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If you thought savescumming was bad enough ...

Kowai Yume

Semi-Pro Squid
Joined
Jul 24, 2015
Messages
96
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Kowai_Yume
Hacking via online with randoms with weapon hacks and such? Not okay. Can someone explain to me how you can enjoy hacking and ruining the gaming experience for others online? I...really seem to miss the point.
It isn't especially in this game. It's only fun for about 30 seconds and the real fun is from the players reacting to it. Splatoon does not have that. ArraySeven puts it best.
 

Ansible

Squid Savior From the Future
Community Ambassador
Joined
Feb 3, 2016
Messages
2,017
Hi, I'm new here and IDK if I'm doing replies right!

Anyway, I used to play Mario Kart wii competitively when I was about 11-13. Hackers were EVERYWHERE. Half of the time, you would encounter 20-30 blueshells in one match and lightning bolts everywhere. Don't forget those 1-2 people who would be in starman form for the majority of the time. Playing Mario Kart wii was unbearable once you encountered Hackers. I really hope Splatoon doesn't become like that, although it's not likely, but it's still a worry of mine.
No worries, dearie, you're doing well. And thank you. Other than a 3DS and beginning of this year, I haven't had a Nintendo console since the SNES—so I'm a bit out of the loop when players here reference situations from other Nintendo game communities.

And another thank you to @MasterYoshidino for the history lesson too.

My, my, my, hopefully this doesn't get out of hand. Not just with hackers regularly playing in queues but Nintendo's efforts on tamping down on it when they decide to drop the hammer.
 

Goolloom

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Feb 11, 2015
Messages
164
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QC. Canada
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Goolloom222
So... after a few days that this hack and some videos and tutorials are going around a lot more to explain how to edit your gear and whatnot...

There are reports of people getting a temporary 2 week ban for cheating. The reason is most likely that the people who got banned went ahead and played online without resetting their Wii U after editing their gear. This mean that TCPGecko and the kernel exploit were still active and were noticed by the servers.
With this happening, I am quite certain Nintendo is now aware of this and is probably working on a fix for those exploits... also adding that people are sharing these methods, it's pretty hard to not notice it by now.

With that said, to me, as long as it just involves your gear sub abilities, it doesn't bother me so much... if you start ruining other's experiences in any way such as hacking your weapon's stats or making you invincible, or anything of the sort, now things are not okay in my book.
Your gear's abilities don't really ruin it for anyone as it stays in what can be done legit. Although the reroll system is pretty crap as it is right now, it is completely understandable as to why people go and use such methods to bypass the RNG and luck involved.

Hopefully, Nintendo takes action and updates the rerolling system... or at least do something about it. No one that I know likes this RNG system. Especially when you consider how expensive rerolls are. Just making it cheaper would be enough for me.
 
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Elecmaw

Lord of the Squids
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Aug 15, 2015
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1,088
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Netherlands
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Personally i'm hoping that this shows the devs that the current system isn't working. Re-rolling gear, especially considering the odds of rolling brand-biased subs isn't working.

These two couldn't be that bad. The former because if you don't deserve a rank, then if you get it artificially, you aren't gonna be able to play without losing it; the latter because what's money for if not rerolls? That's just inferior to direct gear manipulation.
This is actually very dangerous and what i'm worried about a lot. Let's just say that a player that's ranked below A thinks (s)he needs a S+99 rank for whatever reason, and then uses this technique to change that. Unlike regular rankscumming, which takes a lot of time and it's unlikely said person will advance beyond 30 points to do much damage.
It's highly unlikely someone below S level can function properly in S+, so let's say that they're going to lose every game. You lose -5 per loss in S+, 4- if your score is below 40. It takes 12 losses before you get below 40, then you get another 10 losses to actually derank and restart the process. That's 22 matches in total, minimum!
This will have another ripple effect on players who are currently S+ level but end up getting deranked themselves because of people like this, making S even more of a cluttered mess than it already is. I feel that this is going be disastrous if this is really going to happen.
 

