New kits by their preferred modes.

[Sorcerer]

As you've heard me say countless times, I believe the choice of kits were designed by Nintendo to give any main of a weapon options for the four different Anarchy modes. Here's my justification for each Fresh Season kit

C.Explosher: RM - CB. Splash Walls to protect against overextending, as defensive options against rainmaker/clam rushes, more defense in the way of splashdown.

Fresh Squiffer: SZ-CB. More offensive options for regular killing of turf support units, dedicated zone painters and clam collectors. Prevent snowball effects through regular offense, other kit dies control of the singular objective.

Foil Flingza: SZ-CB. For the immediate displacement of long range units that can either convert the zones from afar or ensure space control in clam Blitz. Screen provides control of the immediate area, like a basket line or any other forward position.

52 Gal Deco: RM-CB. This one is kicking my butt because I've hated playing v52 Gal in TC. There's a lot of pushing options here to advance Rainmaker or see if the dunking podium is safe. Here, Screen is deliberately for holding forward ground.

C.E-liter: TC-RM. I thought that was Heavy Splatling's deal. In any case, Squid Beakon so as to return to your previous position if forced to SJ back, Kraken to defend yourself even more while others scramble on the singular objective. Why not CB? Because CB emphasizes stage control (Mines + WB) over singular objective defense.

Dread D: SZ-CB. Speaking of stage control, this seems to be the deal here. Dread is good at fighting, good at painting; add WB to see if you can't ping someone and hit them with the double slosh. Vanilla kit is apparently for pushing.

Nautilus 79: TC-CB. Nautilus has poor synergy with the expensive Suction Bombs, but it relies on them to punish hard defenses as found in TC and CB. Splashdown protects from counter offensives if caught off guard breaking defenses.

Deco Glooga: SZ-TC or SZ-CB. Another kick in the butt because it shares the kit with Sloshing Machine. I don't see two weapons with the same kit having the same picks. I'm leaning SZ-CB, as NeoMachine has always been great for TC. Poke with Sensors so as to conserve ink and scare others from advancing into your turf. Identify and eliminate troublesome turf support units so as to gain advantage, leaving wall for objective pushing.

How do I come with these conclusions? I map out the preferred modes of EVERY weapon into two picks, and check for patterns. Like no two primary kit with the same special having the same picks, or the picks of weapon kits sharing the same subweapon not repeating more than twice. This leads to assumptions that lead to mistakes, but I recheck my previous notes and find myself wiser for the experience. I'm writing weapon guides on gamefaqs, and this Fresh Season will have me rewrite four of the guides.

 

[vitellary]

saying Dread D prefers zones over its vanilla kit is Crazy, zones is the only thing anyone uses the vanilla kit for

can't speak for much else, since the only weapon i actually main on this list is the gloogas and despite not agreeing with your theory overall i do agree with your choice of SZ-CB for the deco kit since that is likely what i'll be using it for (though lack of paint will possibly make it struggle with zones, i'll have to see myself)

 

[WhatTheDevin]

How do I come with these conclusions? I map out the preferred modes of EVERY weapon into two picks, and check for patterns. Like no two primary kit with the same special having the same picks, or the picks of weapon kits sharing the same subweapon not repeating more than twice. This leads to assumptions that lead to mistakes, but I recheck my previous notes and find myself wiser for the experience. I'm writing weapon guides on gamefaqs, and this Fresh Season will have me rewrite four of the guides.

I would still like to hear a bit more about this part, and why you think this is how the devs are thinking about the game. I'm willing to consider the thought that this is their intent, even though things don't actually shake out that way. (I mean, we all know that the S3 devs think about this game very differently than any of us, for better or for worse.)

I'm much more comfortable with this modified assessment of Explo, as well. The kit still won't work in any serious match, but at the very least, you've correctly identified the weapon's 2 weakest modes.

That said, when people get emotionally invested in a theory like this, they tend to cling to it and when the facts stop fitting, they perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to make it work. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but based on how you've been responding in other threads, you definitely seem emotionally invested, so I just wanted to warn you of a trap that you could fall into if you don't detach yourself and go out of your way to find ways of disproving yourself.

