Is Ranked Battle Ruined?

[ZypkerGaming]

I felt like it was necessary to bring this subject up, as no one has discussed it yet and it seems to be a very prominent problem.
I've been playing Ranked Battle frequently now and I started to see a change in how the game was played. For example, just a few nights ago, I was playing a ton of Rainmaker matches. I started to notice no one was going for the Rainmaker; people would literally walk right past it. At first I was confused, but then I realized why. Now people are comgregating in certain parts of the map in favor of PvPing, in order to try and get as many kills as possible to be considered the MVP of the team, which will help them get more points. The actual Rainmaker became obsolete as people chose not to obtain it in favor of letting an opponent taking it, than killing them immediately. It had literally turned into a game of kills.
Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

[Jet Uppercut]

Just run something with the Echolocator so your teammates can go chase down the enemies while you solo push the Rainmaker. Not much point trying to get them to do something else if they're only interested in getting kills, so just make it easier for them while you win the match.

 

[Magix]

That's odd, I've experienced it the other way around. Weeks ago, hardly anyone wanted to hold the rainmaker, so I brought my swim speed up gear and carried it a lot. In most recent games(but not all), people have rushed to grab the rainmaker before me; so I've just started to play other gear and weapons again, since I'd rather not be stuck in my carrier gear if I don't get to carry anyway.

 

[Reila]

Splatoon's a shooter, it was always a game of kills. Nothing is ruined.

Anyways, no, that hasn't happened to me. In fact, I can hardly hold the rainmaker because people always rush towards it and grab before I can think of grabbing it. Which is fine by me.

 

[Phobos]

Now people are comgregating in certain parts of the map in favor of PvPing, in order to try and get as many kills as possible to be considered the MVP of the team, which will help them get more points. The actual Rainmaker became obsolete as people chose not to obtain it in favor of letting an opponent taking it, than killing them immediately. It had literally turned into a game of kills.

It's possible that your teammates were doing this for strategic reasons - the carrier will get much further if the opposing team are busy respawning, and there's no point in picking up the rainmaker if the opposing team are all nearby and ready to stomp the carrier as soon as they start carrying. So it makes a lot of sense to try to wipe them out first.

 

[Sol64]

I would say that I agree with you but then I will enter my next match and the exact opposite will happen whenever I think this will happen so I can't exactly pinpoint how the match will go.

Though often, I will make a path because I know everyone else will usually try to kill other people so in the event we come up on top, we already have a foreseeable lead.

 

[aceofscarabs]

I generally find it becomes a mad scrum around the Rainmaker. Japanese players tend to play Rainmaker right, they're really good at intercepts and chokepoint defense.

 

[_clementine]

I have noticed that sometimes people are reluctant to grab the rainmaker, but I think that that's because they would rather use their main weapon or they don't want the pressure of trying to take it. What I see is people breaking the shield, and then just standing by the rainmaker until someone finally takes it. Not rushing ahead to get as many splats as possible. But maybe it's different in different ranks (I'm rank B).

 

[Relados]

Oh man, do I encounter the "I wanna be the MVP!" mentality all too much.

In Splat Zones, I had an ally once who, in Kelp Dome, completely ignored the center area: Every time he respawned, he'd run across the bottom of the map to the far side, and then up to the enemy spawn point, then sit there gathering turf. I think he was trying to spawn point camp, except he wasn't even good at it - he got the lowest number of splats on our team. Literally the only thing he'd do to help us out was toss a Killer Wail (he was using the Sploosh-o-matic) towards the center every time he got it, which was only marginally effective.

We ended up losing badly, because the rest of us were constantly outnumbered in the Splat Zone. Any enemies we killed would just jump to surviving allies to bypass our little camper, or would just kill him outright because, like I said, he wasn't even good at what he was doing. He was an A+ player, making me question how anyone could rank up playing like that.

In Tower Control and Rainmaker, I want to be the support for the carrier - that's why I originally used a charger in Tower Control, so I could pick off the enemies as they were preoccupied trying to approach the objective. But so often in ranked no one on my team would come close to it (I've even seen players intentionally avoid grabbing the Rainmaker when it was open, or staring at it like they weren't sure what it was), leaving me to grab the Tower or Rainmaker while they played their team deathmatch. And if I died while trying to push it? No one would take the reigns, so the objective would just reset, or the enemy would grab it and push it to get the lead again. I've had a few occasions where, despite the enemy being 20 away from getting a knockout, half my team would be sitting next to the enemy spawn point, either playing Turf War or waiting for the respawn that never happens. It's why I started using the Luna Blaster for Tower Control - sure, it's unfun and takes little skill, but I needed something that allows me to solely fight off the whole enemy team from the Tower if I had to, and that there pushed me through the B ranks.