Flareth

Inkling Fleet Admiral
Joined
Nov 3, 2015
Messages
623
Location
In the Paradox of Spring
It does suck that triple subs are going to look a bit suspicious from here on out, even those that were obtained legally. In my mind, the only time I'd smell a rat is if it's 3x of an ability that is anti-brand (say, 3x Main Ink Saver on a Squidforce shirt), considering just how rare those are as it is, but I wouldn't hold it against them. Lord knows I haven't the patience to reroll them naturally myself. And it's not like the abilities themselves are what makes a good player; they enhance the experience, sure, but 12 Damage Ups don't mean a thing if you can't aim straight.

Though I am a bit concerned... it's bad enough that people will pin the blame for a loss on their teammates and a biased matchmaker. I could very easily see people start blaming their losses on "hackers" going around and "cheating" their way to victory.

Re: Octolings
Oh, I've known about the player ID thing for a while, I was just curious if this hack would also work for that. I suppose it could, considering both involve just altering values, but the challenge then would be to dig through that mass of numbers for the exact value that needs to be changed, without rendering my save file an unusable mess in the process. That's a challenge I don't think I can afford to tackle right now.
 

Lonely_Dolphin

Lord of the Squids
Joined
Aug 5, 2015
Messages
1,192
NNID
Einsam_Delphin
The part where you connect gecko or?

when I first tried it I mistakingly kept opening up the links on my pc instead of going to the browser on the wii U and typing them in. oh and make sure you write down your wii U's ip address. The gecko added a 7 to the end of mine so mine wouldn't connect till I realized this and deleted the 7.
PC app connecting to Wii U gecko. Already did troubleshooting on the discord server to no avail so I'm just a lost cause, don't worry about me!

Hacking via online with randoms with weapon hacks and such? Not okay. Can someone explain to me how you can enjoy hacking and ruining the gaming experience for others online? I...really seem to miss the point.
That's just it, ruining it for others and easy free wins are the enjoyment for them sickos.
 

Award

Squid Savior From the Future
Joined
Dec 18, 2015
Messages
1,661
Scumming is technically the bigger problem than the gear slot hack because it's so much more widespread. Yeah, the reroll system sucks, but padding yourself with advantages via scumming that people playing HONESTY the way the system was intended are less likely to have may not be hacking, bannable, or expressly against the ToS, but it's still just disgusting. And this would all have been a mute point if player data was stored server side for an online-only game to begin with. :rolleyes: I really can't begin to guess why they don't. It's not like they don't have database space allocated for each of us anyway. The only benefit is being able to walk around the plaza with your gear and specs when the servers are down :)

I still think the real fix for all the problems would be to cap the effect of stacking at 3 mains or so for any ability. That would have fixed eliter's problems, it would fix the annoying all-speed builds, and so many other stacked build issues and add so much build variety to the game. There would be reduced obsession with rolling perfects, and the appeal of scumming/hacking would go out the window with it. I have no idea why they didn't implement that long ago. It seems like that's more how they intended it since even Judd lectures on the diminishing gain from stacking too much.

I still don't understand this obsession with perfect gears. I enjoy this element of randomness and experimentation.
+1 I play that way as well. But I can't deny the players with EVERY slot filled with swim speed seem to have an advantage. :)
 

Brunosky_Inc

57% Squid Kid / 43% Hipster
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Sep 29, 2015
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Chile: Not As Dry As Space!
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Brunosky_Inc
I still think the real fix for all the problems would be to cap the effect of stacking at 3 mains or so for any ability. That would have fixed eliter's problems, it would fix the annoying all-speed builds, and so many other stacked build issues and add so much build variety to the game. There would be reduced obsession with rolling perfects, and the appeal of scumming/hacking would go out the window with it. I have no idea why they didn't implement that long ago. It seems like that's more how they intended it since even Judd lectures on the diminishing gain from stacking too much.
I can see them doing this as a measure against this. Making diminishing returns and opportunity costs greater than they already are would be a quite effective kick in the balls.
 

xXShadeXx

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
238
Switch Friend Code
SW-3241-7928-4020
It isn't especially in this game. It's only fun for about 30 seconds and the real fun is from the players reacting to it. Splatoon does not have that. ArraySeven puts it best.