 

[missingno]

That said, when people get emotionally invested in a theory like this, they tend to cling to it and when the facts stop fitting, they perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to make it work. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but based on how you've been responding in other threads, you definitely seem emotionally invested, so I just wanted to warn you of a trap that you could fall into if you don't detach yourself and go out of your way to find ways of disproving yourself.

I'll be the one to make that accusation. You've started from a conclusion, and keep trying to work backwards to force everything to fit your conclusion regardless of whether or not it actually fits.

 

[WhatTheDevin]

I'll be the one to make that accusation. You've started from a conclusion, and keep trying to work backwards to force everything to fit your conclusion regardless of whether or not it actually fits.

I at least wanted them to actually make their case before I really started thinking down that route. Multiple people have asked for the evidence already (including me) and not gotten a real answer, but I live by Hanlon's Razor, so I'm willing to chalk it up to miscommunication, while insisting to Sorceror that if they want to be taken seriously, they'll have to give a full breakdown.

 

[vitellary]

they do have a thread in which they go into the theory on its own, and try to make a lot of arguments for its validity. it's the first place they had mentioned it so it's probably good for baseline understanding of their theory

 

[WhatTheDevin]

they do have a thread in which they go into the theory on its own, and try to make a lot of arguments for its validity. it's the first place they had mentioned it so it's probably good for baseline understanding of their theory

Ah, thank you. When I specifically asked for a link to a more in-depth explanation, their response led me to believe there wasn't one. I really see where missingno is coming from now. The theory is wholly lacking in actual evidence and seems to be based on the assumptions that 1. The devs never make mistakes and the game is perfectly balanced (explicitly stated) and 2. competitive players don't actually know what makes a good kit (implied while trying to defend #1.) Both of these are demonstrably false.

 

[Sorcerer]

There is no other justifiable reason for a game developer to create alternate kits than to give options across different game modes. You can say that it's built for "playing style", but it's always the same weapon, whether it has a sticker or not. Playing style is just other words for game objectives. I will always believe that game developers create things with a purpose, rather than random distribution.

I started mapping every weapon kit to their preferred game modes (their "picks"), then compared how specials and subweapons were distributed across those picks. Whenever a new special was introduced, I noticed that the two starting kits had picks that mirrored each other. Ink Vac was one of the first specials with 6 starting kits that had their alternate kits out. Each one had a different pick, which makes sense: there are only 6 combinations of 2 different game modes. (But Ballpoint has Vac on the Nouveau set, which makes it different).

Basically, instead of saying "some kits bad", think of which modes the kit would work over the other one, and why. I might make individual mistakes in terms of picks, but the overall theory that each primary kits (or each secondary kits) sharing the same special have different sets of picks has been ironclad so far. For subweapons, the rule is that picks don't repeat themselves more than twice across weapon kits sharing the same subweapon.

This system helps eliminate personal bias. You acknowledge you don't know everything, and realize game developers had their own idea when creating a weapon kit. And these developers surely had a set of rules to distribute specials and subweapons in a somewhat even manner, for specific gameplay reasons. So map your weapon kits to game modes, then go backwards, looking over at your picks from a specific special or subweapon to see if you're experiencing bias.

 

[missingno]

There is no other justifiable reason for a game developer to create alternate kits than to give options across different game modes.

Why does it have to be about mode? Why is that the only justifiable reason for options to exist? I've explained other reasons to you before.

You're also refusing to consider that just because an option exists doesn't mean it has to be good. Sometimes some options just aren't. No game ever has been and no game ever will be perfectly balanced.

 

[DzNutsKong]

Apologies if this feels like I'm contributing to some dogpiling, only really throwing this out there since I feel like others will be arguing different things. This part is something I've gone on record saying recently and I feel like there's some chance this bit comes from you not following my idea completely so it's worth elaborating. Hope this doesn't end up feeling personal.

