Peeking Techniques & why Saltspray is unsuitable for competitive play.

[Of Moose & Men]

You're suggesting that the E-Liter hasn't done this since the beginning of always.

Except you have at least a small window to react. Add in the fact one side is always at an advantage and you have a questionable stage on your hands. It's not completely "broken" in the sense that it will always produce a win, however, it always puts a team at an advantage. In a competitive scene, that isn't exactly okay.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Interesting take, and I think that's a fair assessment. There are certainly a lot more ways to gain an advantage over other players in Splatoon, and balance tweaks don't always catch them. It's absurd to expect perfect balance across all players, weapons, and abilities unless every single aspect is completely identical. But the goal is to get reasonably close, to a point where those involved can agree that it's fair enough.

For Chess, or any turn based game, somebody has to go first. There's no avoiding that unless you play an entirely different game. The problem with trying to counteract this advantage, if it is indeed considered one at all, is that you can't simply undo it since there's nothing to stop White from going first short of Black doing so instead. The degree of bias has to be carefully measured so that any attempt at making up for it isn't either still not enough, or way too much to skew things towards the other side. Like if White started with one less piece than Black, that could cost them much more than 4% of matches.

For something like Pinball, or even how Baseball can end at a half-inning because the game is already decided no matter what happens, it's not like there's an advantage from start to finish, or that it's easier for one side to score points than anyone else. The last player still has to play the same game and score the most points to win. It's just on their last turn that they might have less pressure. They also might not, since there could be a huge gap, but that makes it no different from any other turn. If said advantage was widely considered to be significant, perhaps the players' scores could be hidden from each other on the final round. But whoever decides the rules hasn't deemed that necessary, and the players themselves are apparently fine with the ruling.

So that takes us back to Splatoon, and Saltspray Rig. How big of an advantage is it? Is it a known difference between the sides that can be played against, boosting one's average win rate by less than 5%? Is it a severe handicap that not only affects the very start of the match and any strategies and counters that naturally result from an initial disparity, but also each and every moment of the game no matter how much the opposing side gains over the more fortunate one?

Like, let's say Black's chess pieces couldn't ever move to the left. They can move up, right, down, and any diagonals in between like normal, just not left. White, however, has fully functional pieces as we've all come to know it. This would obviously be an incredibly blatant disadvantage that nobody would ever allow in a competitive setting, as even if White is down several pieces, Black could actually be closer to losing.

Is the wall peaking thing quite as bad? Probably not. Maybe it's more like setting up your pieces differently, like both rooks on the same side, which makes certain strategies straight up impossible, while others couldn't be done otherwise. People think it's weird, but sounds fair on paper, so they roll with it. Until they find out that one of these strategies can be abused without any possible counter from the other side specifically due to this unique setup.

Yeah, a game like Go has had hundreds of years to refine its balance, so it's kind of odd that chess still doesn't, but I suppose white's advantage is considered small enough that it's not worth worrying about. As far as pinball goes, while players are randomly assigned player order during much of a competition, when it reaches the last few rounds, they have a system to deal with that: When they get put into groups again, the player with the best win-loss record so far in the competition for each group gets to choose either which machine their group will play next or the order of all of the players in their group. After that, the player who had the highest score in the previous round gets to choose for the next round. This indicates to me that the last-player advantage is significant, enough to be an incentive to play as well as possible, but only comparably significant to how well a player "clicks" with a particular machine. (I've watched a lot of pinball competitions; I'd estimate that in groups of 4, the most common size, the player who goes fourth wins 30% to 35% of the time in the final rounds.)

Oh yes, something else to consider, now that you talk about putting rooks on the same side: I almost forgot about the positions of the king and queen in chess at the beginning of the game. Chess begins not rotationally symmetrical, but linearly symmetrical. Obviously, this is to prevent one side's queen from putting the king in check the moment the queen pawn is removed from its file, but the fact that one player starts with a king on the left and a queen on the right and the other vice versa means that strategies that work for one color won't necessarily work for another. There is no white-wins equivalent of the Fool's Mate, for instance.

Again, I'm not a good enough player to know how significant the Saltspray Rig advantage is, but I am pretty convinced it's present. The question is how signficant that advantage is, and the actions that must be taken should follow from that. Otherwise, no one should ever play Smash Bros. competitively because every player begins at a different location on the stage, and players who begin on the inside may have an advantage against players who don't, especially in Melee or some variants of Brawl+ where long zero-to-KO combos are possible.

 

[Chhipz]

It's not completely "broken" in the sense that it will always produce a win, however, it always puts a team at an advantage. In a competitive scene, that isn't exactly okay.

