Making an ability only balance patch (updated, read comments to see changes)

[RubberCF]

This is a thought I've had for a while now, but sometimes I wish more weapons were like the Inkbrush. It has built-in ink resistance while sliding, so it doesn't need to really run it. What I mean is, I wish more weapons had inherent, built-in traits. It's already happened to some degree with the removal of MPU. While some weapons lost the Damage Up benefits, a lot of gained meaningful, better buffs in the areas that really mattered or got toned back versions of the non-Damage Up effects.

I also think problematic abilities like Special Charge Up or Respawn Punisher need to be severely toned back or cut completely from the next game. It's never fun when you lose to an Aerospray spamming specials every 10 seconds or so or an E-Liter or other weapon basically spawn locking you because of their gear set. I'm not saying all abilities are bad, but certain ones like those just have too much influence in determining the outcome of a battle. In my opinion, they've become problematic the same way Damage/Defense Up or MPU were. Weapon skill should be the deciding factor, and if a player is really that good with a certain weapon, they shouldn't need an ability to prop it up.

Technically, ink brush doesnt have built in ink resistance, just ink immunity while rolling. its entirely unrelated to the ability ink resistance. adding that stuff to weapons is outside the scope of this update but im not against it

I believe i fixed respawn punisher with the ways i changed it, although its worth noting with the way rp is currently, even on eliter its arguably not a good ability. if an eliter is using rp and spawnlocking you, youd prob lose the match anyways from the evident skill difference. i think the changes i gave rp basically totally reworks what it is and isnt good for. I dont think special charge up is an issue, an aerospray spamming booyah bomb is not an effective strategy even if it got 10 booyah bombs a game bc when its not using special, its just a 3v4 for its team. special spam is annoying but thats more of an issue with the specials, not scu making you charge it 15% faster

 

[McSquid82]

My whole point was that certain abilities have way too much impact on the battlefield, and should be removed. E-liter has enough advantage on its own, and that goes for every other weapon that uses Respawn Punisher. I believe it and SCU are problems on the same level as MPU and Damage/Defense Up used to be.

I believe people are focusing too much on the buffs and nerfs to the weapons themselves and not the abilities that enable their playstyles. Some of those options just need to be taken away from players and the weapons themselves need to be adjusted, similar to what they did with the removal of MPU. Removal of SCU would actually make PFS buffs and nerfs mean something. RP means no more advantage for certain weapons just they happen to be better suited for a certain role than others.

 

[RubberCF]

My whole point was that certain abilities have way too much impact on the battlefield, and should be removed. E-liter has enough advantage on its own, and that goes for every other weapon that uses Respawn Punisher. I believe it and SCU are problems on the same level as MPU and Damage/Defense Up used to be.

I believe people are focusing too much on the buffs and nerfs to the weapons themselves and not the abilities that enable their playstyles. Some of those options just need to be taken away from players and the weapons themselves need to be adjusted, similar to what they did with the removal of MPU. Removal of SCU would actually make PFS buffs and nerfs mean something. RP means no more advantage for certain weapons just they happen to be better suited for a certain role than others.

I mean like i said, RP as it exists now just not a good ability. It is extremely hard to make worth it, even with an eliter. RP helps when things are already going really good and you're probably gonna win anyways, and when things are more neutral or going poorly, its a liability. And again, I've reworked it, so there isn't really a point in arguing against the current in-game version of it.
PFS buffs and nerfs do mean something with or without SCU. If you have to replace some abilities in your build with SCU to account for a nerf, then that's still a nerf. Saying PFS nerfs don't mean something because of SCU is like saying ink cost nerfs don't matter because ISM and ISS exists. Or that a strafe speed nerfs doesn't matter because RSU exists. The great thing about abilities is you get to customize what your weapon is good at, at the cost of other things it could be good at. When a weapon is nerfed, you have to invest more in one ability to make up for the nerf at the cost of other things. I see no evidence that SCU has too much effect on the battle, according to sendou.ink the average build only runs 3.89 AP of SCU, which is barely over 1 sub on average. If SCU was disproportionately effective, people would be running it way more than other abilities.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I would argue it's better to outright remove Respawn Punisher. Not because it's too strong on backlines, but because it's inherently a terrible trade-off ability and makes the game more annoying simply by existing, even with the suggested rework.

A big problem the game currently has is the ease at which a push can snowball out of control thanks to defensive options often being limited at best. Any form of Respawn Punisher that makes splatting an enemy more rewarding only exacerbates that problem since getting splats is the main way to prolong a push. Also, unlike good trade-off abilities like Opening Gambit, Respawn Punisher actively detriments the player rather that just not having any effects if its conditions aren't met.

It's better to avoid abilities like Respawn Punisher altogether than try to morph them into something healthy. Because doing so is futile.

 

[RubberCF]

I would argue it's better to outright remove Respawn Punisher. Not because it's too strong on backlines, but because it's inherently a terrible trade-off ability and makes the game more annoying simply by existing, even with the suggested rework.

A big problem the game currently has is the ease at which a push can snowball out of control thanks to defensive options often being limited at best. Any form of Respawn Punisher that makes splatting an enemy more rewarding only exacerbates that problem since getting splats is the main way to prolong a push. Also, unlike good trade-off abilities like Opening Gambit, Respawn Punisher actively detriments the player rather that just not having any effects if its conditions aren't met.

It's better to avoid abilities like Respawn Punisher altogether than try to morph them into something healthy. Because doing so is futile.

I do agree that RP is to some degree inherently problematic. An ability that to exacerbates snowballing in both directions is at least kind of unhealthy because of that, and I hope they remove it from splatoon 4.
There's a few reasons I decided to not remove it and go for a rework instead.

