Force me out of my comfort zone.

[Hokuto]

I want to improve my Splatoon gameplay beyond "practice a lot;" when I practice without giving it further thought, I've been finding lately that I reinforce many of my bad habits instead of building good ones. For example, I'm relatively good at getting lots of splats. This has led to me getting reckless and taking every fight regardless of whether I can splat without going down myself.

So far, I've reached out to DzNutsKong of Squidboards fame for advice, and he says I play well for my in-game rank. The problem with this feedback, as much as I appreciate it, is that I have so little game awareness that he can compliment, say, my positioning without me consciously understanding how or why I'm picking the right places to go. With my main(s) of choice, I don't think when I play, I just do.

How can I shake my complacency and make myself think about what I'm doing? I'm open to suggestions, anything as simple as "turn off your laptop before an Opens session" to something major like "[suggested weapon] has an awful time to splat, how about learning to utilize its good turfing to corner an enemy who can't paint an easy escape route?" All suggestions are welcome; not all suggestions are helpful. Proper positioning (for example) for a Splash-o-Matic looks way different from that of a Snipewriter; I benefit far more from practicing one than the other.

Other potentially useful information:

• I am comfortable, if not complacent, with Tri-Slosher Nouveau and Dread Wringer. All of my other weapons (Splat Dualies, N-ZAP '85, the Range Blasters) are rusty.
• My current Anarchy rank is B, teetering just below B+.
• I should do more movement drills. The bar is barely above the floor. My aim is inconsistent (combo motion/sticks). I can't sub strafe or do that thing when you assume run form for a split second before swimming all the way up a wall to sink into the floor faster.

 

[QuagSass]

Normally I would suggest picking up a shorter ranged backline because I think that they do a good job of teaching people how to position and make use of terrain regardless of range value. Plus I think that learning at least one backline at some point generally gives a better understanding of the game as a whole.
But if that's a bit too much, then how about picking up Dualies again? Any Dualies really, but since you already have some experience with vDualies you could go with that. Dualies as a whole gotta roll in and out of cover a lot and generally prefer fighting with teammates. So you'd learn how to utilise terrain and your teammates. Dualies would probably help with your aim as well since they're not an AOE weapon and adjusting your aim after dodge rolling requires a bit of skill. Plus with vDualies specifically you could learn a thing or two about positioning since you can't exactly pop Crab Tank deep in enemy territory and expect it to go well.

 

[OCTöHEAD]

When I'm up for it and I noticed someone I played with/against playing good then I like to rewatch the map to see how they did it.

Another thing that gets my brainworms crawling is when I stumble upon videos where someone talks over a match and explains the decisions done. like this one:

it gets me thinking more

 

[solz]

ASk @Agame he mains ntri

 

[briank913]

you should try the H3. I promise it's the best weapon ever

 

[Aiko.Octo]

[...] without me consciously understanding how or why I'm picking the right places to go. With my main(s) of choice, I don't think when I play, I just do.

If you're trying to play more consciously instead of automatically, what helped me a lot in the beginning was to, while playing, narrate what you are doing out loud (and maybe why you're doing it). It sounds silly but in my experience it kind of forces your brain to process what's going on differently and you become more aware of the choices you are making. It's not something that will necessarily immediately improve gameplay, but by doing it a lot you can eventually build the mental habit of being more actively conscious of what you are doing when you're playing and in my experience that's foundational for learning everything else.

also, (unrelated and I might have mentioned this before somewhere but) one of my favorite practices/drills is recon mode clam blitz. Try to keep the basket open for as long as you can while using sub-strafing to grab clams and quickly flicking your map open and closed to see where the nearest clams are. Both of those are really useful skills that I find are hard to practice practically in-game so this exercise helped me a lot. Just be sure to try it on a bunch of different maps. This will also get you really familiar with all the spots that the clams spawn and if you're generally uncomfortable in clam blitz (as many people are) the before-and-after difference is really noticeable (at least it was for me).

 

[🌌☾ᏉᎬᎶᎪ☽⭐]

My aim is inconsistent (combo motion/sticks).

There's a piece of advice that has been ironed into my brain when it comes to this.

The world is your aim drill.

Don't get me wrong, you can definitely hit up the dummies and practice your weapons like that but if you've got time to kill while waiting in the lobby, look for other things you can set your sights on. Wanna practice shutting someone down from climbing a wall? The lobby is littered with stickers, something you can definitely try aiming at. Wanna try counter attacking with a bomb in the way? Try the copy machine. It might not move but it gives you something to parry and then shoot at. Get out of a Turf War or Anarchy Series game and are waiting for the next match? Use people's holograms to shoot at. While they're busy messing with the dummies you can fire at them to simulate someone unprepared, or someone shooting at you. Ultimately it's unpredictable unlike the moving dummies so if they're really fidgeting you also get something to practice movement while also practicing your aiming, tracking, strafing, whatever it is you desire. Dummies are always gonna have the most feedback but if you give things new perspective, you'll gain more target dummies than Nintendo even thought possible.

 

[OCTöHEAD]

If you're trying to play more consciously instead of automatically, what helped me a lot in the beginning was to, while playing, narrate what you are doing out loud (and maybe why you're doing it). It sounds silly but in my experience it kind of forces your brain to process what's going on differently and you become more aware of the choices you are making. It's not something that will necessarily immediately improve gameplay, but by doing it a lot you can eventually build the mental habit of being more actively conscious of what you are doing when you're playing and in my experience that's foundational for learning everything else.

that makes so much sense though!