Making an ability only balance patch

[RubberCF]

I'm a big gear nerd and have spent too many hours making this update, so I appreciate anyone who would like to read it. I am happy to explain anything, feedback is welcome.
The purpose of this patch is primarily to give players more effective options in how they want to design their gear, but some changes are just QOL or to partially address larger balance related issues.

Quick note about ability stacking for nerds. By default, every ability will use the most common (and most gradual) curve. Its about 9.5% effective at 3 ap (one sub) and 50% effective at 18 ap. I will specify if any new effect uses a steeper curve, and you can check https://leanny.github.io/splat3/ability.html if you want to see exactly what I'm referencing (look at effect% column)

PATCH START

LDE, CBK, OG and DR all have visual indicators to show when the abilities are active. OG indicates how much longer you have left until the effect goes away.

Comeback (CBK)

• AP of each ability reduced from 10->9
• Removed special charge up, added ink resistance

Last Ditch Effort (LDE)

• Effect is fully active when opponents push to 30->25 points

Ability Doubler (AD)

• Can be added to shirts with 3 of every ability chunk

Thermal Ink (TI)

• Now works within 15->10 distance units
• Indirect hits activate it for 3 seconds

Respawn Punisher (RP)

• No longer affects respawn time
• Now reduces enemy special charge 15->20% upon splat
• Now reduces own special charge 22.5->30% upon death
• If an RP user splats another RP user, they lose 37.5->50% special charge

Haunt

• Now works within 15->10 distance units
• Can only be active for 1 enemy at a time, each time you are killed it switches to that enemy
• Effect does not end if enemy is killed by teammate
• Killing the haunted enemy fills your ink tank

Drop Roller (DR)

• Duration of ability boost 3->7 seconds

Stealth Jump (SJ)

• Marker is visible to teammates and player with a dotted outline if they are outside its visible radius.

Object Shredder (OS)

• Rainmaker shield: 110%->115%
• Big bubbler, Booyah bomb, Splashdown fists: 110%->120%
• Splash wall: 150%->140%
• Sprinkler, Beakon: 1000%->200%

Ink Resistance Up (IR/Ink Res)

• 5 buffer frames are default for all players
• Max additional buffer frames 39->34, stacking curve adjusted accordingly, all numbers rounded down (now 1 sub adds 8 frames)
• Dmg limit max ap 20->15
• DPS of enemy ink scales as intended

Quick Super Jump (QSJ)

• Base vulnerability frames for all players 80->70
  • Vulnerability frames from stacking QSJ remains the same at all amounts (1 sub still only reduces to 58)

Special Saver (SS)

• No longer activates when using special

Intensify Action (IA)

• New curve created in between blaster curve and normal curve (same curve as SSU for heavy weapons)
  • New curve applied to all blasters and shooters, excluding luna and s-blast
• Increases midair charge speed for chargers bows and splatlings by up to 2x. Excluding squiffer (same curve as IA effect on squid surge)

Sub Resistance (SR/Sub Res)

• Removed
  • Ideally, this would be replaced with something like cold-blooded from splatoon 2, but designing a whole new ability is a bit too much for the intended scope of this patch.

Run Speed Up (RSU)

• Improved stacking on run speed while shooting by 20% to all non shooter/splatling weapons

Ink Saver Sub (ISS)

• Reduced the effect for splat and suction bomb (max effect 65->70%)

Ink Saver Main (ISM)

• Improved stacking in small amounts for douser dualies, tri-stringer, painbrush, and dualie squelchers

Quick Respawn (QR)

• Slightly more effective in small amounts (same curve as SPU effect on ultra stamp duration)
• Reduced max effect 3.5->3.85

Sub Power Up (BPU)

• Point sensor and angle shooter
  • No longer affects range/velocity
  • Increases aoe duration by up to 1 second.
• Toxic mist
  • Increases aoe duration by up to 3 seconds
• Splash wall
  • No longer increases hp
  • Increases duration by up to 3 seconds
• Sprinkler
  • Increases high power phase by up to 5->8 seconds
  • Increases mid power phase by up to 2->15 seconds (this way you can hypothetically double both phases duration)
  • Increases radius by up to 20%

Special Power Up (SPU)

• Big bubbler
  • Acts as sub power up for the beakon
  • No longer increases hp.
  • Increases duration by up to 4 seconds (does not increase cooldown)
• Tacticooler
  • Increases duration by up to 8->5 seconds
• Ink storm
  • Increases duration by up to 2->4 seconds
  • Slows down ink storm proportionally to its duration increase
• Wave breaker
  • Increases tracking duration from placement by up to 1 second
• Triple splashdown
  • No longer Increases paint radius
  • Increases distance fists land from player by up to 20% (the fists remain the same distance from each other regardless of how much SPU the player uses)

Big thanks to An_ei and Plantknowsyourlocation for giving me valuable feedback for this.