What an interesting video to answer my questions. Thanks for that. And yeah, I know my fair share of online hacks other than Splatoon. Some being completely harmless, others not so much.

That's just it, ruining it for others and easy free wins are the enjoyment for them sickos.
Yeah, I guess so. But ruining the game for other people does not give me any sort of joy. As well as free easy wins. But not everyone thinks like that. Oh well.
 

mercenariez

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Feb 5, 2016
Messages
186
NNID
gamelo8018
This gear hacking stuff is ruining the game. Yes, you needed to get lucky or maybe waste a lot of time to get good gear before, or maybe find someone to order from. But that never made the game unfair since everyone can do it (the hack doesn't work for everyone from what I've heard) and everyone has the same odds. It also rewarded time spent and hard work, it was usually not that easy to get what you wanted. Some people still spent weeks to get their desired gear even with scumming.

Elitism is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at Diablo 3 and paragon levels. It gives you an incentive to keep playing.

But now that anyone can just put on 3 main 9 sub damage up/defense up or w/e that makes the game a LOT less interesting. There may as well be no gear if everyone's on equal footing now.

Yeah yeah now we can get more in depth on true equipment counters and test stuff freely bla bla bla. Look, I'm an S+ player and it's fairly obvious that there would be a consistent set of subs you would see if people hacked. When no one hacked you'd get more interesting match ups since most people couldn't just choose all of their gear, but you'd make the most of it anyway. Now you're going to see a lot more homogeneity.

If people don't get banned or this doesn't get patched somehow, I am very, very inclined to stop playing. Variety of gear and gear probabilities was a big factor in making this game interesting to me. With that gone I am much less interested in playing Splatoon.
 
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CM86

Pro Squid
Joined
Apr 17, 2016
Messages
105
This whole deal reminds me of shiny Pokemon hunting. You can get a shiny Pokemon through the legit Masuda method or hack the game and get one (I believe people do some QR code image scan to do this) in seconds. Anyway, for me, when I got my shiny eevee after tons of hours of egg hatching it felt very rewarding and satisfying. If I had obtained my shiny eevee through hacking, I can tell you I would not feel the same way. Isn't it funny how grinding for hours to get what you want makes you feel more accomplished then getting it instantly? Look, I know that is not how everyone feels, but this is how I like to approach any game. Obstacles and insane probabilities make for an interesting experience. In Earthbound I got the goddess ribbon from the ghost of starman. When I did, I dropped the controller and screamed like a girl while running in circles. In this example, I previously hacked the goddess ribbon and was like, ehhhh.

So finally getting back to Splatoon, from personal experience, I think grinding out for what you want is more rewarding then anything else. I know people want abilities for competitive reasons, but like a few others said, skill is way more important then abilities in this game. So just relax and enjoy the randomness that this game brought to us. If you can't, fair enough. Its your Wii U and game. Just don't complain if you do get caught or erase your data.
 

Airi

Inkling Commander
Joined
Sep 28, 2015
Messages
396
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California
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radiorabbits
It seems that people have really taken to hacking their gear. I did a squad earlier and needless to say, almost everyone in S+ is running hacked gear. I'm very doubtful that you 3 main and 9 sub Swim Speed set is rerolled naturally or with savescumming. :rolleyes: It's a little disappointing to see so many S+ players choosing to hack their gear rather than be honest players about it but I can't say that I'm surprised. It's a competitive environment. It's not always going to be pleasant or nice. Anything to win, no? :rolleyes:

Edit: Yes, I know it could be real. But let's be honest about the actual odds of almost every match having someone with this set. :P
 

Award

Squid Savior From the Future
Joined
Dec 18, 2015
Messages
1,661
And then there's me, I've been mostly playing A/A+ with my alt with all one slot gear, completely random mismatches of junk - I just treat the 3 main slots as the only real slots and call it a day - I pick 3 total abilities, not 6. :P And I'm STILL the only useful member of my team half the time. :rolleyes:

As someone mostly going the VERY limited route on gear, this revalation is even more distressing. Though IMO this increases the number of CHEAP kills and wins these guys get - but most of the very best players I've fought against I'm always amazed to see have no real theme going with their gear, they seem to have pretty random "for freshness" builds (yes, including S+'s)

I'm still banking on Nintendo to massively cap the stackability of anything. Upper ranks and competitive would be much better for it.

