My ideas for a guide

[BlueBeardGoat505]

My plan is to reduce the mental load of using information in order to win to delegate decisions and hold certain limited priorities.

I think the best way to play is to predict the enemy movements and engagements ahead of time, and use limited information to expand your own awareness past what is known or obvious (figuring out that which you cannot know, by analyzing what you do know), which will reduce the informational weight on a player's mind.

So that is the premise of my guide-in-progress. I will share some of my writing if anyone is interested.

How do people who play competitive feel about this idea? What are your ideas and counterarguments?
I am hoping to reflect on other people's opinions and discuss this with someone else.

---

Right now I do not have a switch or splatoon 3, but plan on getting both back once the switch 2 comes out (hopefully in early spring.)

Once I do I want to give competitive a try, so I figured it be a good idea to mix and match my ideas by what other people already know, some of whom may actually have played competitive before.

 

[Grushi]

Just some personal advice, I definitely agree with your mindset of needing to read situations well, a lot of what it takes to win is being able to gather as much information as you can as fast as you can. Decision making is everything in this game!

But don't underestimate the mechanics required to pull that off! If you've never tried the game before, it'll take a long time before you can apply all that game sense stuff. So just, don't think too deeply about the game yet before trying it for yourself! It's fun though, worth it. (I am not biased whatsoever)

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

In line with FLC's shifting roles, I have made my own (individual, not team based) priority list for my ideas:

Intel - Escape - Team - Positioning

- Made to delegate certain actions in order to influence future engagements, by both preemptive positioning and predicting the results of those future engagements, even if the engagements involve other players in a different area.

- Intel: Knowing where engagements are taking place or will take place, along with all other relevant information to be gathered and acted upon.

- Escape: Keeping a path painted to the rear, or knowing how you will super jump out of a progressively bad situation to preserve team presence and special usage. You could also use a special weapon to escape, such as Kraken royale.

- Team: Knowing where your teammates are at or will be (including while re-spawning), when they will get their specials (to coordinate your own), and their likelihood of engaging the enemy team or surviving the next predicted engagement.

- Positioning: Where you need to position yourself to be effective in the next engagement. Make decisions on special usage and what you're trying to gain out of the engagement, and how will you delegate your actions if the engagement goes bad?

You need awareness to use this list, and a sense of imagining/emulating how other players are going to act, based on your previous observations of them. You should also know where the players are on the map, by your intel.

You can increase awareness and cut down on informational load by using what I call the 'reverse equation', which is using the information of where currently known players are at, to know where the remainder might be, and then judge where there is empty space where you can safely paint for special weapons or move freely.

To remember it in-game, I tend to think of it like this:
- Intel
Who is engaging? Who do I predict will win the fight?
Where could the next engagement take place?
- Escape
Constantly keep myself in check to know my surroundings and escape path, to paint it up or have a corner to jump out from.
This also means knowing if the enemy sees me or knows where I am (is stealth an option?), which is a big factor in deliberating how I approach the next engagement.
- Team
Who has a special weapon ready? (to combine with my own special) Where are my teammates, and can I coordinate with them?
Do I need to act as an anchor, to let them jump back in to a safe position?
- Positioning
What is there to gain? (Ex: Cancel an enemy special by slaying) What benefits my weapon type in order to fight effectively? (Terrain and range)
Can I escape the engagement safely? (Have the time and spacing to jump out or swim out)
What would be the next engagement from there? (If still surviving, to predict further ahead)

 

[SAMICOM]

My plan is to reduce the mental load of using information in order to win to delegate decisions and hold certain limited priorities.

I think the best way to play is to predict the enemy movements and engagements ahead of time, and use limited information to expand your own awareness past what is known or obvious (figuring out that which you cannot know, by analyzing what you do know), which will reduce the informational weight on a player's mind.

So that is the premise of my guide-in-progress. I will share some of my writing if anyone is interested.

How do people who play competitive feel about this idea? What are your ideas and counterarguments?
I am hoping to reflect on other people's opinions and discuss this with someone else.

---

Right now I do not have a switch or splatoon 3, but plan on getting both back once the switch 2 comes out (hopefully in early spring.)

Once I do I want to give competitive a try, so I figured it be a good idea to mix and match my ideas by what other people already know, some of whom may actually have played competitive before.