Yes, splatting a lot of enemies can help the Tower or Rainmaker carrier go forward, or help hold the Splat Zone longer, but be focused on the objective first. There's no use in camping far away going for a ton of kills and low deaths if you don't have the lead, nor is there in prioritizing easy targets over the ones threatening the main objective. No one finds your splatcount impressive if you lost the match. Also, like it or not, you should be ready to grab the objective if the situation demands it - don't keep assuming it's someone else's job, because then it will never get done.

 

[The ΩS]

Feels like that's how I won my recent Rainmaker. They were getting the Rainmaker here and there (and one of my teammates went half away across the Kelp Dome to self-destruct right near me; don't know why). Then the moment I picked it up, I literally went up the wired walkway and down the ramp unopposed and at the last minute they decide to ambush me around the corner to no avail. Felt like that whole time, they were too busy fighting what was infront of them for splats and not what was coming behind them for the win. B Rank btw.

 

[Fightersword]

It's pubs. A ton of people won't play the objective in pubs at all, regardless of whether it's ranked or not. This is true of all shooters with objective based modes, especially ones that reward or rank based on kills. It's just something you'll have to suck up and move on with. If you want more coherency, you'll have to do organized play.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Honestly, the scenario you described sounds pretty great. If a majority of the team is going for kills,(and are good at doing so) you can take the rain maker and get some serious distance.

Sometimes in ranked battles, ignoring the main objective to push the enemy team back is the better option. Not always of course, sometimes I have problems with teammates wandering around looking for kills while the rest of us are outnumbered focusing on the objective.

 

[toxictower]

I partially disagree. I'm a Tentatek Splattershot main. If I go and start killing people, it's not for the kills. If I get on the top of the list at end of game, cool, but I'm more about ranking up. I try to support the Rainmaker as much as possible. If I see that most of the opponents are dead, I'll grab it, even though I'm terrible at wielding it. It's all about balance, you just need to take control. That's the only crutch about the game though, you play with completely random people. You don't know their play style, abilities, or intentions. If you see everyone going for the kill, grab the bloody Rainmaker and go along. Another common issue is when people only focus on the Rainmaker and get killed in less than 2 seconds with it. Nothing worst than having 3-4 players respawning on your team whilst the other team can advance as result.

 

[electraheart]

no.

it probably varies for a lot of people, but sometimes if there are still enemies around, you want to kill them off first or else you'll just be killed as soon as you pick up the rainmaker. some people are better at holding the enemy off than using the rainmaker. i personally have difficulty with it.

ofc there are people who DON'T care about the rainmaker, i guess...? but i feel like most people do want to win. also there might be younger kids who are more focused on the kills.

 

[Kat]

There may be some problems but wow, way to sound like a newspaper headline.

THIS JUST IN, RANKED BATTLE CONFIRMED RUINED, PEOPLE GOING FOR KILLS INSTEAD OF THE OBJECTIVE!

Honestly it's a long existing problem from every comp multiplayer game since the beginning of time and we've had 90 billion threads on it already. People are going to do what they wanna do for fun, if you wanna win just learn to work around it.

 

[Aaryk]

Sometimes in ranked battles, ignoring the main objective to push the enemy team back is the better option.

^This, although I wouldn't even call it ignoring the objective. Way too often I have teammates who want to jump in and grab the rainmaker as soon as the shield explodes, regardless of the actual position of our team. It is just not necessary for possession of the rainmaker to be the exclusive, #1 goal at all times of the match.

Grabbing the rainmaker too early, and without accounting for your team's overall strategic position, can totally swing the match in favor of the opposing team. If you pop the shield, there is nothing that forces you to just grab it right then and there; if you pick it up and only advance it 5 points before an opponent jumps in your face, they suddenly have a potential man advantage and all you've done is put the rainmaker in a slightly more defensible spot for them to retake possession of it. However, if you pop the shield and your team takes the opportunity to push the line forward before grabbing the rainmaker, you can both divert the other team's attention and potentially get multiple splats, which in turn multiplies the distance you could expect to advance the rainmaker before meeting any resistance.