1. I wanted to avoid removing abilities if I could. Even if an ability is unhealthy, there are players who enjoy it and its concept, particularly when it comes to main exclusives. The reason I was willing to remove sub resistance is I think very few people are big fans of it, and I genuinely cannot think of a fix that makes it any healthier without just removing its best features and making it even more niche.
2. I think this rework is substantially more healthy than RP is currently, even if still problematic. Firstly, this version can be used on weapons other than ones that hang way back. If your special is just kind of bad or you dont like it, it could be worth it to reduce the output of more important enemy specials. This means it's less likely to just be a liability every time you see it in soloq. Secondly, this is more interactive in how the ability is played around. Losing more charge matters less if you've recently used your special, which adds some depth. Third, I think losing charge is just less annoying to the player than being forced to sit out for longer. Fourth, this can be used as a counter to tactics that rely on special spam, which many people dislike.
3. I think some amount of unhealthy design can be ok. For example I think ninja squid has some unavoidable issues that make the game less fun. If you arent good at seeing ninja squid users swimming, it's annoying to fight and tedious to counter. If you are good at seeing it, it's no fun for the ninja squid user, who had no way of knowing if you could see them. However, I think it's worth it because using ninja squid can be very fun and enable unique playstyles. This version of RP definitely still has issues, but I think it could be argued that theyre small enough that it's worth it. I think it could open the door to new build styles and strategy.
4. To be honest, this is just much more interesting for me. It may still be overall bad for the game, but thinking of a rework which could add to build variety and playstyles is much more fun than just removing an ability. Even if it would be better off removed, I prefer to show my best attempt at a rework over just dropping the ability.

Ultimately, I do agree that the game would probably be better without RP, even my reworked version. Although I think theres much more room for debate with my changes.

 

[AdphæeXD]

If your special is just kind of bad or you dont like it, it could be worth it to reduce the output of more important enemy specials.

I actually like the idea of an ability like that. I play quite a few weapons with specials I don't care about, and being able to ignore that while limiting special output on the enemy side would be very nice. If someone doesn't like Wave Breaker on RB, they can focus on preventing enemy specials like Crab, Strikes, and Cooler instead of actively detrimenting their team (as much. It's still not quite as strong as having another special.)

 

[Smash Arena]

I would like to see some improvements to Tenacity, I feel like it has never been particularly useful in any Splatoon game.

How would you improve Tenacity?

 

[OnePotWonder]

I would like to see some improvements to Tenacity, I feel like it has never been particularly useful in any Splatoon game.

How would you improve Tenacity?

While not addressed to me, I’ve long an answer to this. Making Tenacity’s special charge property stronger could lead to it being kind of annoying and perpetuating a special spam playstyle. So, instead, I would make it so super jumps made to a Tenacity user have 10 extra AP of Quick Super Jump. This makes it a decent support ability for anchors that have nothing better to run.

 

[Smash Arena]

While not addressed to me, I’ve long an answer to this. Making Tenacity’s special charge property stronger could lead to it being kind of annoying and perpetuating a special spam playstyle. So, instead, I would make it so super jumps made to a Tenacity user have 10 extra AP of Quick Super Jump. This makes it a decent support ability for anchors that have nothing better to run.

I fully agree, and that's a great idea! Making Tenacity turn the user into a walking powered-up Beakon could be a good way to strengthen the ability. Would also make it really useful for backliners in particular.

 

[RubberCF]

I would like to see some improvements to Tenacity, I feel like it has never been particularly useful in any Splatoon game.

How would you improve Tenacity?

Personally I actually think tenacity is fairly decent since its buff, but LDE and comeback kind of overshadow it. So my hope would be that after this patch, it would naturally get more use.

But maybe it could do with some buffs. I do like the way nintendo buffed it (the passive charge for a difference of one teammate was increased by roughly 50%, for two 25%, and for three 12.5%) bc it de-emphasized having a large number difference between teams. Ive thought that maybe, it should just have a flat rate for any difference between teams, like it could always be 5 points per second (slightly less than the charge having 2 less teammates gives you)

A more extreme rework could be giving the player abilities to help them in combat, like the less teammates are alive, the more ink efficiency abilities you get to output more pressure. The problem with this idea is it starts to kind of feel like comeback or LDE with just different activation criteria. I think it would actually be pretty cool if LDE and tenacity had their mechanics kind of switched around next game. So tenacity gave you ink efficiency when your team is at a numbers disadvantage, and last ditch effort gives you some passive special charge when the enemy pushes objective enough (to be balanced, the passive charge should only activate if they push objective enough and they are in control, im not sure how this would work for clam blitz, for turf it could depend on how much of the map the enemy controls).

Since I don't want to have TOO extreme of reworks here (the haunt rework is as far as i think id go) i think my first suggestion is what i might do. That way you arent incentivised to let your team go 3 down or anything, you just get the same passive charge for any amount of numbers disadvantage. I would like a change to make it less of a "backline only" ability, but im not sure how I would do that. Maybe let it activate even when youve been splatted?

 

[OnePotWonder]

Since I don't want to have TOO extreme of reworks here (the haunt rework is as far as i think id go) i think my first suggestion is what i might do. That way you arent incentivised to let your team go 3 down or anything, you just get the same passive charge for any amount of numbers disadvantage. I would like a change to make it less of a "backline only" ability, but im not sure how I would do that. Maybe let it activate even when youve been splatted?

The whole idea of Tenacity is an ability that rewards survivors, it'd be pretty difficult to make it stronger for aggressive weapons without breaking its identity somewhat. I feel like it has a dynamic in place already with Comeback being a sort of opposite to it, only activating when the user's teammates are splatted rather than activating after the user is splatted.

Two other buffs that might let it work better for aggressive weapons are not counting enemies being splatted against its effects working, or rewarding the user with special points if they get a splat while its effects are active.