Splatoon 2 On Clam Blitz, Futility, and Demoralization

[Breezy]

So let's get something out of the way. I despise clam blitz. The mode feels very tacked on and not well thought out, and it just isn't fun for me. Granted, I have only played it in soloqueue, so it may be different in league, but I actually take umbrage with the core design apart from the required team coordination. And I noticed something kind of distressing; people are far more likely to give up in this mode than any other I've played, and I've been trying to figure out why and think I have an idea. That said, if you enjoy this mode, I'm genuinely glad, and hope you continue to do so. I just want to articulate why playing it is so exhausting for me. By the way, my CB rank is S+2. Nothing special, but high enough to denote at least mild competence if you ask me. So giving this some serious thought, I've boiled down my gripes to two main causes; the comeback wall and push inertia.

What do I mean by comeback wall? Basically, it's the size of the obstacle a team must overcome to stage a comeback. The higher the wall, the more difficult the comeback. If I had to rank the modes' max comeback walls from highest to lowest, I'd probably say CB, TC, RM, then SZ. But the thing is, CB's max comeback wall is significantly higher than the others because of the way overtime works. For TC, RM, and SZ, you can theoretically take the objective from 0 points to KO during the span of an overtime period. This is simply not the case with CB, as you are given 20 seconds at most from the creation of a powerclam to run it to the opposing goal. If you did not already have a push in active progress by the time overtime begins, the match is effectively over and all players know this. In all other modes, when overtime begins, everyone, everyone is on edge, because if the defending team slips up, the opposing team can and will take the win. In CB, it doesn't matter how many powerclams are on the field or how close they are to the goal; if the unrealistically short timer runs out, you're done. And if the defending team has any semblance of turf and clam control when overtime begins, it's even more pointless. This futility is not lost on the playerbase, and while I do not condone giving up, and do my absolute best to refrain from doing it, I can't deny that the urge to pack it in and accept defeat can be overwhelming; I'm not having fun, there's virtually no chance at winning, what's the point?

Which brings me to push inertia. Again, let's invoke the mechanics of the other modes. For these modes, there is a minimum amount of time it takes to run a push to KO. for TC and SZ, the counter ticks down at a constant rate. The outlier here is RM, where the counter tick down rate is proportional to the speed at which the carrier can approach the podium, which can be fast or slow depending on the defense. To pause a push in these modes, you must either cover the zone, clear the tower, or splat the RM carrier. These conditions generally involve splatting one or two people. Now, how much inertia a push has depends on how much effort it requires to restore the objective's neutrality, or "kill the push" as it were. A high inertia push example would be when the zone is under your control and you push into the enemy spawn and splat them as they come so they can't get back in to cap the zone. A low inertia push would be someone trying to ride the tower with the entirety of their team dead with the other team fully active. For all modes except CB, the inertia of the push most of the time is almost solely dependent on player competence. Even in 30 second RM matches, I would argue that the winning push had low inertia, but it just worked anyway (unless there was an immediate team wipe involved). In CB, however, the inertia of pushes are abnormally high for a couple reasons that I'll list below:

1.) Enemy mobility while attacking the basket:

While throwing clams in the basket, you have full mobility and killing power, which allows you to bob and weave and kill the enemy at your optimum potential. This is not the case for the other modes where an objective is "held" by a player. In TC, you have your weapon, but are confined to a tiny, highly visible space that is vulnerable to multiple positions of higher ground (more on that in reason #2), and if you're splatted, the tower is neutralized. In RM the carrier has a powerful weapon, but it slows you down to a crawl, your exact position is marked, and all the enemy has to do to pause the push is splat you and only you. This doesn't really apply to SZ since the objective doesn't move at all, but you don't actually need to splat anyone to stop a push anyway (although it helps a lot). In CB, you have full mobility, can throw clams in the basket from any angle, and if the whole team is involved in the push, a wipe is near necessary to stop it, but this is made more difficult by...

