Is splatoon 3 too fast paced?

[Vidknight]

So a couple of days ago I was using bluesky (I don't have an account there I only really browse it once per day every 5-15 minutes) clicking around different Splatoon users until I found a post by Yaga that went like this,

That got me thinking, is the pace of Splatoon 3 too fast? now of course it should be obvious that Yaga is not asking for ink armor, stingray, or splat 2 missiles to come back, they're asking for the game to slow down. While I'm perfectly fine with the pace of Splatoon 3 matches (I have no brain and like to throw myself into the enemy team) it's easy to understand how the pace of the game can become draining to play since you need to be fighting 90% of the time, and have no time to stop and just catch your breath or plan your next move. This post was living in my head and had me thinking so I decided "hey, why not post this to squidboard? As I feel that this could lead to an interesting discussion".

Of course there is also the comment that they made where they felt that the maps in the game also leads to the increase pace of Splatoon. While I'm someone who has a more positive opinion on the maps, I be lying if the maps didn't force players to always confront each other which once again leads to the game feeling way to fast pace for some players.

Now I turn it over to you guys do you agree, do you disagree and why?

 

[SAMICOM]

So a couple of days ago I was using bluesky (I don't have an account there I only really browse it once per day every 5-15 minutes) clicking around different Splatoon users until I found a post by Yaga that went like this,
View attachment 13263
That got me thinking, is the pace of Splatoon 3 too fast? now of course it should be obvious that Yaga is not asking for ink armor, stingray, or splat 2 missiles to come back, they're asking for the game to slow down. While I'm perfectly fine with the pace of Splatoon 3 matches (I have no brain and like to throw myself into the enemy team) it's easy to understand how the pace of the game can become draining to play since you need to be fighting 90% of the time, and have no time to stop and just catch your breath or plan your next move. This post was living in my head and had me thinking so I decided "hey, why not post this to squidboard? As I feel that this could lead to an interesting discussion".

Of course there is also the comment that they made where they felt that the maps in the game also leads to the increase pace of Splatoon. While I'm someone who has a more positive opinion on the maps, I be lying if the maps didn't force players to always confront each other which once again leads to the game feeling way to fast pace for some players.

Now I turn it over to you guys do you agree, do you disagree and why?

I wish the maps were huge and had more than 5 routes like in splat 1

 

[Algae]

As for definitions of pace of play...

To my knowledge, the kill times of weapons seldom change between installments. (Apart from Splatoon 3's faster Splat Dualies dodge roll and slower yet more buffer-friendly Sloshing Machine. And Splat 2's controversial buff to shooters' main strafing.) The Splattershot always had the same fire rate of 6 frames, I'm sure. I don't feel much change in how fights play out between the later two games.

You might know this, but the real causes of the faster pace are both the smaller map sizes and the faster respawn times.

That said, there are some of Splatoon 1's maps that I think are really cool. I don't really need PVP maps to be that sprawling, but I think complexities of some terrain (e.g. creative use of paintable walls and unpaintable floors) can make matches more fun.

That said, the Ranked modes do great at having more centralized objectives. I don't think wider maps would mitigate their impact on the game's pace (compared to Turf War); what about you?

 

[jeffthesquid]

The maps don't have these secret routes anymore. I used to perfect my ticker-tack-attack and bulldozer attack to wipe out my opponents. I used to jump from shipping container to shipping container and then drop on my opponents. I used to climb on those thin walls and shoot at people then dive behind. That's why I stopped playing Splatoon 3. Also what's up with the story mode? Tests? What? And what about the level backgrounds - they have little to do with the story. At least in Splatoon 1 the domes and screens made sense. Where is the open world mode and what about battle royal that should happen during grand fest. This makes Jeff so angry. Damn, I need to work for Nintendo!

 

[isaac4]

While I don't mind how fast Splatoon is, I do think that the game should at least allow casual players to not have to always interact with the enemy team.
While Turf War was designed with that idea in mind, the maps still force both teams to move into mid and have plenty of one way drops as well.
I wish that this problem doesn't continue into Splatoon 4 but I highly doubt anything will change.