Obviously, it's all contextual, and it's certainly possible that OP's situation was in fact a total pub cluster****. It's just important to remember that there are soooo many options when it comes to how you proceed with the rainmaker, and the only option that really forces your team into a pressure situation is actually grabbing the rainmaker. So just take a second to glance at the gamepad before jumping in to grab the fish - it may be that the annoying PvP situation is actually your team holding **** down so you can push to victory.

 

[CinnaDonut]

I actually ran into that "problem" yesterday. Where I was wondering where my team was while the Rainmaker was wide open in the middle. After waiting about 10 seconds I just decided to grab it and make a push toward their base (I think it was at Arowana). But I'm one of those people who do prefer not to carry the Rainmaker, because I'd rather help out the carrier. What's funny is when you use a special and unintentionally grab the Rainmaker

What Relados described in his 3rd paragraph pretty much sums up my experience with Rainmaker (with Tower Control, I see people making a mad dash toward the tower). The shield is already broken and the Rainmaker is up for grabs, yet sometimes my team will just stand there. I do know some people go off and kill as many enemies as they can first to clear a path, which is understandable. However, that doesn't always happen. But what can you do? :/

I still wouldn't say Ranked is ruined as a whole though. Splat zones still works fine for me and is still my favorite mode (but there are some times were the zone will be opened for taking, and my team won't take the zone). I don't have too many problems with Tower Control either, just the newest one shows some issues. I never expected it to be Perfect either for any mode. Every game comes with it's flaws.

 

[Platinum Inkling]

I used to be one of those people that wouldn't take the rainmaker. The reason was, honestly I just wasn't good at it. This was back when the mode was new, so I didn't know where to go. But I'm slowly learning how to play better with it, though certain maps I still have a hard time with, so I let more skilled people take it. I don't think it's for kills at all (though for some, it might be). I think most people might have the problem I had and don't trust themselves with the pressure of holding the rainmaker. This isn't really a new problem, this happened and still happens in Tower Control all the time. I don't mind though, because I love being on the tower.

What really bothers me on Rainmaker, is how when they do have it, they keep shooting at nothing even though there's a path to the goal. The point of the mode is to get the closest to the base as you can. I just keep running through our ink with it, even if everyone is shooting at me (and I don't have time to shoot them) and I know I'll get splated (of course, if my teammates are there I'll wait for them to help me a bit). Every inch of ground made with the rainmaker matters.

 

[SonicFanRob]

I've had a few... questionable... people on teams before during Tower Control or Splatzones (Haven't played much Rainmaker so I can't speak of many experiences myself) but it always confused me that people go off the the opponent's side... like okay, I get that IF you can hold them off that is a huge help because it buys time but there is a point (which usually should only take a few seconds to figure out) that it just isn't gonna work and you should go back and rejoin your team. Some people may do this to get the MVP spot on their team and others may do it with the intention of helping the team as a whole, I do not know... but don't get me wrong... I've caught myself a few times now in the mindset of "gotta take these guys out" which isn't all wrong as without "those guys" in the way it is a ton easier to take the goal (whatever it may be) but that does not mean sitting there and spawn camping them when it clearly is not in the best interest of your team to do so.

On a different note I have also seen some people running around as if it were a turf war which in my books is equally annoying as those who go off to the other side's base... I get that the more ink on the ground means more ways to move around the goal but it has to end somewhere (I don't see it too much now-a-days but it was/I assume is still an issue around) and in addition some special weapons are great but you aren't going to help a single bit when suddenly all of your team mates are dead because we needed one more person to back us up and you were off in a side-alley or something doing your own thing and took to long to get back to the focus point :P Also I haven't seen this personally but a friend has and some S ranks will sometimes just take the Rainmaker for example and go back to THEIR base and dance around with it which is probably the worst of the 3 situations I've described :/

Additionally why are people so concerned about being MVP? It's a nice feeling but if you truly are good at the game the position you are in doesn't mean anything because you would've contributed enough to have earned the win for your team... even something like being a meat... er... Squid? shield can help out more than you may get credited for from the game or even your team mates :P Anyways, just a bunch of rambling I guess but I saw this conversation and it kinda got me going a bit.