, while also being a ranged offensive weapon (that guzzles ink.) that's all legit play as designed. Which is very different from the campers.
The way I see it, eliters hold mid from the rear, hydras hold mid from the rear, but can push up into the fray a little better. Carbons hold mid from right at the line of skirmish. But can also push that line forward alone when needed. But it'll never run smack into an an enemy mob like a 52 Gal.
Like I mentioned, the general meta and skill/experience of the player base is still growing. Ideally you're already watching the killcam + your gamepad map to see which team mate you could SJ to (if any) during your down time. This also means you ought to be tapping them during that time and hopefully they're experienced enough to realize that it means they should secure your landing spot (if they can). Not to mention, stealth jump exists, even if most of us not using stealth weapons ignore it.
I can't speak for them. For me, I look at my map, but almost never, ever choose to SJ. Rarely is there a safe squid, and on the occasions where there seems to be, they get jumped right while I'm jumping. SJ is simply rarely a good idea for me, though in part that's because my role usually IS as the safe SJ positioned squid - everybody can't be the one in good positions. As for my teams: If we're spawncamped and I break away, rarely do they jump to me, they just keep fighting at the spawn. In normal play I have some teams that will jump to me properly, some that will not. But in all matches 60% of the time someone jumps to me, it's when I'm standing immediately next to spawn.
Or if they jump to me when I'm sniping, they'll stand in front of me, shooting at my target with an aerospray, getting us both splatted. :p Some of them DO do it right.
To get spawncamped successfully, you typically are being boxed in by 2-3 competent players. If that lone team mate out there is not aware that he's only dealing with 1-2 squids out in the open and is getting recklessly killed, then he's your weak link (I've been that before btw, it happens).
Check the salt thread for the rank makeups of some of my favorite teams. The last one was my favorite of all time: Me, A, B-, unranked v S+, S+, S, S. Amazingly that one was a bad loss but still not a spawncamp. Though yesterday was weird. Both teams full of C & B ranks - but some of these matches were more brutal than matches against S+'s. I'm not sure what happened there. And I couldn't hit ANYTHING with an eliter for a long time - and then was able to hit again. I'm thinking lag maybe on my end or something. (We did have a massively teleporting roller on the other team though.) In MOST TW matches I'm going to have an unranked or C-something rank player on my team. You can guess the weak link from the start.
I'm a bit lazy to go into detail here but I'll just repeat that if you're getting spawn camped so early and badly, it typically indicates that your team is ill-equipped to deal with the other team (loadout + player skill level) and it's highly possible the enemy team understood that from the round intro where you can see what weapons your team has vs the other team. I was on a team that got boxed in on Walleye by what was essentially a group with a good charger and 3 blasters (Luna, Rapid and something else IIRC). My team was myself on E-liter, a Bamboozler, a charger I think and maybe one turfer. Not really sure how else to describe it except we were boxed in and my team mates were probably panicking.
I lucked out yesterday on Mahi - team with 3 eliters and one splatterscope against a mixed team that included 1 eliter. We not only won,but won big. :D But, yeah, I do tend to overlook the weapon mismatches unless one team is obviously lopsided like all chargers or all rollers. (Yeah, all roller teams still happen, they haven't disappeared much at all!)
That's more of a perspective problem: you can't see the value of having recon so you feel it's a waste. I mean, you just said it probably has the most potential on CE-Liter. Let me give you a few examples of how I've used it:
- Krak-On where I recon and plant beakons accordingly, then SJ in with a Kraken ready to take out targets, yes it takes more time but it's the very definition of precision targeting.
- Aerospray RG + Quick Super Jumps: I earn my specials quick and often, SJ back to inkstrike squids who will get trapped with my inkstrike placement. It's still possible to do by squatting in a corner and observing the map, but with my recon style I've managed to kill 3 squids at one go on Camp Triggerfish (they were all in the wrong place at the wrong time)
- Bubbler weapons where I identify locations where a team mate is pushing against more enemies and SJ in the provide a Bubbler and take down the defenders together
These aren't all the possible examples and they aren't necessarily always the best tactics (depends on map too) but my point is just, get creative! :)
Oh btw, I know what you mean about damage up, personally I play with 1 Damage Up main only. It's personal preference.