 

[Cephalobro]

Honestly, I agree. Unlike in Splatoon 2 where I could retreat from being splatted and heal then get back into the heat of battle, Splatoon 3 really doesn't give you any opportunities to do that, and yes, it's due to map designs. There aren't as many diverging paths in 3 as there are in 1 and 2, there are no side routes you could use either.

But it's also due to how fast you get splatted, it's not just the PVP aspect that this becomes a problem either. In Salmon Run Next Wave for example, they made it so the Steelhead's bomb explodes faster, the bomb itself had a longer time before exploding in the original Salmon Run. Also, falling into water in Splatoon 3 immediately considers you splatted, unlike in Splatoon 2 where the game doesn't consider you splatted until your character dissolves, so the original trick to save a wave doesn't work anymore.

 

[missingno]

I think a lot of this is directly attributable to Tacticooler. I know that people have a lot of opinions on whether Tacticooler should be in S4, I hope it's not just because I don't want S4 to feel like S3.5. I've had my fill of Cooler meta, let's do something different next time.

 

[jeffthesquid]

And what happened to those long maps like Arowana Mall where I could rush my opponents with my super swim speed and Nozzle Gun. Man, I totally Jeffed the battle in Splatoon 1. It also seemed to be easier to obtain swim speed and running speed. Also the Splash Wall couldn't be destroyed.

 

[OnePotWonder]

The game is absolutely too fast right now. Fast times to splat can be overlooked, but Tacticooler makes the game exhausting. The maps give players no agency to avoid fights. You generally have no room to breathe unless you’re playing an anchor weapon. What we really need is something between the ultimate passiveness of Splatoon 2 and the ultimate activity of Splatoon 3. I have some ideas to help realize this in a Splatoon 4 special design thread I’m working on.

 

[sevenleaf]

i started with splatoon 3 so even though i've played a bit of splatoon 1 + 2 after the fact, i really only know the pace of 3... but whenever this conversation comes up i wonder if i would be in a better spot if i'd started playing with 1 or 2. like in theory i'd have more years of experience so i'd hopefully be a better player than i am now regardless but that's not my point

i do not process things quickly. blame some aspect of the neurodivergence. when i started playing splatoon i didn't see myself even trying to play competitively, not only because it just didn't interest me when i first started but because i thought i'd just never be able to process the game quick enough to improve. now i'm trying anyway, but it's definitely not coming easily, and i'm at a point where everything feels so overwhelming i don't know where to start with improving

but like... had i started playing and gotten interested in competitive before splatoon 3 came out, would i have been able to learn the game in a slower-paced environment? hm.

 

[Grushi]

It's kind of an interesting topic but my main argument boils down to this:

What would a slower Splatoon look like? More careful, methodical plays, trying to live above everything. So in a nutshell, you're disentivizing risky plays.

If taking risks isn't worth it, you end up having frontline fighting weapons playing for specials all the time, since you want every advantage you can get before pushing. So you get splatoon 2, where main weapons were too weak and specials too strong, so the game became very boring, fast. And that ended up being 'do not interact: the game' in the end

The most understated part of splatoon in its marketing is that the game goes fast. It's where the depth of the game lies, really. So unless you force people to slow down somehow, I don't see how you could make it slower paced.
I get feeling like the game goes by ridiculously fast, you have to focus hard if you want to keep up at times. It's all split second decisions.


Now, I get the maps argument but I don't agree with it honestly. More routes would make the game less brute force heavy... but then you just encourage people to not fight and play very cheesy playstyles. I honestly think some of the most frustrating engagements are when you're in solo playing... hagglefish clams or something, and the enemy team keeps scoring from the right side of your base because you just can't look at that flank and push at the same time. Same thing with humback clams or rainmaker breakaways, it's frustrating to lose from that.
I don't think it's mode specific either, when playing zones against a zone cheese dread wringer or junior, I'm glad there's only so many routes to keep track of honestly. That's not even mentioning turf war.