There is no other justifiable reason for a game developer to create alternate kits than to give options across different game modes. You can say that it's built for "playing style", but it's always the same weapon, whether it has a sticker or not. Playing style is just other words for game objectives. I will always believe that game developers create things with a purpose, rather than random distribution.

Giving weapons different kits can absolutely shift their playstyle. Some more than others since you can only change how like a backline charger works by so much. I'll just use the swords as examples because they're always the first to come to mind.

Both Wipers need to play around their mobility and their poor kill time unless you get close but the vanilla kit can find more openings by itself because Torpedo opens up some combos and gives it an easy option to toss out and distract others as it gets closer, and Ultra Stamp is meant to be a way to clear out space ahead of it. Wiper Deco cannot afford to play as aggressively because of its poor kill time at a range and there is no way the developers weren't aware of this when designing it. If you were to try and play it to the same level of aggression as the vanilla kit then you're going to get curbstomped unless you're going in with someone else. So vanilla Wiper is meant to be an aggressive, in-your-face skirmisher while Deco plays more supportively because it doesn't have the same tools to play aggressively. Same weapon but you cannot play them the same.

Both Stampers can play around their extremely versatile fighting and long range and the dynamic is actually pretty similar. Zipcaster either has to distract people or get kills or else it's providing nothing for its team, and there's no way Nintendo doesn't know that Burst Bombs are at their most potent when used for combos from Splatoon 1. Once again, not having a Burst Bomb prevents you from opening up opposing teams in the same way the vanilla kit can. Neo is meant to play to area denial from the weapon's long range, Toxic Mist in Nintendo's minds being the best option for area denial through a subweapon, and Crab Tank having it as a strong option.

For a more personal note I would not enjoy Neo Stamper nearly as much as I do right now if it was meant to play the same as the vanilla kit. I absolutely do still like the vanilla kit but it largely comes from how much I like the swords as a whole. Neo Stamper plays to my strengths as a player way better than the vanilla kit does. I am far from the most aggressive player, I'm very patient and rarely the one to look for openings as opposed to the one that helps extend existing ones. This fact does not change depending on what mode I'm playing. I still use the kit's area denial in the same way across every mode.

I like that you're thinking about the developers' intention, way too many people are too quick to be too harsh towards big developers, but it's not worth saying the same weapon is meant to play the same no matter what kit the devs give it. Playstyles absolutely do exist, and they're not tied to game modes.

 

[Sorcerer]

You're also refusing to consider that just because an option exists doesn't mean it has to be good. Sometimes some options just aren't. No game ever has been and no game ever will be perfectly balanced.

Yes, the option has to be situationally good. It has to have a purpose. Nothing was designed as a bad option. Understanding the reasoning behind the kit also better understands the weapon.

@DzNutsKong
No playstyle exists within a vacuum. In fact, playstyles are an underlying element of the mode in which you play. Because obviously the objective at play is more important than how you want to play the weapon. If your choice of kit influences how you play, you should be able to tell which game mode best benefits from that specific play style

 

[missingno]

Game designers (typically) don't design things to be bad on purpose, but that doesn't mean they can't make mistakes. Sometimes that situation truly just doesn't exist. Or at least sometimes that situation is far narrower than an entire game mode.

 

[vitellary]

in all honesty we could keep debating this back and forth forever, i still have plenty more arguments i could make but it's not worth it. at the end of the day you have to recognize that if literally every single person you talk to disagrees with you about something then maaaaybe it could be because there's something that you haven't considered, rather than, somehow, every other person in the world has simply all failed to consider this one thing

your insistence that this is a 100% strict rule with no leeway frankly kills any interest most people could have in discussing it, because like. what do you even want us to say, other than "ohh you're so right and smart for figuring that out"? the only possible ways for us to interact with this theory are to either accept it at face value (because it's such a strict formula that there's not even any room for us to argue against it, you'd simply tell us we're wrong about our main weapons), or debate the theory as a whole, which you will wholeheartedly refuse to entertain any possibility of. there's really no reason to keep talking about it i think, it's a very narrow mindset that several people have tried to explain the flaws with and when that doesn't work there's nothing else to discuss about it

