change my mind: echo > cooler > armor

[zyf_]

i feel like cooler and armor are both way more unfortunate/encourage way more nonsense and i feel like sharking is a little too strong sometimes idk

the difference is that echo doesnt mess with any of the core mechanics of the game so i feel it is much less stupid

it also encourages dynamic aggressive play cuz u cant just sit back and shark and wait forever

idk

 

[QueueS]

I see what you mean but I feel like echo kind of didn't do enough. Like it was definitely good to find sharks and in some situations it was useful but both cooler and armor did more. Also this might just be my opinion but I think cooler is really fun. for any weapon it just enhances your mobility which is such an essential and unique aspect of this game.

cooler still definitely needs some nerfs tho, probably keeping only like 75% of your special instead of 100.

The main problem is the lack of cooler options (*cough* pencil *cough*), especially for backline

 

[DzNutsKong]

I don't think sharking is inherently an issue since using it is very high risk high reward, and if it were an issue you'd see way more Point Sensor since it's extremely spammable and hard counters the strategy. Even if it were more important though I still think approaching the argument where two of your three bullet points are about how it does against sharking is a bit extreme and ignores a lot about how specials should be designed.

All there is to Echolocator is marking four people and refilling your Ink Tank. That's it. When I played Splatoon 1 as a kid I never liked this special because it was super underwhelming. I don't remember how Point Sensors were then off the top of my head but big draw of using it can fairly easily be done with a few Point Sensors nowadays. It won't always, but even when you can't mark all four players you're consistently able to get fairly close to that, or at least close enough to the point where you'd never bother with Echolocator if it were introduced to Splatoon 3. Point Sensor isn't even that great right now.

Tacticooler might not be fun to directly use but the ability buffs it gives actively makes the game more fun for me. It's really fun being able to immediately jump back into the action a second after you die, and I like that it gives you the ability to teleport with a super jump as well while it's active, let alone all of the minor stuff that gets overlooked like the Ink Resistance buffs. This is also a fairly good way to answer sharking not only by making individual picks not as impactful and the time you spend sharking more important, but also the more obvious fact that it makes everyone who has it visible. It's overtuned right now for sure but I love the thing.

And I don't get how it messes with core mechanics of the game any more than stuff that already exists. You can literally respawn without losing any special by running all of your gear chunks in Special Saver, and the same applies to every other boost Tacticooler gives. If you want to suggest that it breaks game design by giving people too many gear abilities at once then that's not only a pretty arbitrary rule but it also implies that things like Opening Gambit aren't good for the game. Also completely ignores that you're sacrificing at least one of your team's specials for it, won't always have it active during a game, and when you do have it active you can't hide from people at all. It's a tradeoff I completely understand the developers' thought process for and I'd probably be right with them if you didn't keep your special after dying.

I'm not going to defend Ink Armor at all, I don't think very many people would, but Tacticooler is way better than Echolocator for me. It kinda speaks volumes that we have such a dominant special, very few people complain about it, and most of those people don't even feel like the special is THAT big of a problem.

 

[zyf_]

I don't think sharking is inherently an issue since using it is very high risk high reward, and if it were an issue you'd see way more Point Sensor since it's extremely spammable and hard counters the strategy. Even if it were more important though I still think approaching the argument where two of your three bullet points are about how it does against sharking is a bit extreme and ignores a lot about how specials should be designed.

All there is to Echolocator is marking four people and refilling your Ink Tank. That's it. When I played Splatoon 1 as a kid I never liked this special because it was super underwhelming. I don't remember how Point Sensors were then off the top of my head but big draw of using it can fairly easily be done with a few Point Sensors nowadays. It won't always, but even when you can't mark all four players you're consistently able to get fairly close to that, or at least close enough to the point where you'd never bother with Echolocator if it were introduced to Splatoon 3. Point Sensor isn't even that great right now.

well uh
i thoroughly disagree with this

sharking is absolutely the opposite of high risk if you know what you're doing

also point sensor is not even close to the same as echo. echo is a global, guaranteed marking. you know where everyone is, simultaneously
i guess this is only broken in coordinated high level play where people actually know how to avoid line of sight and obvious sharking positions and play around the map dynamically but info is kinda everything in this game when you know what you're doing so i just
i don't agree that it's underwhelming lol, it's one of the most broken things of all time

does it have to be combined with specials that actually let you accomplish stuff sometimes? yes. but it's still super valuable

comparing it to point sensor is totally invalid because it'd take 4 billion years to mark all 4 players with point sensor in a retake situation, and theres a good chance you'd get caught off-guard while trying to do it, and
MOST of all
what makes point sensor garbage is that you sacrifice a real bomb that can actually displace and paint and kill etc. etc.
this point doesn't apply to specials, because specials are valuable in that they provide unique utility

also lmao there are definitely people complaining about cooler
my main issue with the special is that when you have small amounts of nintendo™ lag and bullets in this game don't slow players, it leads to some incredibly dissatisfying interactions where you lost to an ice skater or whatever. there's no counterplay because they can chase you faster than you can run, can superjump out on reaction to you turning on them, and even if you trade it's ALWAYS in their favor

the point of cooler—and armor, and echo—in practice, is that it's a form of insurance -- insurance that you can make the play that you want to make with less risk, insurance that you won't waste your special, etc.

but i think insurance based on INFO (i.e. through perfect info from echo) allows for far more interesting and dynamic play from both sides than insurance based on effectively brute force guessing (cooler) or meatshielding (armor)

 

[zyf_]

I see what you mean but I feel like echo kind of didn't do enough. Like it was definitely good to find sharks and in some situations it was useful but both cooler and armor did more. Also this might just be my opinion but I think cooler is really fun. for any weapon it just enhances your mobility which is such an essential and unique aspect of this game.

cooler still definitely needs some nerfs tho, probably keeping only like 75% of your special instead of 100.