So finally getting back to Splatoon, from personal experience, I think grinding out for what you want is more rewarding then anything else. I know people want abilities for competitive reasons, but like a few others said, skill is way more important then abilities in this game. So just relax and enjoy the randomness that this game brought to us. If you can't, fair enough. Its your Wii U and game. Just don't complain if you do get caught or erase your data.
Oh the rolling system DOES suck - I don't know why Nintendo is obsessed with making everything into a roulette wheel. That's half of why I just don't participate in it. I'd much rather have a "make your own build" machine or something - a shoe rental store like bowling - you pay to change your gear or something but lets you create BUILDS as desired rather than the slot machine thing. They need to have a "fee" to keep people playing like the reroll system has but without "really low odds" rolls. Or maybe let you pick whatever slots you want but there's different grades of slots and everyone can roll for "platinum" that has an extra % effect or something.
 

CM86

Pro Squid
Joined
Apr 17, 2016
Messages
105
And then there's me, I've been mostly playing A/A+ with my alt with all one slot gear, completely random mismatches of junk - I just treat the 3 main slots as the only real slots and call it a day - I pick 3 total abilities, not 6. :p And I'm STILL the only useful member of my team half the time. :rolleyes:

As someone mostly going the VERY limited route on gear, this revalation is even more distressing. Though IMO this increases the number of CHEAP kills and wins these guys get - but most of the very best players I've fought against I'm always amazed to see have no real theme going with their gear, they seem to have pretty random "for freshness" builds (yes, including S+'s)

I'm still banking on Nintendo to massively cap the stackability of anything. Upper ranks and competitive would be much better for it.



Oh the rolling system DOES suck - I don't know why Nintendo is obsessed with making everything into a roulette wheel. That's half of why I just don't participate in it. I'd much rather have a "make your own build" machine or something - a shoe rental store like bowling - you pay to change your gear or something but lets you create BUILDS as desired rather than the slot machine thing. They need to have a "fee" to keep people playing like the reroll system has but without "really low odds" rolls. Or maybe let you pick whatever slots you want but there's different grades of slots and everyone can roll for "platinum" that has an extra % effect or something.

I actually like this idea. It would be just as rewarding if you had to pay a fee to customize your own gear. Here is my idea. Main abilities can never be changed. I know a lot of people would prefer it to not be this way, but if I had to compromise with Nintendo, they could keep this aspect. As far as sub abilities and a fee, here is my idea: Keep the roulette system as is. The roulette system would be the cheaper way to just re-roll all of your slots. Pay 300k or 10 sea snails to change one sub ability slot to whatever you want. While this is rather expensive, I don't believe it should be easy to get pure gear still. Whats nice about this idea is that save scumming will not help you here. You either pay the 300k or you don't.
 

fuchsia

Full Squid
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May 9, 2016
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39
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Chicago
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fuchsiaplays
i'd be happy with just being able to pick one sub slot to reroll, even with RNG rolls. so many times i've had two great rolls, not even matching rolls specifically, but the third is something completely useless for what i need [bomb range up for my nzap gear, for example]. i have to either reroll and probably lose those other two abilities, or keep that one useless one.
 

Award

Squid Savior From the Future
Joined
Dec 18, 2015
Messages
1,661
I actually like this idea. It would be just as rewarding if you had to pay a fee to customize your own gear. Here is my idea. Main abilities can never be changed. I know a lot of people would prefer it to not be this way, but if I had to compromise with Nintendo, they could keep this aspect. As far as sub abilities and a fee, here is my idea: Keep the roulette system as is. The roulette system would be the cheaper way to just re-roll all of your slots. Pay 300k or 10 sea snails to change one sub ability slot to whatever you want. While this is rather expensive, I don't believe it should be easy to get pure gear still. Whats nice about this idea is that save scumming will not help you here. You either pay the 300k or you don't.
That's a pretty good idea, though it only means something as long as the slots are sever-side. If you can still scum your way through the reroll system unchanged, that's what many will still opt for. The 300k and 10 snails seems way too much. Especially the snails considering how scarce they are and how dependent you are on splatfests with them. That's almost double the difference between winning & losing team. If you thought people were obsessed with "pick the unpopular team so you win" now.... :) (Though this one splatfest currently probably wont suffer from that with Japan included.)