I really want to make a hardcover book detailing every weapon, it's stats, kits, playstyles, and matchups just for reading while sitting on an armchair.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

Just some personal advice, I definitely agree with your mindset of needing to read situations well, a lot of what it takes to win is being able to gather as much information as you can as fast as you can. Decision making is everything in this game!

But don't underestimate the mechanics required to pull that off! If you've never tried the game before, it'll take a long time before you can apply all that game sense stuff. So just, don't think too deeply about the game yet before trying it for yourself! It's fun though, worth it. (I am not biased whatsoever)

I did play splatoon 3, and had a switch before. But I got rid of them for personal reasons.
I regret that, and would like to play again after taking a break from playing.
So this is based on my past experience in playing the game, and using the list while playing.

My personal problems led me to not visualize the necessary information, on top of being a bad player in general. I have never played competitive, where I imagine timing is more important than playing in ranked/randoms. This is just my 2 cents and a grain of salt.

---

On my second post.

I could usually keep track of the first two priorities (Intel and escape) but would struggle applying it to the remaining two, which is the entire point.

From my experience it has to go as a refined flow, like a musical progression, you play each different note at different timings, similarly I would go in a pattern of observation, first knowing my situation, then my escape path, then my team's positioning, then figuring out where I predict the next engagement would take place and how I could plan that out better.

Your mind can only focus on some information at a time. So practicing good awareness habits is key, like checking the upper UI player info every few seconds to remind myself of who I am dealing with at that given moment, along with the possible specials coming in.

But when I am in the flow state, or something close to that, it feels like I am simply walking through a vortex of the enemy team's destruction. It like I already know how the enemy is going to be splatted, from my predictions, so it is like synchronized dancing, the enemy dances with my own movements straight to their demise.

It does feel god like to have the increased awareness to say that the enemy (weapon) is going to die (here) in such and such (estimated time), and then make it happen by predicting correctly.

But being in the flow state is not my thing, and when I am at my best I am actually thinking about other things outside the game, where my immediate attention is on other agendas. I guess in a way that frees up my subconscious attention for the flow state.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

I really want to make a hardcover book detailing every weapon, it's stats, kits, playstyles, and matchups just for reading while sitting on an armchair.

Sounds like a good idea.
I wouldn't recommend publishing a cost heavy article, but maybe make your own manuscript for personal usage.

I could try to make some observations on a weapon, what weapons are you currently working on?

 

[SAMICOM]

Sounds like a good idea.
I wouldn't recommend publishing a cost heavy article, but maybe make your own manuscript for personal usage.

I could try to make some observations on a weapon, what weapons are you currently working on?

I haven't begun working on it, but I would like help with say, splatlings from @QuagSass , or splatanas from @DzNutsKong . The more help the better!

 

[DzNutsKong]

I dunno man. While it's definitely possible for anyone to make a Splatoon guide if they read up enough about it, I feel like if you've never played the game on a competitive level before then you're going to misjudge, miss out on, or add too much about certain details in a way that'll just work together to lower the quality of said guide, among other things.

From my understanding from reading these posts so far you have a solid understanding of what flc's saying goes on in a top player's head, but that's very different from the thought process that goes on about how to play the game. This is the reason I personally think watching VODs of a player just above your level is more important than watching those of top players if it's for the sake of learning things about a new weapon. In this case, the most pressing questions for me are these - how should a player go about learning how to cut out the fluff their thought process? You're explaining the end goal, but not the thought process or any simpler ways to kickstart this line of thinking. Are there any common pitfalls that should be avoided while implementing these things? If you learn about these two things through someone else then chances are it's through someone else's guide which by that point you can just suggest someone checks that out instead to avoid the earlier problems I mentioned.

It's worth mentioning that competitive play is completely different from solo play. While you can absolutely take concepts from one to improve with the other, it's not going to be one-to-one and there will be some things you learn from one that won't apply to the other. Solo play is generally a lot slower, but it forces you to have a degree of self-sufficiency that competitive play does not. You can get away with a lot of plays in solo that are really stupid on paper but there will also be a lot of points where you're making a good play only for your teammates to not know how to play around it.

Either way, welcome to Squidboards! I love seeing this kind of enthusiasm towards the game and I hope this doesn't mess with any of that.

