Nintendo Direct Delivers Fresh News - Another Splatoon Update!

Today's Nintendo Direct made it all worthwhile with some unexpected Splatoon news. Despite announcing that Splatoon would no longer receive waves of free DLC (and potentially little else otherwise), Nintendo bounced back with new information outlining major updates hitting the eShop this Spring.

According to the Direct, the first update -- which will be available next week on March 8th -- will include:

-Improvements to certain gear abilities
-Adjustments to Ranked Battle matchmaking
-New Splatfest elements

The gameplay balance changes notes for this update are already available online. A version translated into English was posted on Reddit and can be found here.

The rest of the 2.6 update changes include the following:

Stage Adjustments:

• Object placement in Regular Battle for the following stages will be changed to match that in Splat Zones.
  • Arowana Mall
  • Moray Towers

Matchmaking and Team Assignment Adjustments:

• Until now, team assignments in Ranked Battle were completely random, but some consideration will now be given to equipped weapons when assigning teams.
• Ranked Battle Matchmaking will be changed so that players of the following ranks are not matched together.
  • S+ and S
  • S and A+
  • A- and B+
  • B- and C+
  • This change may be subject to further adjustment depending on changes to matchmaking times that occur as a result.

Changes to Rank Points:

• During Ranked Battles, when a team plays at a disadvantage due to unavoidable issues such as teammates being disconnected, and then loses, the winning team’s points will be decreased by an amount proportional to the time they benefited from the above conditions.

Splatfest Changes:

• During Splatfests what was previously the Vibe Meter will now display your Splatfest Power.
  • Initial Splatfest Power level depends upon your current Ranked Battle rank.
  • Splatfest Power level will change depending on wins or losses during Splatfest Battles.
  • The player with the highest Splatfest Power on the winning team will receive a slightly larger boost to their Splatfest Power than their teammates after the match.
• Until now, Splatfest matchmaking favored grouping players with similar play styles. Players will now be more likely to play with those of similar Splatfest Power level.
• The higher a team’s average Splatfest Power level, the more Splatfest Points they will earn after winning.

The second update will not only include balance changes to some weapons already available in the game, but also new weapon sets known as "Sheldon's Picks." These sets will include new weapon variations, like the "Wasabi Splattershot," as well as new weapon combinations. This update will be released in two parts, the first of which slated for April 2016.

Leave us a comment below on your thoughts on all the freshness heading to Splatoon real soon!

 

i had a 4 v 3 (a bit late though) as an A/A+ team vs the same and got 8 points (over 80 points so that is pretty normal to see anyway) so I do not think the reduced points is much. Here is when it happened:

I believe the notes say that it is relative to the length of time the team was affected by the imbalance. So if it was late, it probably wouldn't affect it much. It's as though they pulled the idea from the forum threads here! :)

 

I believe the notes say that it is relative to the length of time the team was affected by the imbalance. So if it was late, it probably wouldn't affect it much. It's as though they pulled the idea from the forum threads here! :)

i had to change it to "mid match" when I wrote that I thought it was the one before. Plus they had lead at the time. But if you click play you see for your self XD

 

Does this mean that Opening Gambit still massively sucks?

I still fear that the 20% duration boost to inkzooka and especially bomb rush will be flat out abused and broken and I fear last ditch effort is going to become "mandatory meta" which hinders variety in builds which is what this patch was supposed to encourage. Aside from that, I'm loving the rest of the updates.

Nah. Last ditch effort just gives ink effenciency boosts and quick respawn. Most weapons don't really need it since they're ink effecient enough and most chargers might just use tenacity since it got a great boost. I see it being reallu useful on dynamo's and some long range weapons. And besides, if you do see a lot, it's mostly because people have a good excuse to wear the cool looking shades now. I don't think a lot of inkzooka users want to use special duration since, while you can get more shots out, you are stuck in that animation for a linger period of time. Some might like it and use it effectively, others not so much. Special duration splat bomb rush is gonna be a nightmare though.

 

can't wait for the new weps. i thought after the hydra splatling, they were gonna be done with weps. The abilities got a massive boost, which is promising.like boosting ink recover from about 60%-80%. Not much difference, but still.

 

Nah. Last ditch effort just gives ink effenciency boosts and quick respawn. Most weapons don't really need it since they're ink effecient enough and most chargers might just use tenacity since it got a great boost. I see it being reallu useful on dynamo's and some long range weapons. And besides, if you do see a lot, it's mostly because people have a good excuse to wear the cool looking shades now. I don't think a lot of inkzooka users want to use special duration since, while you can get more shots out, you are stuck in that animation for a linger period of time. Some might like it and use it effectively, others not so much. Special duration splat bomb rush is gonna be a nightmare though.

I hope you're right. It seemed a little overpowered at first glance Those shades though...can't argue with the fresh factor there! I'm more hopeful about Opening Gambit. A valid excuse to wear the beret is the most needed feature in the game! ;)

Bomb rush though will be awful. Not only it annoying, powerful, covers too much turf too fast and forces everyone to shelter in place for too long but the worst part of Lag Rush is that it abuses the game in a broken way. Framerate drops to like 10fps in some maps and the netcode falls apart leading to everyone teleporting everywhere. Particularly if there's two at once. And now the chances of that are higher. And we all KNOW we're going to see players with max-stacked duration up for that.

can't wait for the new weps. i thought after the hydra splatling, they were gonna be done with weps. The abilities got a massive boost, which is promising.like boosting ink recover from about 60%-80%. Not much difference, but still.

I'm loving the Fresh Squiffer. Of all weapons Squiffer was probably the weapon most crippled by its lackluster kit. Suction/rush will make the squiffer pretty fresh! Supposedly volume II will come with a new bamboozler too. Considering it already has a wall and a disruptor I'm not sure how they can make a "better" bamboozler. The kit was never the bamboozler's limiting factor :p But anything that makes it more viable sounds good. Maybe volume II will have an H3 that isn't loathed too :) OTOH ANOTHER Splattershot seems kind of odd. It's already the most used weapon in the game and the point of the new weapons was to breathe life into the under-used weapons.

 

I'm loving the Fresh Squiffer. Of all weapons Squiffer was probably the weapon most crippled by its lackluster kit. Suction/rush will make the squiffer pretty fresh!

Suction/Kraken

 

Suction/Kraken

Hmm...not as powerful as rush, but charges faster, which for squiffer is probably a good deal. And I'm used to it from C-Liter.

More Lagkens! Joy!

 

I want that Wasabi splattershot man

 

I can't wait for the new inkbrush!

 

There's also the Berry Splattershot Pro and the Fresh Squiffer.