i'd be happy with just being able to pick one sub slot to reroll, even with RNG rolls. so many times i've had two great rolls, not even matching rolls specifically, but the third is something completely useless for what i need [bomb range up for my nzap gear, for example]. i have to either reroll and probably lose those other two abilities, or keep that one useless one.
I've wanted that for so long. That's how I thought rerolling worked in the beginning. I'd have rerolled so many things by now. Instead I see rerolls as damaging - I lose things I know are almost half ok for probably more "quick super jump". Rerolling one slot would make perfect gear more common but it would make the system a lot more bearable to work with the natural rolls too.

Though I think where the game goes wrong is needing "perfect" rolls to begin with - what's "perfect?" and if you play multiple weapon classes there's no "perfect" gear. You need multiple builds anyway. A system that allows more dynamic slotting in general rather than getting "favored" and "unfavored" triples etc is just offputting. I'm almost picture a "Build-a-Squid Workship" type of store in the Plaza where you go in to customize your kit, for a fee, each time you change. It doesn't even have to be a huge fee....but maybe...I don't know, I'll get downvoted to eternity, but a Sticker Star like system might actually work here. "Slots" could be stickers on your gear (they game already plays up stickers making things "custom") the idea of consumable stickers or replacing stickers to change kits could be cool. If we want a "high money risk" system we could make any slot be able to be a "main" or "sub" slot....you can buy big stickers or small stickers, and big ones cost more but you lose more to change them....or something :)
 

Archæa

Inkster Jr.
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23
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Massachusetts, USA
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A little late, but I figured I'd throw my opinion into the lot.
Note: what I am commenting on is just the morality of the system; not whether its ban-worthy or not

I can understand both viewpoints in the argument, and share ideals of both. I personally believe it is okay to do this for one reason: anybody can get these naturally, it is just a matter of pure luck. In addition, gear does not affect attributes of gameplay as much as many people think.

I for one am against instances of pure chance in a game that asks to be taken competitively (or indeed is played competitively, even if the intent was not there during development). In my eyes, "RNG" in competitive games takes the game out of the hands of the player and puts it up to chance. A game with no randomness will inevitably display which participant is the stronger. A game with RNG shows nothing about a player's skill.

I am aware that this particular RNG has nothing to do with gameplay, but good rolls are a part of competitive play nonetheless and should be counted the same.
 

Cuttleshock

Inkling Commander
Joined
Apr 1, 2016
Messages
459
I for one am against instances of pure chance in a game that asks to be taken competitively (or indeed is played competitively, even if the intent was not there during development). In my eyes, "RNG" in competitive games takes the game out of the hands of the player and puts it up to chance. A game with no randomness will inevitably display which participant is the stronger. A game with RNG shows nothing about a player's skill.
Food for thought: Pokémon, which has way larger a competitive scene than Splatoon right now. Those games can be, depending on your choice of movesets and how consistent your team match-ups are, very luck-based indeed; and there's no way to avoid all elements of luck. That hasn't prevented it from having such a following, though. A lot of it becomes a case of calculating the order of moves that'll maximise your chances of victory, as nobody can win every game in Pokémon even if they're indubitably the world's best player.

In the case of Splatoon, I guess, there's considerably less luck in-battle (still a little, as nobody can perfectly predict which paths opponents will approach from and such; also Sploosh) but I don't think that gear rolling constitutes RNG, per se. Competitively playing games, one is expected to have all of their cards prepared, regardless of how difficult it is to get hold of them - take literal card games as an example here.
 

Ulk

Inkling Cadet
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
295
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Germany
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Die-Ulk-Nudel
I think the rolling system could simply be fixed by merely offering a ton of more variety of gear. The system is not just "broken" in the sense that getting the main and sub ability mix you want is so unbelievably unlikely. There is a third factor for many of us: Style. This doesn't matter from a competitive point of view, but from a casual point of view, it really does. To quote the creators:

"Customization isn't just about looking fresh. Each piece of gear comes with an ability, like faster ink refills or a speed boost. Plus, items can gain more abilities the more you wear them!"