 

[Terret]

I'm a big gear nerd and have spent too many hours making this update, so I appreciate anyone who would like to read it. I am happy to explain anything, feedback is welcome.
The purpose of this patch is primarily to give players more effective options in how they want to design their gear, but some changes are just QOL or to partially address larger balance related issues.

Quick note about ability stacking for nerds. By default, every ability will use the most common (and most gradual) curve. Its about 9.5% effective at 3 ap (one sub) and 50% effective at 18 ap. I will specify if any new effect uses a steeper curve, and you can check https://leanny.github.io/splat3/ability.html if you want to see exactly what I'm referencing (look at effect% column)

PATCH START

LDE, CBK, OG and DR all have visual indicators to show when the abilities are active. OG indicates how much longer you have left until the effect goes away.

Comeback (CBK)

• AP of each ability reduced from 10->9
• Removed special charge up, added ink resistance

Last Ditch Effort (LDE)

• Effect is fully active when opponents push to 30->25 points

Ability Doubler (AD)

• Can be added to shirts with 3 of every ability chunk

Thermal Ink (TI)

• Now works within 15->10 distance units
• Indirect hits activate it for 3 seconds

Respawn Punisher (RP)

• No longer affects respawn time
• Now reduces enemy special charge 15->20% upon splat
• Now reduces own special charge 22.5->30% upon death
• If an RP user splats another RP user, they lose 37.5->50% special charge

Haunt

• Now works within 15->10 distance units
• Can only be active for 1 enemy at a time, each time you are killed it switches to that enemy
• Effect does not end if enemy is killed by teammate
• Killing the haunted enemy fills your ink tank

Drop Roller (DR)

• Duration of ability boost 3->7 seconds

Stealth Jump (SJ)

• Marker is visible to teammates and player with a dotted outline if they are outside its visible radius.

Object Shredder (OS)

• Rainmaker shield: 110%->115%
• Big bubbler, Booyah bomb, Splashdown fists: 110%->120%
• Splash wall: 150%->140%
• Sprinkler, Beakon: 1000%->200%

Ink Resistance Up (IR/Ink Res)

• 5 buffer frames are default for all players
• Max additional buffer frames 39->34, stacking curve adjusted accordingly, all numbers rounded down (now 1 sub adds 8 frames)
• Dmg limit max ap 20->15
• DPS of enemy ink scales as intended

Quick Super Jump (QSJ)

• Base vulnerability frames for all players 80->70
  • Vulnerability frames from stacking QSJ remains the same at all amounts (1 sub still only reduces to 58)

Special Saver (SS)

• No longer activates when using special

Intensify Action (IA)

• New curve created in between blaster curve and normal curve (same curve as SSU for heavy weapons)
  • New curve applied to all blasters and shooters, excluding luna and s-blast
• Increases midair charge speed for chargers bows and splatlings by up to 2x. Excluding squiffer (same curve as IA effect on squid surge)

Sub Resistance (SR/Sub Res)

• Removed
  • Ideally, this would be replaced with something like cold-blooded from splatoon 2, but designing a whole new ability is a bit too much for the intended scope of this patch.