I really want to make a hardcover book detailing every weapon, it's stats, kits, playstyles, and matchups just for reading while sitting on an armchair.

To the point from earlier actually, this much is why I'm hoping as many people here as possible can at some point get around to making a guide for their main(s). This whole website's guides section could eventually turn into what you would want this to be but it's not my place to comment on the Bamboozler for example. I already did something for both the Decavitator and Stamper and a great Wiper guide already exists on the forum but there's still plenty of other room that I can't cover that nobody else has done yet.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

I dunno man. While it's definitely possible for anyone to make a Splatoon guide if they read up enough about it, I feel like if you've never played the game on a competitive level before then you're going to misjudge, miss out on, or add too much about certain details in a way that'll just work together to lower the quality of said guide, among other things.

From my understanding from reading these posts so far you have a solid understanding of what flc's saying goes on in a top player's head, but that's very different from the thought process that goes on about how to play the game. This is the reason I personally think watching VODs of a player just above your level is more important than watching those of top players if it's for the sake of learning things about a new weapon. In this case, the most pressing questions for me are these - how should a player go about learning how to cut out the fluff their thought process? You're explaining the end goal, but not the thought process or any simpler ways to kickstart this line of thinking. Are there any common pitfalls that should be avoided while implementing these things? If you learn about these two things through someone else then chances are it's through someone else's guide which by that point you can just suggest someone checks that out instead to avoid the earlier problems I mentioned.

It's worth mentioning that competitive play is completely different from solo play. While you can absolutely take concepts from one to improve with the other, it's not going to be one-to-one and there will be some things you learn from one that won't apply to the other. Solo play is generally a lot slower, but it forces you to have a degree of self-sufficiency that competitive play does not. You can get away with a lot of plays in solo that are really stupid on paper but there will also be a lot of points where you're making a good play only for your teammates to not know how to play around it.

Either way, welcome to Squidboards! I love seeing this kind of enthusiasm towards the game and I hope this doesn't mess with any of that.

To the point from earlier actually, this much is why I'm hoping as many people here as possible can at some point get around to making a guide for their main(s). This whole website's guides section could eventually turn into what you would want this to be but it's not my place to comment on the Bamboozler for example. I already did something for both the Decavitator and Stamper and a great Wiper guide already exists on the forum but there's still plenty of other room that I can't cover that nobody else has done yet.

Thanks, glad to be here. It is good to break out of the 1-man echo chamber.

I agree with your comment, and my own doubts mirror this.
I don't know competitive, especially the thought process which isn't obvious on the surface, like you said.

That is a interesting opinion on watching someone just above your own skill level in stead of much higher. But that makes sense to understand the experimentation that went into how a weapon is played.

As for the 2 questions:

Cut the fluff from a learning player's thinking-
- Not sure on this one. The point would be to increase the awareness of a player, so they know their opportunities and what they can get away with (so they can play more proactively than passively.) Perhaps to cut the fluff I could focus on engagements themselves, how to approach a future engagement, rather than on how to think in terms of a developing situation.
This guide, if I make it, will not necessarily include teaching specific weapons, but short notes on what their niches are, to play proactively, to their advantage.

Avoid common pitfalls to implementation-
- As I already commented on, the priority list is useless without making predictions. I added in a phrase (Do not engage) which means to not join a fight (as a training habit to form) until you know where it will take place, and at least what you intend to gain from it.
So to avoid pointless/wasteful behavior, a player could avoid a engagement at first, to then choose how and where they wish to engage on their own terms. This forces the thought process of foresight into a player's thinking rather than a reactionary one.

But even then, a player cannot have perfect knowledge and many predictions will be false, which is something to refine over time. And random outcomes force a change in one's actions, but another point would be to pay attention and then know if a prediction is wrong, thus increasing awareness of the current situation.

---

The main idea of this guide is to think ahead the future engagement, so while I am currently handling a engagement now, my thought process is focused on the next engagement after, and how I can leverage that foresight to my advantage.

To just play efficiently (being good at engaging or prioritizing certain subconscious decisions) requires training in good habits, and removing the bad. To that I want to experiment with restrictions on certain behaviors, such as focusing on special spam, then only using your special to combine with your teammates; or focusing on fleeing every engagement, except those which are as safe as possible to engage in; all while avoiding other ways of playing, in order to break bad habits (rush and die, wasting specials without momentum) and being conscious of your own actions/decisions.