2.) Enemy positioning while attacking the basket:

It is utterly clear to me that many of the maps of this game were not designed with CB in mind, or that this design was incompetent. I'm looking specifically at Musselforge, Mainstage, Humpback, and Shipyard. These maps have one thing in common; the basket is placed on the edge of a dropoff that cannot be scaled directly and is accessible from behind or, in the case of Mainstage and Shipyard, the basket is accessible from high, positionally advantageous platforms that cannot be easily reached by shorter range weapons and there are walls that block long range weapons from shooting these platforms from the safest angles. Either way, the enemy can easily position themselves to become very difficult to hit while they chuck clams to the basket, either by hugging the wall of the dropoff under the basket (and splatting people as they come down to contest the push) or by just standing at the top of a platform or behind the basket idly throwing clams while the defending team has to go all the way around to even have a chance at stopping it. As a stark contrast, this problem is not present at all in Piranha Pit. There is nowhere for the attacking team to safely hide or fortify that also gives them basket access, and the defending team is given almost sole access to the high ground, which the attackers cannot get to without going far out of their way, directly past the enemy spawn. This is a massive breath of fresh air from a map perspective. But to summarize, many of the maps in this mode give the enemy a positional advantage while they're on the offensive, and this is unacceptable.

3.) Map and clam control momentum:

CB is unique in that all team members can participate in scoring, but it only takes one to keep the push going. Because of this, while some members are hurling clams into the basket, dodging enemy fire and taking advantage of position as per points #1 and #2, the other team members can run around collecting clams, switching off with the initial scorers, who then can run around doing the same thing, keeping a push going until the timer, which resets every time a clam is thrown in, depletes. In fact, since only one barrier can be down at a time, the defending team is forced to give up map and clam control while they are defending since they have to rush back to their spawn or risk losing even more points, which gives the attacking team tremendous momentum that carries them even after the push is over, pity clam or no pity clam. This would not be the case if a) both barriers could be attacked at once or b) the barrier timer lasted a set amount of time regardless of scoring. But the way it works now gives way to a much higher incidence of avalanche pushes in CB, where the team that scores can ride the momentum of their push to nigh unreachable heights.

So what effect does all this have on the players during a CB match? Simple; it completely and utterly demoralizes them. The morale drain from the defending team when this happens is palpable. It's so overt no matter what side I'm on. Some stand in spawn face down. Some twirl around aimlessly. But the saddest is when they weakly drop into the field clearly lacking energy, clearly lacking drive.

Clearly lacking hope.

Now I can see how this may come off as melodramatic, and one could argue that those who give up shouldn't be playing a competitive game anyway, but taking one look at the community this game has created and the joy it can bring to so many people, it really saddens me that this mode is the way it is because, and I could be wrong, but, I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way. Please tell me what I'm missing. Please tell me that I'm incorrect and why. I desperately want to to have fun with this mode, to experience the electrifying exhilaration of an intense match that persists until the very last second. But as it is now, for me, clam blitz is a mode entirely devoid of color.

Huh, kind of ironic isn't it?

 

[Elecmaw]

Something tells me you really wanted to shoehorn that pun at the end there

That Meme Blitz doesn't work in solo queue is nothing new. It's not a flawed game mode, it just relies on communication way too much to make solo play in that mode enjoyable or at the very least coherent. In Solo CB you just collect clams, go for doubles and hope your teammates won't fall asleep when you got a clam at the ready and you gotta push.
People throw most often in this mode because if the enemy gets a 60-80 point lead on your score, the chances are minimal the game won't eventually end in a KO. It'd be better if they were to fight to the bitter end, but during some games I've had i can't blame them for giving up.

But far more importantly, keep your posts smaller next time. It's a little bit easier on the eyes to keep things brief and clear.

 

[AC1]

What do I mean by comeback wall? Basically, it's the size of the obstacle a team must overcome to stage a comeback. The higher the wall, the more difficult the comeback. If I had to rank the modes' max comeback walls from highest to lowest, I'd probably say CB, TC, RM, then SZ. But the thing is, CB's max comeback wall is significantly higher than the others because of the way overtime works. For TC, RM, and SZ, you can theoretically take the objective from 0 points to KO during the span of an overtime period. This is simply not the case with CB, as you are given 20 seconds at most from the creation of a powerclam to run it to the opposing goal. If you did not already have a push in active progress by the time overtime begins, the match is effectively over and all players know this. In all other modes, when overtime begins, everyone, everyone is on edge, because if the defending team slips up, the opposing team can and will take the win. In CB, it doesn't matter how many powerclams are on the field or how close they are to the goal; if the unrealistically short timer runs out, you're done. And if the defending team has any semblance of turf and clam control when overtime begins, it's even more pointless. This futility is not lost on the playerbase, and while I do not condone giving up, and do my absolute best to refrain from doing it, I can't deny that the urge to pack it in and accept defeat can be overwhelming; I'm not having fun, there's virtually no chance at winning, what's the point?

