Does Anyone Else Think Fizzbangs Might be Hell for Casual Players?

[Driftwood]

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to trying the mode out. But it seems like it heavily incentivizes splatting opposing players and in generally being really aggressive. Admittedly the description in today's tweet is a little vague. It says "Fizzbangs can be obtained every time you land on the map and defeat an opponent." However accompanying gameplay video mostly shows players obtaining them by getting splats. Not sure what the "...land on the map..." part means but according to Inkipedia you also get them when you respawn (not sure what their source is though) so I guess that even things out a bit. Still...correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure this is the first time the game has given an explicit reward for splatting other players (other than that it removes them from play for a time).

It's hard to tell for sure until it comes out but Fizzbangs seems to be even more...I hate this word but I can't think of a better one..."sweaty" than normal Turf War. And for a lot of us that's great. But it's not uncommon (especially after Splatfests) to hear some folks complain about how "hardcore players take this casual game too seriously". I kind of suspect that for those folks (who are presumably more likely to return to the game during Splatfests) this mode might not feel that great.

 

[vitellary]

to be fair, i think turf war at the higher levels generally boils down to a deathmatch for the first 2 minutes anyway. there's not much else to do besides push back and forth and wait for the moment that actually matters, so giving some incentive to do something is probably going to be beneficial to everyone regardless of how casual you are

besides, as far as i know, splatfests do seem to have some sort of system to queue battles against people with similar skill levels (splatfest pro at least calculates a power level similar to challenges), so i don't expect there to often be battles in which one team is way more aggressive at trying to get the objective than the other

 

[ikebro]

that's actually a pretty good point imo. sometimes it feels like the general environment of the game is unfriendly to noobs*, and splatfests exclusively being turf feels like something that's kind of for them. adding fizzbangs might complicate things further for them since people are now incentivized away from going easy on them. It's A Free Fizzbang!
i'm not gonna complain abt a new splatfest feature though, it's been pretty damn unplayable for a WHILE. i'm hoping this doesn't make it worse.
*-unfriendly in the sense that there's not a whole lot of new people, therefore everyone consistently playing rn is ppl who already play it a lot

 

[Driftwood]

to be fair, i think turf war at the higher levels generally boils down to a deathmatch for the first 2 minutes anyway. there's not much else to do besides push back and forth and wait for the moment that actually matters, so giving some incentive to do something is probably going to be beneficial to everyone regardless of how casual you are

besides, as far as i know, splatfests do seem to have some sort of system to queue battles against people with similar skill levels (splatfest pro at least calculates a power level similar to challenges), so i don't expect there to often be battles in which one team is way more aggressive at trying to get the objective than the other

As far as power scores go a player's skill is not the same as their aggressiveness. If you are good skirmisher or support player then you might not get many splats on average but still be very good at the game. But anyway while what you say is generally true at high levels, ms suspicion is that Fizzbangs will be pretty close to a deathmatch mode even at very low levels too, since it explicitly incentives that kind of play.

 

[vitellary]

i guess "at the higher levels" was a bit misleading in my original post since really i think it's true at any level. even at the very bottom of turf war i'm pretty sure players' first thought when they see someone is to splat them regardless of if theres an incentive to do so or not, so i don't really anticipate fizzbang to make any problems worse. ppl might be playing for splats more than usual but like, everyone will be doing that equally, so i don't expect anyone to have an issue with it

also, ultimately, even if ppl do complain about it, like. idk i just think that's a bit silly. if they wanna play good old fashioned turf war where no one needs to fight each other, they have about 350 other days of the year to do that, i feel like it's not unreasonable to expect ppl to wanna play a bit more seriously when theres a splatfest

 

[9DB]

I don't have strong opinions on them. I just wish it was its own mode.

 

[isaac4]

I think I need to see more about how the fizzbangs work before I can have a clear opinion on how it'll affect turf war but I can say that for slower weapons it'll be very annoying to deal with, especially for casual players.