I think you have a somewhat different playstyle than me, in that, it seems you focus a lot of playstyle on specials given how all of your recon examples involved ideal special usage. :)
I tried recon out yesterday actually, and it was interesting for CElter, but I found I then had to sacrifice either QSJ, Dmg Up, or Swim Speed to use it, and I found I miss any of them too mcuh. QSJ speeds SJ up enough to make flipping between recon and beacon viable, Dmg Up is just too needed, and I've become used to using Swim Speed to be more offensive with the main gun on it. I like the concept, but it's too situational to trade evasive ability or likelihood of landing a shot in exchange for it. If I did it it would be QSJ I'd have to trade for it. But I fear that means I'm missing from the field for too long. Or if my team is doing well it means I'm standing on spawn watching for a long time, and my team probably believes I'm afk which probably doesn't help their play and the combination is likely putting the territory at risk. I'll have to try it again on a map that is NOT Port Mackerel though :p
I should try it with carbon too since I'm still playing with shirts. I had dmg up for a while for burst bombs, but I'm trying 2 bomb range up mains now to see how that plays. Could try recon, though the problem is none of my recon gear has good sub slot rolls. And I'm still kind of uninterested in spending snails on rerolls while I still have slots to unlock (and them seem to be making Splatfests farther between!)
Haunt doesn't do as much as cold-blooded (I'd say nothing does as much as cold-blooded for the clothing slot really) and it doesn't help that Haunt kinda gets countered by cold-blooded itself -_-
BUT, haunt still has it's uses. If you want to play an offensive weapon which doesn't come with point sensors, you could play a build that emphasizes dying (QR + Comeback) and anytime you get killed instead, the killer gets located and hopefully your team mates are savvy enough to finish the job. It's also great if you're playing weapons like Hydra or E-Liter and your playstyle is one where you're supporting from the back, Haunt lets your team know if you've been successfully backstabbed by an infiltrator.
But that would require they pay attention to something other than charging headlong into enemy territory, their own base be darned! :p
Actually, that's what TW in randoms is! You either pick a weapons and loadouts unsuited for the current rotation and hope your team mates can support your choice or you be the one to pick the right equipment for the job. Do you know how we feel when we play other weapons on Moray Towers only to find we aren't suited to dealing with that one amazing E-Liter on the other team? Would that be an exploit now?
I'm almost sure you could reply: "But that's a given for Moray, ninja carbon spawn camping can happen on every map!" Well, not every map is like Walleye where the Carbon can literally be right at your doorstep :)
Nah, the purpose of game balance is to make every weapon a viable choice for every rotation. If it's not, there's a failure of game balance. Splatoon's pretty balanced except for the lobby builder that doesn't seem to do appropriate weapon matchmaking. I'd say the "mismatched weapons" is a game flaw, not a problem of players choosing the "wrong" weapon. There shouldn't be a "wrong" weapon.
Actually I'd reply that Moray's not as much a sniper haven as people give it credit for. It's a very FUN eliter map, true, but it's not so dominated as people tend to believe. Granted a proper lobby builder would make sure if one team has an eltier so does the other. But Carbon roller does exceedingly well there (and it's fun to speed roll the ramps! :D ) Fast short range weapons can get a jump on the perches easily, and the angles of the ramp walls make sniping quite difficult. A sniper can watch mid pretty well, but a sniper is DOOMED if you try to assist a push. I can push the ramps far better with carbon or L3 or DS. So while it's fun shooting fish in a barrel with an eliter on Moray, you're limited to a mostly defensive role there, compared to other maps where you can also become offensive. And the problem is once the main perch is compromised, you're very limited in ability to do anything. It snowballs quickly since the eliter becomes almost helpless on the ramps, so the challenge for an eliter there is you
MUST hold mid and can't afford to miss the shot. Arowanna is much more a sniper heaven in fact. But the complaints there aren't as severe for some reason.
Well, Walleye and Mackerel are a special kind of awful ;)