The duration of overtime in Clam Blitz is unlimited as long as the losing team keep scoring clams. This is true once the losing team manage to break the winning team barrier.

 

[Breezy]

The duration of overtime in Clam Blitz is unlimited as long as the losing team keep scoring clams. This is true once the losing team manage to break the winning team barrier.

Yes, but until then, the 15-20 second time limit is in place right?

 

[Mar$el]

Yes, but until then, the 15-20 second time limit is in place right?

Yup. Took me a while to get used to. If you're behind and have a clam for overtime, you really gotta push as best you can full speed ahead at the basket else you'll run out of time. I kind of think of it as a test to see how strong of a push you can make in a short amount of time. Obviously you have more than just overtime to prepare but you still gotta get going pretty fast. Gotta pull off some kills and have a really strong presence as you go to the enemy basket. Remember. In the end, the team that wins is the team who made the best push, not the team with the quickest push. It does require some "blind" coordination but just use your special appropriately and try to time it with yours or the enemy team's specials. "Listen" to your teammates and, seeing which weapons you play, you gotta stay active throughout the game. A super important part of those backliner weapons you play is what's called rotating. More so evident with splatterscope and jet, but move to spots across the map appropriately and confidently so you can extend your long-range pressure further into enemy territory. Be mobile even though you're techincally a backliner. Especially in clams where it's somewhat representative of turf war and it's chaos spread out across the map. Make yourself useful.

 

[AC1]

Losing team must open the winning team barrier within 20 seconds of overtime, otherwise they lose.

If the winning team barrier is not open, losing team will lose if one of the following is true:
the losing team have no active losing team power clam
winning team open the losing team barrier.

Time for the team barrier to close: 10 seconds
Throwing a power clam into the barrier will reset the time for the team barrier to close
Throwing a clam into the barrier will extend the time for the team barrier to close by 3 seconds (cannot be greater than 10 seconds)

 

[rainbowsquib]

I also despise Clam Blitz, mainly because communication is key. Most of the time your teammates don't respond much. Communication is crucial because you need people to defend you while going to the enemys base. The lack of communication in solo makes it one of the worst ranked modes imo.

 

[Breezy]

Yup. Took me a while to get used to. If you're behind and have a clam for overtime, you really gotta push as best you can full speed ahead at the basket else you'll run out of time. I kind of think of it as a test to see how strong of a push you can make in a short amount of time. Obviously you have more than just overtime to prepare but you still gotta get going pretty fast. Gotta pull off some kills and have a really strong presence as you go to the enemy basket. Remember. In the end, the team that wins is the team who made the best push, not the team with the quickest push. It does require some "blind" coordination but just use your special appropriately and try to time it with yours or the enemy team's specials. "Listen" to your teammates and, seeing which weapons you play, you gotta stay active throughout the game. A super important part of those backliner weapons you play is what's called rotating. More so evident with splatterscope and jet, but move to spots across the map appropriately and confidently so you can extend your long-range pressure further into enemy territory. Be mobile even though you're techincally a backliner. Especially in clams where it's somewhat representative of turf war and it's chaos spread out across the map. Make yourself useful.

These are all great tips, it's good to think of overtime along those lines; makes it less irritating. I appreciate the backliner advice!

 

[Breezy]

Losing team must open the winning team barrier within 20 seconds of overtime, otherwise they lose.

If the winning team barrier is not open, losing team will lose if the losing team have no active losing team power clam, winning team open the losing team barrier.

Time for the team barrier to close: 10 seconds
Throwing a power clam into the barrier will reset the time for the team barrier to close
Throwing a clam into the barrier will extend the time for the team barrier to close by 3 seconds (cannot be greater than 10 seconds)

This is all very good to know!

 

[Squidilicious]

That was all very interesting to read... Made me think about the game in ways I haven't before. But I don't completely agree with your conclusion.

I understand that your point is that it is quite easy for one team to get a commanding lead due to the oddities of the mode (attacking team frequently with the advantage, map design issues) whivh leads to demoralization and giving up on the other side, but that doesn't really make sense because if it is easy for the opponents to get a big push going then it is easy for your team to do the same (assuming equal skill). So your mentality after you end their push should be okay now it's our turn to do the same right back to them. And all of the same things that lend themselves to facilitating their push will be at your disposal to make your push.