I will say tower control would feel a lot better on more open maps, I mean I made an entire guide about it lol, but the other modes could enable some irritating playstyles very easily. This game's better maps strike a good balance between being fight heavy but still enabling flanks, so if we want better flanks still, that could have bad consequences for the game. If you want to avoid those, there's a lot of main weapons you'd need to tone down to be safe.

It's kind of weird to me how people will complain about brushes in clams but ask for more open maps... that's exactly where brushes thrive, you just buff that rat playstyle there.


Basically, I think splatoon being fast paced is kind of inevitable if you want to encitivize more fighting, I don't see any way to get around that without drastically nerfing main and special weapon power across the board, which is extremely risky.

And personally, I think it's in about the perfect spot pace wise, very quick but it still feels manageable. And well, if I'm not in the mood to be hyper focused on the game, I'll just play salmon run. Perfect

 

[isaac4]

Now, I get the maps argument but I don't agree with it honestly. More routes would make the game less brute force heavy... but then you just encourage people to not fight and play very cheesy playstyles.

I don't think I really understand the point being made here.
Of course it'll be easier for players to get around you if the maps are designed with more than one or two routes and that can open up some annoying playstyles but we also have plenty of issues right now such as the game completely slowing down if there's even one good E-Liter on the enemy team.
Different ways to get around the map should be better for the game overall. It'll indirectly nerf bomb spam, some of the more extreme backlines, Splash Wall, and I'm confident that even special spam would get worse in solo.
Edit: Not so confident about that last part now lol

I honestly think some of the most frustrating engagements are when you're in solo playing... hagglefish clams or something, and the enemy team keeps scoring from the right side of your base because you just can't look at that flank and push at the same time. Same thing with humback clams or rainmaker breakaways, it's frustrating to lose from that.

The issue with those situations are that the maps usually block you off from getting to those positions faster.
Uninkable walls and lack of sponges or ink rails makes getting around certain positions take much longer than it has to.
It's not something I would see as a potential problem from having more routes but rather a problem with limiting where the player can move.

It's kind of weird to me how people will complain about brushes in clams but ask for more open maps... that's exactly where brushes thrive, you just buff that rat playstyle there.

That's fair but I think that there's a way to achieve a balance between having more open maps but not just letting brushes move around everywhere freely. I personally want maps to have more verticality, inkable terrain, unique gimmicks, and cover that isn't just a single block so I think any of those could be implemented to make it more than just an open playground for brushes or other weapons that play very similarly to it.


Outside of all of that, I do enjoy how fast the game is but I don't like how the devs have decided to achieve that by forcing interactions through the map design. I really want some sort of change for the next game even if it doesn't end up being perfect.

 

[OCTöHEAD]

Splatoon 3 being fast paced is what I love about it!
When I've been playing S2 it's been such a drag. Sure, larger maps are fun in that it changes the playstyle but I would hope for 5 v 5 teams if so. Some maps on S2 feel straight up lonely playing, hardly interracting with other players, compared to S3.

 

[Aiko.Octo]

I dunno, I like the pace of things currently, but I'm coming from a low level perspective and things seem to go faster at higher level so I might have a different opinion if I was up there.

I also struggle to process things quickly so the pace probably isn't doing me any favors but at the same time it's been fascinating to notice my instincts and reflexes doing the thinking for me and actually getting it right more and more often with experience (even though it freaks me out sometimes, lol). I feel like I'm at a point right now where I don't think the pace is making things harder for me as much as it is forcing me to learn differently, with more focus on training instinct/reflex via just repetition/experience for most things rather than trying to learn how to comprehend it, and saving the comprehension learning for the broader concepts like monitoring objective state. I don't know if that makes any sense, and I don't even know if I'm going about it correctly/effectively, lol, but that's how it's going anyway.