Summoner's Rift ban confirmed.

In all seriousness, a team's skill and knowledge will outweigh the small advantages, which holds true for virtually any competitive game.

Snipers are generally predictable on where they choose to snipe from. If you choose to run a team composition that puts more pressure on the front lines on Saltspray to secure map control (ex: using more walls which also protect from snipers), it's easier to safely pressure snipers off their perch/ wall. It's all about how you adjust.

 

[UnLucky]

Again, I'm not a good enough player to know how significant the Saltspray Rig advantage is, but I am pretty convinced it's present. The question is how signficant that advantage is, and the actions that must be taken should follow from that. Otherwise, no one should ever play Smash Bros. competitively because every player begins at a different location on the stage, and players who begin on the inside may have an advantage against players who don't, especially in Melee or some variants of Brawl+ where long zero-to-KO combos are possible.

Well, spawn location is only an advantage at the game start. Yes, it's an advantage where one player might be forced to play defensively at first, which can result in an easy percentage or even a stock lead, but after that there's no further advantage. It's not as if every single stock starts the same player off in a bad position, leading to extra damage or an occasional free stock which they cannot use against their opponent(s) in the same way. Besides, you respawn with invincibility so that would be mitigated regardless.

In all seriousness, a team's skill and knowledge will outweigh the small advantages, which holds true for virtually any competitive game.

Snipers are generally predictable on where they choose to snipe from. If you choose to run a team composition that puts more pressure on the front lines on Saltspray to secure map control (ex: using more walls which also protect from snipers), it's easier to safely pressure snipers off their perch/ wall. It's all about how you adjust.

Small advantages sure, no problem. You'll always have these no matter what, and some will be for both sides, so it's hard to say which one is up overall.

But this point has come up before. It's not as if West base has the one sniping perch that East base can easily predict and counter, even if they don't have as good a perch on their side. Every single part of the map with a wall or corner that you can peek out from on the right side benefits West base more than East base with any gun, and possibly sub weapons as well.

If you're sniping from the West exactly the same way you would from the East, you have a wider field of view, you have more cover, and you can make your shot earlier and safer.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Of course--I was using the Smash Bros. example as a very small but present game imbalance to indicate that tiny little things can be overlooked.

 

[UnLucky]

Yeah, and it's different from this case. If the only time you could abuse peaking on Saltspray was in the first 30 seconds or only from your spawn point, then it wouldn't be a big deal. It could sway games by giving an easier early lead, but if they ever lost that lead the playing field would become neutral from then on. An advantage for sure, but not an overwhelming one. That's more like the examples you've given, where one participant gets a one-time advantage.

But you can do it all throughout the match, in practically every encounter with the enemy from start to finish. Defending a position is easier from the West. Assaulting a position is easier from the West. One team has a (slight?) advantage at all times.

It's not so bad on other maps because both sides can get the same advantage. All that results from attempting to abuse peaking is a forced ring-around-the-rosy as both of you circle around some obstacle counter-clockwise. I think that can be ignored even if some maps have lopsided sections that favor one team over the other.

It's just Saltspray that has a disproportionate amount of left:right corners due to its reflective symmetry.

 

[seakingtheonixpected]

Summoner's Rift ban confirmed.

In all seriousness, a team's skill and knowledge will outweigh the small advantages, which holds true for virtually any competitive game.

Snipers are generally predictable on where they choose to snipe from. If you choose to run a team composition that puts more pressure on the front lines on Saltspray to secure map control (ex: using more walls which also protect from snipers), it's easier to safely pressure snipers off their perch/ wall. It's all about how you adjust.

Having to completely expose yourself in order to get a charger shot is not a small disadvantage. Especially for E-Liters

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Yeah, and it's different from this case. If the only time you could abuse peaking on Saltspray was in the first 30 seconds or only from your spawn point, then it wouldn't be a big deal. It could sway games by giving an easier early lead, but if they ever lost that lead the playing field would become neutral from then on. An advantage for sure, but not an overwhelming one. That's more like the examples you've given, where one participant gets a one-time advantage.

But you can do it all throughout the match, in practically every encounter with the enemy from start to finish. Defending a position is easier from the West. Assaulting a position is easier from the West. One team has a (slight?) advantage at all times.

It's not so bad on other maps because both sides can get the same advantage. All that results from attempting to abuse peaking is a forced ring-around-the-rosy as both of you circle around some obstacle counter-clockwise. I think that can be ignored even if some maps have lopsided sections that favor one team over the other.