I honestly don't see the same things you're saying you see with people giving up. I'm not saying it isn't happening in your matches but I wonder if you are projecting your dislike of the mode and your feelings onto your team members or if your perspective or interpretation of their actions is skewed by your feelings about the mode.

In all fairness I'm probably doing the same here but I generally dont feel demoralized when I play CB. I'm not saying it's a great game mode. It's probably my least favorite although I still really enjoy it.

By the way I am also S+ in CB and I play only solo queue so similarly situated

 

[Breezy]

I understand that your point is that it is quite easy for one team to get a commanding lead due to the oddities of the mode (attacking team frequently with the advantage, map design issues) whivh leads to demoralization and giving up on the other side, but that doesn't really make sense because if it is easy for the opponents to get a big push going then it is easy for your team to do the same (assuming equal skill). So your mentality after you end their push should be okay now it's our turn to do the same right back to them. And all of the same things that lend themselves to facilitating their push will be at your disposal to make your push.

I

This is actually my mindset in every other mode, and depending on the strength of the latest push, it's a feasible mindset even in clam blitz. The problem I see is that the first team to get one good push first usually gains so much momentum that a comeback is more difficult than it would be if a push of similar strength was run in another mode. This is something I notice even in pro matches and it makes the games way more boring to watch after the first couples minutes or so. I have and will continue to utilize the elements I deem poor design (like the positioning I mentioned) in my own pushes, but I'd much prefer a game where they can't be used because they feel cheap to me somehow. That said, Mar$el brought up an interesting point in that clam blitz emphasizes push quality and speed, which is a quirk of the mode I can maybe, just maybe learn to appreciate eventually.

And you're very correct that I could be projecting my bias and becoming hyperaware of other peoples' behavior that's consistent with my thoughts. I am pretty sure I see more people giving up in this mode than the others, but it's possible I could be blowing it out of proportion.

 

[Breezy]

Yeah I'll try to keep it more succinct next time. I just wanted to get my points across as clearly as possible.

 

[Squidilicious]

Yeah I'll try to keep it more succinct next time. I just wanted to get my points across as clearly as possible.

FWIW I thought what you laid out in your first post was very interesting. I will have to pay attention more to whether whoever gets the first push seems to win more in CB. I haven't particularly noticed that but I wasn't looking for it either. Actually that might not be quite the right construct... Rather than the first push I'd say it is probably the first high-scoring push. Like if right at the start of the match an inkbrush grabs 10 clams, SJ to a teammate near the basket and dunks it but his team can't get any other clams in, I don't think that 20 point lead is demoralizing. But if thereafter the other team pushes and dunks a few power clams plus several small clams for 70 points, that would be more likely to be demoralizing.

Out of curiosity I was going to suggest actually taking a sample of matches and checking what % were won by the team who had the first successful push but that might be a little complicated due to what I described above.

I don't disagree that the game mode isn't that great though. And many of these maps were designed in the first game before this mode existed. You didn't mention blackbelly but I think that is another map that is not that great for CB and it's always in rotation.

 

[ϛ(°³°)/`]

The point that resonated with me the most was that you argue that the maps weren't designed with Clam Blitz in mind, and you know what? That's probably true.

It's almost like in Splatoon 1, where maps didn't seem to be designed with Rainmaker in mind (lookin' at you, S1 Blackbelly Skatepark RM).

 

[Jagginator]

For me the easily most infuriating thing about soloq CB is that its incredibly easy to loose any lead no matter how significant it is. I once lost a game were we had scored 60 points in the first minute, we held them off our basket for 3 mins and then the snipe killed me in the last one. My team didn't watch any of the entances and then they started scoring and spamming specials, the most infuriating by far of them being bubble blower since it can just shield their entire team while they score. We couldn't recover from it since we had a rather large penelty and only 20 secs left, so the snipe just went into full defense mode(snipes are pretty bad in CB but they can be pretty useful when it comes to defending the basket). Ever since then I decided to just use the Hydra with object shredder in order to prevent any bubble/baller comebacks and make our basket generally harder to approach, I haven't looked back since then.