 

[Driftwood]

also, ultimately, even if ppl do complain about it, like. idk i just think that's a bit silly. if they wanna play good old fashioned turf war where no one needs to fight each other, they have about 350 other days of the year to do that, i feel like it's not unreasonable to expect ppl to wanna play a bit more seriously when theres a splatfest

I don't think it's a case of reasonableness. I don't think there is an objectively correct answer for whether anyone "should" play the game seriously or causally, and I especially don't see how it being a Splatfest might play into it. To the extent I have any concerns though, they has to do with how large the player base is, and the casual part of the player base is still a part of the player base.

 

[lizardontheweb]

yes. no question, yes. clams but they explode will incentivize stacking kills, making weapons like liter and gal more prominent.

 

[Driftwood]

Now that I'm thinking about it, Tetras players might have a field day with this mode since you get Fizzbangs from both kills AND deaths .

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

besides, as far as i know, splatfests do seem to have some sort of system to queue battles against people with similar skill levels (splatfest pro at least calculates a power level similar to challenges), so i don't expect there to often be battles in which one team is way more aggressive at trying to get the objective than the other

that won't stop people from complaining about it though

 

[Aiko.Octo]

They look super chaotic, and I love chaotic things on casual modes. I'm really excited to try them out, but I do wonder if they might get old quickly. At first I wondered if they were going to make them a mechanic that only appears randomly in certain games (like how 10x battles are random, but a little more often than that). That feels like it would keep them a fun and exciting thing without overdoing it. But it sounds like they intend for them to be in every game, and....I don't know, I guess we'll have to wait and see how that pans out. It feels like this just has the potential to entirely change the game mode that is splatfest turf war and I am.... a little surprised at that decision. But I remain hopeful.

 

[Yosi Spring]

Looks like they'll make spawn camping even stronger than it already is

 

[Bluejay]

Agree with what's being said. On the other hand, this could make splatfest turf matches more enjoyable for casuals who play weapons that are better at getting kills than painting. I've heard friends complain how turf war doesn't feel fair because their weapon just…cannot play the objective (ie, putting paint on the ground) effectively. If the fizzbangs are actually functional, kills could be turned into more paint you can deploy as you wish. (Edit: I hope they can actually paint haha, the output doesn't look like much in the trailer.)

 

[Lisku]

i mean there are many good casuals out there. i only play soloQ so i guess im kinda in the middle

 

[chaotik0]

if fizzbangs cause that much of a problem for people im sorry but thats likely a skill issue, which makes sense because i think most of the people that play splatfests either just want snails or actually like turf war (gross). i also do not care, they finally added SOMETHING to shake up splatfest matches.

im half joking with that, the main reason it will cause trouble for people is because since they will be new, it will take time to get used to using. the people that learn how to use them fastest will dominate the people who don't know how to use them that well, and then some of them will complain about fizzbangs being too annoying.

anyway, the main thing i want is for it to hopefully enable weapons that can't paint for themselves very well because those weapons tend to be worse in turf.

 

[Dessgeega]

I can see fizzbangs being a headache and making matches snowball even more. Yeah, the patch notes say both the splatter and the splat-ee get fizzbangs, but the person who got splatted gets them functionally ten seconds later and that is absolutely going to make a difference in how matches go.

 

[Hitzel]

But it's not uncommon (especially after Splatfests) to hear some folks complain about how "hardcore players take this casual game too seriously".

Those folks will make this complaint with Fizzbangs. They will make this complaint without fizzbangs. They will make this complaint no matter what. There's nothing you can do to make them happy about it because it's how they deal with losing.

It's therefore not worth pandering to them when that means holding back cool new features that make the game more fun.

(It is worth improving matchmaking for them though!)

Keep in mind that when they are winning games, they will be having tons of fun when they know they're the dominant ones. You just will never hear about it.

 

[Bennet]

I think it is a good way to get more people to participate in splatfests

 

[Linneus]

I think if we're mindful not to assume that "casual" means "little billy who only knows aerospray, hold forward, and press ZR", then it's just a mode that will challenge some different skills!

Everyone can learn a new playstyle for a new mode if they're willing, and both the top 500 X players and the B Rank lobbies who only load up the game every now and then will figure this out just fine.

If anything, I think this helps solve spawn camping even more, because now you spawn with armor AND a constant supply of bombs, meaning that if you push far into the enemy base, you're in a constant disadvantage state that's very different to the existing disadvantages.