It's just Saltspray that has a disproportionate amount of left:right corners due to its reflective symmetry.

Well, it applies to the chess example, but in pinball, the real last-player advantage comes in at the end of the game. (I should mention that if the player who goes last is unbeaten in score by the time he or she begins his or her last ball, that player has the option to just plunge the ball and walk away as the ball drains, meaning the last-place player got to win playing one fewer ball than anyone else.)

It sounds like Saltspray Rig was designed without anyone realizing peeking was a thing back at that point. It's pretty odd, considering Judd gives out some pretty advanced advice sometimes. But I think it's possible to have a reflectively symmetrical stage and provide more or less equal opportunities for both teams: You give each side an equal number of left corners and right corners, since the idea is that what's a left corner for one team is a right corner for another and vice versa. Hence, I believe the issue with Saltspray Rig is not its type of symmetry, but that peeking was not discovered as a gameplay element until after its release.

By the way, there are a couple of competitive ones I've come up with since that are present throughout the entire match. This is just something that came to mind:

3. Bowling. If you're familiar with bowling only through the media, you might not be aware that bowling lanes are oiled. This is how the balls can travel so effortlessly down the lanes and why spin is so important in competitive bowling. Highly skilled players will predominantly attempt to roll similar arcs down the lane, and because they're highly skilled, the ball usually travels much how they would like it. However, oil is a fluid, and the oil used to coat the lanes is viscous, almost gel-like. This means that the balls will travel similar paths down the lane, and a wide but invisible (from the players' perspective) groove will develop on the lane over time. As the oil pattern on the lane becomes less and less flat as a game goes on, the unevenness of the oil will influence the ball's path more and more as a game of bowling goes on. This has the effect of players getting less control of the ball with each passing frame, and it also means the player who goes first has the greatest advantage. This advantage is small due to it affecting everyone--unless one or more of the bowlers in the competition is left-handed. Skilled left-handed bowlers will take arcs that are the mirror image of that of right-handed bowlers. As left-handed people make up only 10% of the population of the world, they get to enjoy bowling on much fresher, less flat oil than right-handed bowlers (unless there's an improbably high number of lefties in the competition). The advantage of being a lefty in bowling is not nearly as great as being a lefty in baseball, but it is there, and competitive bowling teams value skilled left-handed people nonetheless.
4. Stock car racing, speed skating, horse racing, and all other races around a short, elliptical track. All of my other examples are turn-based, but this one is not. If you've ever seen a lot of these races, whether via NASCAR, the Olympics, or what have you, you may notice that whoever takes the lead at the beginning of the race is rarely the winner at the end. This is because of an element known as drafting. If you've watched many of these races or played a lot of racing games, you'll be familiar with drafting: It's the practice of lining up directly behind someone else in the race, which gives you a speed boost long enough to go around and pass that person. That's because the person in front of you has to push against a lot of air whereas you don't. While this is a technique everyone in these races can use, and you can't be decent at these races without knowing how to use it yourself, this comes up in all races where starting positions are not based around distance around the first turn of the track. In particular, some NASCAR races have so many competitors that they have to have racers begin at different moments. This provides an advantage to all racers except whoever begins first, and the later they begin (they are all timed independently), the more drafting opportunities they have.

 

[seakingtheonixpected]

This may have already been mentioned and I'm sure it's stating the obvious but any U shaped map is going to have this issue. Right Now Saltspray Rig is the only one, but the second they release another U shaped map it's going to suffer from the same problem.

 

[UnLucky]

Well, it applies to the chess example, but in pinball, the real last-player advantage comes in at the end of the game. (I should mention that if the player who goes last is unbeaten in score by the time he or she begins his or her last ball, that player has the option to just plunge the ball and walk away as the ball drains, meaning the last-place player got to win playing one fewer ball than anyone else.)

It sounds like Saltspray Rig was designed without anyone realizing peeking was a thing back at that point. It's pretty odd, considering Judd gives out some pretty advanced advice sometimes. But I think it's possible to have a reflectively symmetrical stage and provide more or less equal opportunities for both teams: You give each side an equal number of left corners and right corners, since the idea is that what's a left corner for one team is a right corner for another and vice versa. Hence, I believe the issue with Saltspray Rig is not its type of symmetry, but that peeking was not discovered as a gameplay element until after its release.