 

[DzNutsKong]

No playstyle exists within a vacuum. In fact, playstyles are an underlying element of the mode in which you play. Because obviously the objective at play is more important than how you want to play the weapon. If your choice of kit influences how you play, you should be able to tell which game mode best benefits from that specific play style

I'm gonna be completely honest with you man, it feels like you ignored, like...all of what I said. Like you read enough to understand the point I was trying to make, put that aside and tried presenting your opinion instead of explaining why mine's wrong. This isn't how conversation works, one of us doesn't just have to respect the other's opinion more than the other and consider the other's better by default. Kind of the big reason I dropped the conversation about the Clash Blaster (if you want me to continue I'd be willing). Didn't really have the patience to make a follow-up to a post I felt like that about on that day. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt though and say that I might be misreading this situation.

At any rate this is a bit tunnel vision-y. Kind of implies that every weapon needs to play some very specific way in order to be at all successful on a given mode, or at the very least that many different ways of playing the game are not supposed to work at all in certain game modes. This just straight up is not true. The developers have no reason to want to force people out of their preferred way of approaching a problem.

With your mindset the devs think that Neo Stamper's area denial is completely pointless and that you have to play super aggressive with the vanilla Stamper if you want to win. What does that say for weapons like the Bloblobber where, as a main weapon, it's the thing's main goal to control space? The other big thing the weapon does is painting which if that's your one job with a weapon, there are plenty of other options with strengths that are more suitable for each mode. There are also weapons in this game that have two kits where area control is a major aspect of their design, are they just screwed?

I'll actually add one more thing specific to the main topic of this thread as well rather than my little derailment - if they were specifically designing weapon kits for each mode, why wouldn't Sheldon explicitly recommend certain modes for each of them? Wouldn't it be nice for newer players to have some idea of what version of their weapon they should choose for a mode? He could be wrong but that applies to literally every piece of advice the developers chose for him to say. Why hold any of that back?

 

[missingno]

Let me reduce to this the simplest possible way I can poke a hole in your theory.

What mode wouldn't I want Snipewriter 5H on? The meta literally revolves around Tacticooler and that applies to all four modes. 5H is the best user of it by far, and that also still applies to all four modes. There is no mode where 5H stops being the best weapon in the game.

5B isn't even bad, the main weapon is still strong enough to remain viable. But it doesn't ever outclass 5H. The only situation where it really makes sense to play it isn't any specific mode, it's when you already have an N-Zap 85 on the team.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Man, I'm going to be 100% straight with you, you're on a massive amount of copium here.

The main reason you're defending your theory despite all of the holes being poked in it is because you refuse to believe that Nintendo designs garbage kits with no thought put into them. That's just how things are; some kits make absolutely no sense and cannot be justified in any way over other kit options.
Custom Explosher, Dapple Dualies, Rapid Blaster, Big Swig Roller... their kits might have been created with the intention of being better in some modes, but they're just not. If Reefslider and Angle Shooter were balanced, vDapples and vSwig would be entirely outclassed.

You're suffering from a major case of apophenia, you're taking random correlations between main, sub, and special weapons and making your own connections between them, then acting as though those connections are intentional.

And, to poke one more big hole in your argument, you state that different weapons with the same sub or special are tailored to different modes. This makes no sense, since certain sub and special weapons are flatly better in certain modes. Suction bomb is especially strong in Tower Control, Toxic Mist is more useful in Rainmaker, and Reefslider and Super Chumps are only decent in Splat Zones.

Please, stop spreading misinformation. It's very badly irking me.

 

[Sorcerer]

Playing every different weapon the same way because they share elements from their kit is the most simplistic take ever, and I'm ashamed of you for even suggesting that. Saying "bad kit bad" is specifically the thought I'm trying to avoid, but don't let it stop you from being proud of never trying.