The main problem is the lack of cooler options (*cough* pencil *cough*), especially for backline

while i agree that movement is fun i feel like

cooler is (quite aptly) like junk food
it goes too far and devalues interesting interactions

you're so slide-y and the fights have such low value because of the respawn and special thing that it's literally a fight with no stakes for (at least) one side and everyone moves so fast that there's no real opportunity for skill expression and clever use of geometry and spacing and stuff

idk i dont find it impressive, it's the splatoon equivalent of button mashing to me
yeah it can be fun but it's, competitively speaking, not compelling or good

 

[DzNutsKong]

and here we have the exact reason i've felt uncomfortable sharing my opinions on this game for so long, i just have way too little experience next to so many others here. don't know why you didn't lead with all of this in the first place but you make a lot of good points here and i don't have much to say in response.

sharking is absolutely the opposite of high risk if you know what you're doing

if you don't mind i am still a bit curious what you have to say about this since it's basically the only thing that you didn't elaborate on in your post. it's always felt like if you're sharking for any reasonable amount of time you're making the rest of your team make up for you not painting or getting special or whatever else for however long you're gone only for it to still not guarantee a pick. does more opportune positioning make that time too short to matter or are you only supposed to do this when you're at an advantage unless you have a weapon built around it like a roller or something

 

[QueueS]

while i agree that movement is fun i feel like

cooler is (quite aptly) like junk food
it goes too far and devalues interesting interactions

you're so slide-y and the fights have such low value because of the respawn and special thing that it's literally a fight with no stakes for (at least) one side and everyone moves so fast that there's no real opportunity for skill expression and clever use of geometry and spacing and stuff

idk i dont find it impressive, it's the splatoon equivalent of button mashing to me
yeah it can be fun but it's, competitively speaking, not compelling or good

I see what you mean by saying it devalues fights, and I agree that that can be unhealthy (hence the nerf that I suggested), with the meta that we have right now being very fight heavy, theres going to be fights with and without cooler active so the value of kills is still there.

Additionally, cooler has the revealing effect which makes sharking is useless, which is a significant downside to the mobility that it gives. The maps being so chokepoint-heavy also makes the insurance more valuable, because youre almost certainly going to lose a player during a push.

also, i don't think that there being no skill expression is is true. while the person w cooler does have a significant advantage, it is not nearly as impactful as bubbler in s1 or armor in s2.

I think the main problem with cooler (and with any special that is meta), is that you pretty much need one on your team, and if theres not many options, it gets boring and frustrating quickly.

also, what do you think of the wave buff? do you think that it might serve a similar purpose and value as echo?

 

[zyf_]

I see what you mean by saying it devalues fights, and I agree that that can be unhealthy (hence the nerf that I suggested), with the meta that we have right now being very fight heavy, theres going to be fights with and without cooler active so the value of kills is still there.

Additionally, cooler has the revealing effect which makes sharking is useless, which is a significant downside to the mobility that it gives. The maps being so chokepoint-heavy also makes the insurance more valuable, because youre almost certainly going to lose a player during a push.

also, i don't think that there being no skill expression is is true. while the person w cooler does have a significant advantage, it is not nearly as impactful as bubbler in s1 or armor in s2.

I think the main problem with cooler (and with any special that is meta), is that you pretty much need one on your team, and if theres not many options, it gets boring and frustrating quickly.

also, what do you think of the wave buff? do you think that it might serve a similar purpose and value as echo?

no marking buff is actually good enough unless it's global or close to it imo
you can't even clear a whole side of the map with wb, it's a nice change but the special is still quite weak

in order to justify not displacing or dealing any damage the info has to be REALLY good

 

[QueueS]

yea, it does need some buffs.

 

[zyf_]

and here we have the exact reason i've felt uncomfortable sharing my opinions on this game for so long, i just have way too little experience next to so many others here. don't know why you didn't lead with all of this in the first place but you make a lot of good points here and i don't have much to say in response.

i mean
i don't lead with it cuz i also wanna see what other people are thinking and it was also easier to articulate in response to someone else's alternate view

but id hope that doesnt mean you'd stop posting n stuff cuz it's not like anyone gets better when the discussion doesn't happen but
opinions can only be changed when people are willing to risk being wrong
not that i think im always right or anything

i still don't get why people like fighting while coolered so much but that's a much more subjective thing so

idk what im saying ig im just saying i hope u dont give up on posting cuz discussion is hard but i think it's worthwhile lol

if you don't mind i am still a bit curious what you have to say about this since it's basically the only thing that you didn't elaborate on in your post. it's always felt like if you're sharking for any reasonable amount of time you're making the rest of your team make up for you not painting or getting special or whatever else for however long you're gone only for it to still not guarantee a pick. does more opportune positioning make that time too short to matter or are you only supposed to do this when you're at an advantage unless you have a weapon built around it like a roller or something

regarding sharking -- if you understand what areas people on the enemy team have to go through, you can pretty much guarantee a pick if they don't find you

and the opportunity cost of not painting/building special isn't relevant if you do the sharking at times where the tangible advantage of having more paint or specials isn't higher than the value you'll get off a pick (so yes this is generally in holding situations, or in situations where you're trying to defend the objective sneakily
also, in a competitive setting, usually you'd do this at times where you have teammates doing the painting and special output for you

i admit this probably all assumes a relatively high level of competitive play but that's what i have experience with