I realize though I tend to think less in the direction of "how could this be better?" and more in the direction of "this is how it is and I have no power to change it so how do I adapt myself to work with it?" and that probably accounts for my lack of interest in discussion of theoretical balance changes and such. So it's really very possible that I would appreciate and be less overwhelmed and learn better and enjoy myself more at a slower pace, but I feel like thinking too far down the 'what if things were different' path is more likely to just lead me to feeling unhappy and dissatisfied with what I have, so I tend to avoid it and instead focus on what I can do, I guess. (this maybe also speaks to a general mental adaptation/coping mechanism to a lifetime of having little to no control over many aspects of my life but anyway)

There is definitely something to be said for the new/casual player aspect though; it feels like the skill floor for this game can be pretty high and that's likely to turn new players off the game and obviously we need new players to keep the game healthy. The number of people I've heard say, "oh yeah, I played splatoon for a while but I was just really bad at it" is.. a lot, and it's a shame that that's the impression so many people come away with. I wonder if larger maps would help solve that problem specifically for turf war (I have early memories of splat 1 just getting lost on the maps and sometimes rarely even encountering another player, lol) while not impacting ranked too much since all the action still centers around the objective anyway.

 

[NumberOneAries]

I completely agree. The pace of this game can get incredibly overstimulating for a lot of people, myself included. The maps constantly push you into confrontation, and it doesn't feel like the same game I fell in love with when I first started playing the game, especially when you get to higher ranks (S and S+ mainly). Also, as of more recently Splatoon 3 just feels stressful for me. Like, the idea of playing the game sometimes stresses me out, and that even goes for Salmon Run sometimes. It's the main reason I play backlines, because its easier for my brain to scan and survey than constantly flipping my controller around to hit someone, and I mean CONSTANTLY. As a former Dapple Dualies Nouveou, while I had fun, it was still a mindset I had to be in and I couldn't just play the game when I wanted to, I had to train myself for a certain mindset, which just wasn't something I wanted to do EVERY TIME I play the game.

 

[jeffthesquid]

I got addicted to the first game because it was so much fun but Splatoon 3 sucks. You have to attack and cannot be an ambush hunter like I was. Also the levels are too small. I mean there's a lot of open area but we can't go there.

Why can't we have fun like this?

 

[SAMICOM]

I got addicted to the first game because it was so much fun but Splatoon 3 sucks. You have to attack and cannot be an ambush hunter like I was. Also the levels are too small. I mean there's a lot of open area but we can't go there.
View attachment 13268
Why can't we have fun like this?

I def wish maps like blackbelly were in this game

 

[Cephalobro]

At the very least, they should make it harder to rush to the other team's spawn in the first 5 seconds of the match. The map layouts in 3 are highly flawed because weapons like an Ink/Octobrush or a Sploosh with the Curling Bomb can just rush into the other team's spawn in the first 5 seconds.

 

[jeffthesquid]

Blackbelly Skatepark was the s**t! I remember how iconic it was to the game since the game is about bicycle and skateboard culture. I was blown away by the look of Inkopolis with it cartoonish buildings and huge skyline. I never understood Splatoon 2 or 3 - no skyline and nothing related to young people culture. Shoot, we need a better Splatoon - Splatoon 4 with an awesome story, levels, skyline, and, yes, open world. Why can't we fight during Splatfest on the Plaza itself? In Grand Fest it would have been awesome to fight in midst of the crowd. Actutally, I got an idea for my story.

 

[*Buster*]

While Splatoon 3 mechanically has always felt slightly faster to me ever since the test fire, I wouldn't call it too fast paced. Sure, there is less room to breathe, but it's more fun than sitting around to farm special. Some of my personal favorite weapons like Stamper are great because they're aggressive and want to go for kills. If a special like ink armor were in Splatoon 3, blasters, brellas, and splatanas would be much worse since teams could just farm for armor. Sure, it would be nice if there was a slight bit more downtime, but the fast pace of Splatoon 3 is what makes it fun. It's much better when you think back to early Splatoon 3, since the dominant comp was double/triple Splash+vMachine.