Talking about Super Chump for a moment, this is one of the clearest instances where the two opening kits had use of it for massively different reasons and opposite game modes. Then you look at three other kits with Chump and ask yourself if you'd use them for different combinations of modes. But if you don't want to think or make the effort of looking over how kit choices influences your approach towards the objective of the game mode, I can't force you.

It is certainly not misinformation to try to look at how kits influences a weapon's outlook to game modes. Do this for enough weapons and if you don't see any patterns, hey, that's on you. But start with Super Chump kits, then Kraken kits as they're both only on secondary. If you actually poke a hole in my theory (no, just saying "you're wrong" isn't poking a hole), if you find two such weapons sharing these specials AND their picks, we can debate. But until then there are no holes, just people not making efforts to get out of their comfort zones.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

In fact, playstyles are an underlying element of the mode in which you play. Because obviously the objective at play is more important than how you want to play the weapon.

I legitimately can't think of a single way to come to this conclusion. If you have one, I'd love to hear it (truly). I just don't see any logical way to say that mode determines your playstyle for a given game more than your weapon does.

In every mode, you win by controlling space. In SZ, you score by controlling mid (where the zone is). In CB, you can score by controlling the area around the basket. In RM and TC, you score by controlling the furthest up into the enemy side as you can. In turf war, you win by controlling the most space at the end of the game. But in every mode, having control of more space is better, whether it's because it directly helps you score, or because it keeps the other team further away from scoring. Controlling space is always the goal.

Your choice of weapon (including the kit) matters a lot more when determining how you will play than the mode will. As an extreme example, if you try to play an e-liter like it's a splattershot, you're going to rush into fights the shot could easily win, but you won't have the damage to splat the player you're shooting at and you'll probably end up dead. The same thing applies if you try to use a wiper deco like it's a regular wiper. It doesn't matter which mode you're playing; if you try to be that aggressive with the wiper deco, you're going to end up dying too much to get value. It also goes the other way around, possibly more so. If you try to play vwiper with a supportive playstyle, you're going to end up getting a bunch of ultra stamps and accomplishing practically nothing for your team. Again, this has nothing to do with mode. The weapon is what determines the playstyle.

I'm not trying to say that every mode is exactly the same, of course there are slight differences. You can cheese the zone with reefslider, and you can cheese clams with kraken, but it won't work too well the other way around. What I'm trying to say is that it makes much less of a difference than you seem to think, because the core gameplay is the same in every mode.

Saying "bad kit bad" is specifically the thought I'm trying to avoid, but don't let it stop you from being proud of never trying.

The "bad kit bad" mentality you're referring to dismisses a weapon kit as bad at first glance, without giving it any real thought. I agree that this is unhealthy. However, almost every example in this thread has had reasoning behind it which was explained along with the example. If you genuinely don't understand why we are saying some kits are better than others, I'd be happy to explain (i believe as would most of the people here, but I'll let the others speak for themselves). But it feels like whenever we try to present reasoning like this, you dismiss it without even considering our ideas. It's very frustrating. (Props to everyone for keeping this thread civil though! that can take some serious effort sometimes)

 

[OnePotWonder]

Playing every different weapon the same way because they share elements from their kit is the most simplistic take ever, and I'm ashamed of you for even suggesting that. Saying "bad kit bad" is specifically the thought I'm trying to avoid, but don't let it stop you from being proud of never trying.

That's the thing, though. A lot of weapons with the same specials do play the same way around them. Every Reefslider weapon will try to use the special to cheese zone. Every Chumps weapon will aim to use chumps on zone when trying to retake. Once you're in control of the objective, the specials can be used more uniquely regarding playstyle, but the reason you're bringing the weapon in the first place is because the mode its Splat Zones and you need specials with burst paint.

And do note that you're hypocritically grossly oversimplifying our mentality. It's not "bad kit bad," it's "bad kit bad because..." We have very solid arguments for why these weapons do not work, whereas you have practically nothing for why they do.

 

[missingno]

OP, are you willing to acknowledge that devs don't always get things right? That even if they tried to make a kit viable, sometimes they may not succeed?