And this simply isn't true. In almost every case you have to decide between looking fresh and getting the abilities you want. It is beyond unlikely that the gear you want to wear because of its style also has the main ability and sub-ability multiplicator you need.

I've come up with several solution of how to tweak the system and allow people to wear what they want without making the rolling system any easier or giving the players any higher chance of getting what they want. But I honestly believe the system is far from fully functional with how low the odds of getting what you actually want are, so I really think what they need to come up with is a solution that doesn't force us to choose between style and abilities, and that makes getting the abilities you want difficult, but not near impossible for non-save scummers like it is today.

My personal solution for this would be the following: Every piece of gear is produced by every brand (except for ability-neutral brands). So instead of having for example just one Pilot Goggle gear by Forge, each brand delivers us their own version of the Pilot Goggles. And they really don't have to look different either. Just add the brand logo somewhere, like they do with weapons, add the brand name to every gear and then we already have the "Inkline Pilot Goggles", the "Squidforce Pilot Goggles", the "Firefin Pilot Goggles" etc. And each would of course also have its own main ability. Because no matter how many different ability multiplicators the individual gears have, nothing would change the fact that some have no use for the Bomb Range Up in the Pilot Goggle's case, but would like to wear the Pilot Goggles for how they look.
But no gear would ever have the favorable ability of the brand being the main ability of the gear of course, like it is today. Pure gear should still be extremely unlikely to get.

Now of course this already looks like getting the gear you want is way too easy with this system, because even if this doesn't increase rolling odds, that would give us way too many options.
Each gear multiplied with the amount of brands would cause way too many alternatives to exist, and there would always be the exact combination we need among every piece of gear, whether it's headgear, clothes or shoes.
What can be done to prevent that is simply to add redundancy to most of that gear. What I mean by that is simply giving us one possible combination of gear several times. For example: The Inkline Short Beanie gives us :ability_inksavermain: as main ability and high chance of :ability_defenseup:as sub ability. So, let's give the Splash Mob Pilot Goggles :ability_defenseup: as main ability and :ability_inksavermain: as likely sub. With redundancy the options could be limited so they don't get out of control, while still delivering all optically appealing options with every combination with a brand. But of course we still should have more options overall, otherwise getting what we want while still looking good wouldn't be any easier than before.

The inventory would definitely have to be adjusted as well. We can't have this many pieces of gear in one list. It would take ages to find what you need. I'd just keep the inventory the same, but each box would open another inventory with every version of a specific item you clicked. You pick the Pilot Goggles, and instead of equipping Pilot Goggles, you would get another window showing you all the versions of the Pilot Goggles (sorted buy last used, of course) by each brand to choose from.

The way I see it, this would have the following advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

- Being in any case able to wear what you want with the ability you want.
- Not make getting what you want too easy, but also not near impossible like it is today.
- Low input on effort for the developers, because gear designs could just be copy and pasted, just with a different logo each time depending on the brand.
- Money in Splatoon would have more use and there would be more than enough gear you could buy in shops even after a few months of playing this game due to the large quantity.
- Potentially a lot less save scummers and hackers, since chances of wearing what you want with the abilites you want would at least be realistic without having to resort to methods like these.

Disadvantages:

- Having this much gear could potentially take up a lot of memory.
- Since the brand logos are very small, it could be hard to determine for opposing players who uses which main abilities. It would also be a lot harder if you wanted to memorize each gear, its brand and its main ability.
- It would go against the idea of each brand producing a certain style of gear, because with this system, we would have every brand producing all existing styles.
 
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Cyan

Inkling Commander
Joined
Nov 19, 2015
Messages
325
Location
United Kingdom
I think the rolling system could simply be fixed by merely offering a ton of more variety of gear. The system is not just "broken" in the sense that getting the main and sub ability mix you want is so unbelievably unlikely. There is a third factor for many of us: Style. This doesn't matter from a competitive point of view, but from a casual point of view, it really does. To quote the creators:


And this simply isn't true. In almost every case you have to decide between looking fresh and getting the abilities you want. It is beyond unlikely that the gear you want to wear because of its style also has the main ability and sub-ability multiplicator you need.