By the way, there are a couple of competitive ones I've come up with since that are present throughout the entire match. This is just something that came to mind:

3. Bowling. If you're familiar with bowling only through the media, you might not be aware that bowling lanes are oiled. This is how the balls can travel so effortlessly down the lanes and why spin is so important in competitive bowling. Highly skilled players will predominantly attempt to roll similar arcs down the lane, and because they're highly skilled, the ball usually travels much how they would like it. However, oil is a fluid, and the oil used to coat the lanes is viscous, almost gel-like. This means that the balls will travel similar paths down the lane, and a wide but invisible (from the players' perspective) groove will develop on the lane over time. As the oil pattern on the lane becomes less and less flat as a game goes on, the unevenness of the oil will influence the ball's path more and more as a game of bowling goes on. This has the effect of players getting less control of the ball with each passing frame, and it also means the player who goes first has the greatest advantage. This advantage is small due to it affecting everyone--unless one or more of the bowlers in the competition is left-handed. Skilled left-handed bowlers will take arcs that are the mirror image of that of right-handed bowlers. As left-handed people make up only 10% of the population of the world, they get to enjoy bowling on much fresher, less flat oil than right-handed bowlers (unless there's an improbably high number of lefties in the competition). The advantage of being a lefty in bowling is not nearly as great as being a lefty in baseball, but it is there, and competitive bowling teams value skilled left-handed people nonetheless.
4. Stock car racing, speed skating, horse racing, and all other races around a short, elliptical track. All of my other examples are turn-based, but this one is not. If you've ever seen a lot of these races, whether via NASCAR, the Olympics, or what have you, you may notice that whoever takes the lead at the beginning of the race is rarely the winner at the end. This is because of an element known as drafting. If you've watched many of these races or played a lot of racing games, you'll be familiar with drafting: It's the practice of lining up directly behind someone else in the race, which gives you a speed boost long enough to go around and pass that person. That's because the person in front of you has to push against a lot of air whereas you don't. While this is a technique everyone in these races can use, and you can't be decent at these races without knowing how to use it yourself, this comes up in all races where starting positions are not based around distance around the first turn of the track. In particular, some NASCAR races have so many competitors that they have to have racers begin at different moments. This provides an advantage to all racers except whoever begins first, and the later they begin (they are all timed independently), the more drafting opportunities they have.

The last player in pinball doesn't get an advantage until the end, so it's the opposite of first-turn advantage (or even disadvantage in some cases), but it's still only one-time as opposed to all throughout. And in pinball, that last player still has to earn a whole ball's worth of points up until that point using their own skill in an otherwise balanced environment. The 2nd to last player could have an absurd amount of points where they may feel playing their last ball is a waste of time, it's just not a guaranteed win yet. So every player has a smaller advantage than the proceeding player, with the final one having the largest.

Bowling and even the racing examples work similarly. First/last has the biggest advantage, with everyone else having progressively less. It's hard to quantify for each participant, so countermeasures are largely impossible unless you test everybody individually on a separate course. If it were just one-on-one then a balancing factor could be easier to decide like so.

Good thinking though, and stuff like foot racing/sprints have the runners in different lanes, largely due to the inside lanes having less distance, but running behind someone would also have a similar drafting effect. Running against a headwind sucks, but if everyone's in their own lane then it's equally terrible for everyone.

I'm trying to come up with something closer to what I think is the case in Splatoon. Maybe like if Basketball had the hoops in the corners, rather than in the middle, but still directly facing each other rather than diagonally across the court. That way one team's right-handed players would have the advantage over the other team's, and for the sake of argument let's rule out the possibility of left-handed players. Also they do not switch sides at any point, so this difference is present throughout the entire game.

This may have already been mentioned and I'm sure it's stating the obvious but any U shaped map is going to have this issue. Right Now Saltspray Rig is the only one, but the second they release another U shaped map it's going to suffer from the same problem.

Nah, the shape of the map isn't preventing Saltspray Rig from being balanced, it's that fact combined with the designers not taking peaking into account. It's entirely possible for a reflectively symmetrical map to work just as well as a rotationally symmetrical map, it's just not automatic. Extra care has to be taken in the design to ensure fairness that you simply don't have to worry about otherwise.

 

[seakingtheonixpected]

Nah, the shape of the map isn't preventing Saltspray Rig from being balanced, it's that fact combined with the designers not taking peaking into account. It's entirely possible for a reflectively symmetrical map to work just as well as a rotationally symmetrical map, it's just not automatic. Extra care has to be taken in the design to ensure fairness that you simply don't have to worry about otherwise.

If the bases are on opposite sides of the map they identical, so how the walls are placed doesn't matter, each base will have the same areas a charger could peek from.