This is something I would have to experiment with myself, before I ever consider making it a published guide, along with gaining competitive experience.

 

[plantknowsyourlocation]

forgive me but isn't this just. common awareness? you learn object permanence as a toddler. awareness is like the first thing you're told to learn to reach a decent level in splatoon.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

forgive me but isn't this just. common awareness? you learn object permanence as a toddler. awareness is like the first thing you're told to learn to reach a decent level in splatoon.

Yeah, this is based on awareness through my own system of decision making. What I assume makes this different from common awareness is allocating for future events instead of just gathering relevant information on your current situation. This was written when I had Solo play in mind, not competitive. Maybe thinking 3 steps ahead is normal in competitive, but from what I have seen from casual that isn't the case in toddlerland Ranked (thanks for the idea, I might use that again later on).

I would think most guides focus on awareness, changing habits or specific information to increase performance. Not sure what else you would write on.

As far as competitive is concerned, from what I have seen people there tend to optimize their reactions to play consistently. What I am writing on is using foresight, which expands into exploiting the enemy, rather than playing consistently. If that were the case, then what higher level players focus on is much more important than what I am writing on, especially in a team orientation.

You would want your team to take less risks, and the enemy team to take more risks, right? So that would start with consistency, not biased predictions.

 

[BlueBeardGoat505]

When I write on predictions, the trick is to see the game from an enemy player's perspective, in order to read their next reaction, which allows you to delegate the fight on your own terms and not theirs, even if that means escaping from a poor situation instead of attempting the risk, and then doing something at least slightly more useful than feeding the kill.

In practice you would have to combine that into your 'thought process' somehow, which focuses on your next action, with what information you have now.

I am starting to realize that this is too abstract to be a guide. You could have 1 practical reality, but many impractical future orientations. Maybe I will shorten this to something offhand, to use for whatever information I test (sometime this spring, whenever switch 2 makes its debut) that could be useful to other players in a more practical manner.

So far my most practical idea is "Don't die, playing stupid" lol.
Definitely need more concrete actions, and less abstractions, if I am writing this for other people.

Its a good idea to bring my ideas into the open, as it helps me refine them. Thanks for the critiques.

 

[SAMICOM]

I dunno man. While it's definitely possible for anyone to make a Splatoon guide if they read up enough about it, I feel like if you've never played the game on a competitive level before then you're going to misjudge, miss out on, or add too much about certain details in a way that'll just work together to lower the quality of said guide, among other things.

From my understanding from reading these posts so far you have a solid understanding of what flc's saying goes on in a top player's head, but that's very different from the thought process that goes on about how to play the game. This is the reason I personally think watching VODs of a player just above your level is more important than watching those of top players if it's for the sake of learning things about a new weapon. In this case, the most pressing questions for me are these - how should a player go about learning how to cut out the fluff their thought process? You're explaining the end goal, but not the thought process or any simpler ways to kickstart this line of thinking. Are there any common pitfalls that should be avoided while implementing these things? If you learn about these two things through someone else then chances are it's through someone else's guide which by that point you can just suggest someone checks that out instead to avoid the earlier problems I mentioned.

It's worth mentioning that competitive play is completely different from solo play. While you can absolutely take concepts from one to improve with the other, it's not going to be one-to-one and there will be some things you learn from one that won't apply to the other. Solo play is generally a lot slower, but it forces you to have a degree of self-sufficiency that competitive play does not. You can get away with a lot of plays in solo that are really stupid on paper but there will also be a lot of points where you're making a good play only for your teammates to not know how to play around it.

Either way, welcome to Squidboards! I love seeing this kind of enthusiasm towards the game and I hope this doesn't mess with any of that.

To the point from earlier actually, this much is why I'm hoping as many people here as possible can at some point get around to making a guide for their main(s). This whole website's guides section could eventually turn into what you would want this to be but it's not my place to comment on the Bamboozler for example. I already did something for both the Decavitator and Stamper and a great Wiper guide already exists on the forum but there's still plenty of other room that I can't cover that nobody else has done yet.

I just wish I had a work ethic to write.