Run Speed Up (RSU)

• Improved stacking on run speed while shooting by 20% to all non shooter/splatling weapons

Ink Saver Sub (ISM)

• Reduced the effect for splat and suction bomb (max effect 65->70%)

Ink Saver Main (ISM)

• Improved stacking in small amounts for douser dualies, tri-stringer, painbrush, and dualie squelchers

Quick Respawn (QR)

• Slightly more effective in small amounts (same curve as SPU effect on ultra stamp duration)
• Reduced max effect 3.5->3.85

Sub Power Up (BPU)

• Point sensor and angle shooter
  • No longer affects range/velocity
  • Increases aoe duration by up to 1 second.
• Toxic mist
  • Increases aoe duration by up to 3 seconds
• Splash wall
  • No longer increases hp
  • Increases duration by up to 3 seconds
• Sprinkler
  • Increases high power phase by up to 5->8 seconds
  • Increases mid power phase by up to 2->15 seconds (this way you can hypothetically double both phases duration)
  • Increases radius by up to 20%

Special Power Up (SPU)

• Big bubbler
  • Acts as sub power up for the beakon
  • No longer increases hp.
  • Increases duration by up to 4 seconds (does not increase cooldown)
• Tacticooler
  • Increases duration by up to 8->5 seconds
• Ink storm
  • Increases duration by up to 2->4 seconds
  • Slows down ink storm proportionally to its duration increase
• Wave breaker
  • Increases tracking duration from placement by up to 1 second
• Triple splashdown
  • No longer Increases paint radius
  • Increases distance fists land from player by up to 20% (the fists remain the same distance from each other regardless of how much SPU the player uses)

Big thanks to An_ei and Plantknowsyourlocation for giving me valuable feedback for this.

I like the changes overall. Only major objection is about the removal of sub resistance. Though I do see where you’re coming from with it.

 

[RubberCF]

I like the changes overall. Only major objection is about the removal of sub resistance. Though I do see where you’re coming from with it.

Alternatively, you could just stop it from affecting damage entirely, but of course then it would be pretty bad, which is why i said id switch it with cold blooded, which also affected stuff like thermal ink and locating effects from specials. This would also make more sense bc i improved thermal ink, haunt, and sub/special power ups effect on location subs and specials.
Ultimately, affecting dmg (outside damage over time effects) with abilities is bad design bc it messes with something players otherwise depend on being a certain way. You can read this thread and my reply to it to get a more in depth look at my reasoning https://squidboards.com/threads/should-sub-resistance-even-exist.43982/

 

[reelrollsweat]

i wish the thermal buff was real :-( not activating on indirects makes it really nothingburger and i think that change would be perfect for it

ia giving midair charge speed to chargers/bows/splatlings would be really interesting too, esp bc i already run 1-2 subs on most splatlings LOL

 

[evanstar]

damage up - added to the game

 

[RubberCF]

i wish the thermal buff was real :-( not activating on indirects makes it really nothingburger and i think that change would be perfect for it

ia giving midair charge speed to chargers/bows/splatlings would be really interesting too, esp bc i already run 1-2 subs on most splatlings LOL

Oh yeah id love for the thermal buff to be real, such a cool effect, so hard to activate.

I was hesitent to give splatlings as much benefit from ia as i did since they already run some, but given im boosting the rsu stacking on everything else and splatlings are pretty gear dependant i think its fine (also some splatlings have suuper slow midair charging). 2 subs will increase midair charge speed by about 26%

 

[rulesofxem]

I need that bubbler change, people never really use the beakon part of bubbler. Cool patch!

 

[RubberCF]

I need that bubbler change, people never really use the beakon part of bubbler. Cool patch!

Yeah unfortunately the game will prioritize jumping to other players over jumping to the bubbler beakon, i might change that as a way to further encourage using spu,its kind of a weird thing anyways.

 

[RubberCF]

damage up - added to the game

:notlikethis:

 

[Picle]

I feel that cbk having special charge is kind of a necessary evil. When you die, being able to charge your special faster is amazing when you're a defender and you're trying to retake, especially with how bad half the maps are designed and how snowbally some of the modes can be (tower control for instance). If retaking wasn't so special dependent because of these problems, I would be fine with no special charge on cbk

 

[RubberCF]

I feel that cbk having special charge is kind of a necessary evil. When you die, being able to charge your special faster is amazing when you're a defender and you're trying to retake, especially with how bad half the maps are designed and how snowbally some of the modes can be (tower control for instance). If retaking wasn't so special dependent because of these problems, I would be fine with no special charge on cbk

I think that scu on cbk is definitely very valuable, but i dont think its necessary to the game, and probably too powerful when combined with the other effects. There are also other ways to help you get special back from death quicker, namely special saver. With a main youll only lose 30% of your gauge on death. If you need faster specials from death use that
Something ive considered is adding intensify action to cbk as well since im taking so much away from it and not every weapons benefits from the ink res a lot.