I've come up with several solution of how to tweak the system and allow people to wear what they want without making the rolling system any easier or giving the players any higher chance of getting what they want. But I honestly believe the system is far from fully functional with how low the odds of getting what you actually want are, so I really think what they need to come up with is a solution that doesn't force us to choose between style and abilities, and that makes getting the abilities you want difficult, but not impossible.

My personal soltution for this would be the following: Every piece of gear is produced by every brand (except for ability-neutral brands). So instead of having for example just one Pilot Goggle gear by Forge, each brand delivers us their own version of the Pilot Goggles. And they really don't have to look different either. Just add the brand logo somewhere, add the brand name to every gear and then we already have the "Inkline Pilot Goggles", the "Squidforce Pilot Goggles", the "Firefin Pilot Goggles" etc. And each would of course also have its own main ability. Because no matter how many different ability multiplicators the individual gear have, nothing would change the fact that some have no use for the Bomb Range Up in the Pilot Goggle's case, but would like to wear the Pilot Goggles.
But no gear would ever have the favorable ability of the brand being the main ability of the gear, like it is today. Pure gear should still be extremely unlikely to get.

Now of course this already looks like getting the gear you want is way too easy with this system, because that would give us way too many options.
Each gear multiplied with the amount of brands would be way too many options, and there would always be the exact combination we need among every piece of gear, whether it's headgear, clothes or shoes.
What can be done to prevent that is simply to add redundancy to most of that gear. What I mean by that is simply giving us one possible combination of gear several times. For example: The Inkline Short Beanie gives us :ability_inksavermain: as main ability and high chance of :ability_defenseup:as sub ability. So, let's give the Splash Mob Pilot Goggles :ability_defenseup: as main ability and :ability_inksavermain: as sub. With redundancy the options could be limited so they don't get out of control, while still delivering all optically appearling options with every combination with a brand. But of course we still should have more options overall, otherwise getting what we want while still looking good wouldn't be any easier as before.

The inventory would of course have to be adjusted as well. We can't have this many pieces of gear in one list. It would take ages to find what you need. I'd just keep the inventory the same, but each box would open another inventory with every version of a specific item you clicked. You pick the Pilot Goggles, and instead of equipping Pilot Goggles, you would get another window showing you all the versions of the Pilot Goggles (sorted buy last used, of course) by each brand.

The way I see it, this would have the following advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

- Being in any case able to wear what you want with the ability you want.
- Not make getting what you want too easy, but also not near impossible like it is today.
- Low input on effort for the developers, because gear designs could just be copy and pasted, just with a different logo each time depending on the brand.
- Money in Splatoon would have more use and there would be more than enough gear you could buy in shops even after a few months of playing this game due to the large quantity.
- Potentially a lot less save scummers and hackers, since chances of wearing what you want with the abilites you want would at least realistic without having to use methods like these.

Disadvantages:

- Having this much gear could potentially take up a lot of memory.
- Since the brand logos are very small, it could be hard to determine who uses which main abilities. It would also be a lot harder if you wanted to memorize each gear, its brand and its main ability.
- It would go against the idea of each brand producing a certain style of gear, because with this system, we would have every brand producing several styles.
I agree that the biggest issue with Splatoon is the lack of ability mix and matching. I'll admit that I would scum a gear combo to match one that rolls naturally if the natural looks unfresh whilst my scummed one looks fresher. I just think they need to up the amount of shoes and hats so it matches the vast amount of shirts on offer. Of course, brand favoured abilities should never be accompanied as the main ability, but it would make things better. They should also do the same for the exclusive abilities, so they all have different options, except those that counter the weakness or make the ability more effective than necessary (i.e. No Zink Stealth Jump, No Krak-On Ninja Squid, No Takoroka Tenacity). I reckon that's why the revealed Splat Roller has been coupled with a gear announcement, to help counter the issue with ability combos.
 
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