 

[LiX]

Playing it for a while now, I accepted CB as what it is: A mode in this game. We can complain about it all we want, in scrims and tournaments, you can't just say "Ay, but no CB please. k?".
Actually, with VC callouts and a synergetic team, CB can be tons of fun. The solo-mode problems in ranked have probably all been discussed here. It does boil down to us only having "booyah" and "this way" as means of communication. And when your stranger-teammate just ignores you and does not give you that 10th clam when you both sit next to the basket, then it's just frustrating because you can't just smack him down and steal his clams.

Rank X fixed this a bit for me. It's not perfect all the time, but people there seem to generally understand that they need to pay even more attention to what is going on on the map in this mode to make up for the lack of communicational possibilities. When I sneak into the enemy area, yell "This way!" and keep the enemies that noticed me by then at bay, most of the time my teammates listen these days, jump in with a ball and initiate a push. However, I know it's not like this on modes lower than S+. My heart goes out to you guys. I can only promise that solo will get better a bit when you rank up there. It will never be perfect however. Because in the end, you're out there passin' around clams with strangers...

For me the easily most infuriating thing about soloq CB is that its incredibly easy to loose any lead no matter how significant it is.

Err. You can lose significant leads on ANY mode, mate. Easily, too. All it takes is a wipe and a good slayer to keep the returning enemy down and however big the lead was, it can be taken. CB makes no exception there. But arguing that it is the "easiest" is not quite right. I'd even say it is not as "easy" as in RM, as RM only really requires the RM guy to speed through while the enemy is wiped. In CB, you still have to throw clams and expose yourselves to the returning enemy, even when you wiped them before. Another factor is having enough clams at your disposal. You have none of these things to keep in mind in RM.

 

[Jagginator]

Err. You can lose significant leads on ANY mode, mate. Easily, too. All it takes is a wipe and a good slayer to keep the returning enemy down and however big the lead was, it can be taken. CB makes no exception there. But arguing that it is the "easiest" is not quite right. I'd even say it is not as "easy" as in RM, as RM only really requires the RM guy to speed through while the enemy is wiped. In CB, you still have to throw clams and expose yourselves to the returning enemy, even when you wiped them before. Another factor is having enough clams at your disposal. You have none of these things to keep in mind in RM.

Yeah, comebacks like that can happen in any mode of course but I'd still say it happens the most in CB because of specials like bubble blower and baller aswell as superjumps. Of course these things are totally fair game though as they can be used by both teams and can be countered. As for RM being the easiest to push...maaaybe but it takes alot of work to get a good push in RM, funnily enough I did quads just recently and we won against what was probably one of the top 5 teams at the time(2260) by pushing it to 15 and then denying them the RM.

 

[Breezy]

You're right about the strength of the first push playing into it. I did notice that if a team scores only with the power clam, the game's momentum doesn't shift very much, but like you said, if a high-scoring push is conducted, that's a different story more in line with what I said I think. I may try collecting that first push win percentage data if I ever feel particularly masochistic haha.

And I didn't mention blackbelly because, although I don't like it CB, all angles of the basket are easily accessible by the defending team at all times and the "high ground" clma-throwing positions can be suppressed without too much trouble. The main issue with blackbelly is the elevation and awkward slopes making splatting basket attackers finicky, but that's a problem not limited to CB imo.

 

[Breezy]

The point that resonated with me the most was that you argue that the maps weren't designed with Clam Blitz in mind, and you know what? That's probably true.

It's annoying because some pretty simple changes would improve the situation by a lot. Like in Musselforge, and Humpback, adding a step under the basket so you can get behind it without having to go around or superjump to spawn would be a godsend.

And side note, but they tried to fix blackbelly in splat 2, but it's still horrendous on rainmaker and they took it out of rotation again. I personally think they should devote a sub-team to map analysis. I'm assuming the devs aren't stupid so they should be able to handle this.

 

[Breezy]

For me the easily most infuriating thing about soloq CB is that its incredibly easy to loose any lead no matter how significant it is. I once lost a game were we had scored 60 points in the first minute...

Oooo my condolences. One thing I noticed is that if you're not aggro all the time, the match can get away from you bc the enemy is more focused on gathering clams than your team is if they're going by strict defense for long enough. Special chaining is also an issue. Specials are incredibly useful for pushes in any mode, but CB is particularly unique in that most specials turn the small basket area into a killbox for the defending team, and based on just how quickly points can be scored (and how all attackers need to be killed to stop a push), this can get quite irritating.