However, if the map forms a U shape it means it has an East and West side, which are chiral of each other. Because they are mirrors of each other rather than being identical it means that for one team all of the walls that would be on ones left side will be on the others right.

Because all of the inklings are right handed it becomes a lot easier for inklings to hide if they have a wall on their left side (so only the gun sticks out). If the wall is on their right side they will have to show their full head and most of their body to make the shot.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

It is still possible to have a U-shaped map with an equal number of right corners and left corners on each side. It wouldn't create perfect balance, but it'd be a start.

The last player in pinball doesn't get an advantage until the end, so it's the opposite of first-turn advantage (or even disadvantage in some cases), but it's still only one-time as opposed to all throughout. And in pinball, that last player still has to earn a whole ball's worth of points up until that point using their own skill in an otherwise balanced environment. The 2nd to last player could have an absurd amount of points where they may feel playing their last ball is a waste of time, it's just not a guaranteed win yet. So every player has a smaller advantage than the proceeding player, with the final one having the largest.

Bowling and even the racing examples work similarly. First/last has the biggest advantage, with everyone else having progressively less. It's hard to quantify for each participant, so countermeasures are largely impossible unless you test everybody individually on a separate course. If it were just one-on-one then a balancing factor could be easier to decide like so.

Good thinking though, and stuff like foot racing/sprints have the runners in different lanes, largely due to the inside lanes having less distance, but running behind someone would also have a similar drafting effect. Running against a headwind sucks, but if everyone's in their own lane then it's equally terrible for everyone.

I'm trying to come up with something closer to what I think is the case in Splatoon. Maybe like if Basketball had the hoops in the corners, rather than in the middle, but still directly facing each other rather than diagonally across the court. That way one team's right-handed players would have the advantage over the other team's, and for the sake of argument let's rule out the possibility of left-handed players. Also they do not switch sides at any point, so this difference is present throughout the entire game.

Well, to bring back chess as an example, there is the fact that both kings are on the same row in chess when you begin, as are the queens. This makes certain strategies possible for white but bad ideas for black and vice versa. (I mentioned that only black can checkmate by the second turn, for instance.)

You are right, though--a last-turn advantage cannot be built up in the way a first-turn advantage could. (By the way, there is a pretty large banlist for pinball tournaments. This is a list of banned and restricted machines, and the reasons for them, if anyone is curious. It might be relevant to the discussion here to see reasons for another competitive kind of game that should theoretically be completely fair to all players but isn't. Most of the entries are simply recommended settings and adjustments to make for tournament organizers, however, to make sure they're fair. Not listed here is Who Dunnit?, which was made in 1998 but was just banned this last month due to one player at a major competition discovering a beneficial glitch whose means of activation is still unknown.)

I'm wondering now--could Saltspray Rig become perfectly balanced, at least in Turf War, by forcing a time-out at 1:30, then putting everyone on the other spawn point and letting the match resume from there? Then again, I get the feeling doing so would invite a slew of other issues, and it'd become apparent even to people who had never heard of peeking (I didn't prior to this topic) that something was fundamentally wrong with Saltspray Rig.

 

[MrL1193]

I'm wondering now--could Saltspray Rig become perfectly balanced, at least in Turf War, by forcing a time-out at 1:30, then putting everyone on the other spawn point and letting the match resume from there? Then again, I get the feeling doing so would invite a slew of other issues, and it'd become apparent even to people who had never heard of peeking (I didn't prior to this topic) that something was fundamentally wrong with Saltspray Rig.

The last half of a Turf War match is worth much more than the first half.

Really, the only way to truly fix this problem is to make it so that Inklings on opposite teams have opposite handedness as well, specifically for maps of this type. I'm not holding out much hope for that, though.

 

[UnLucky]

If the bases are on opposite sides of the map they identical, so how the walls are placed doesn't matter, each base will have the same areas a charger could peek from.

However, if the map forms a U shape it means it has an East and West side, which are chiral of each other. Because they are mirrors of each other rather than being identical it means that for one team all of the walls that would be on ones left side will be on the others right.

Because all of the inklings are right handed it becomes a lot easier for inklings to hide if they have a wall on their left side (so only the gun sticks out). If the wall is on their right side they will have to show their full head and most of their body to make the shot.

It is still possible to have a U-shaped map with an equal number of right corners and left corners on each side. It wouldn't create perfect balance, but it'd be a start.[/QUOTE]
Going top to bottom on Rig is mostly fine. And if there was a way to meet the middle by going around the top without any climbing I think it would fix several issues. Add a few pathways and billboards to allow for both left and right peeking in the same general areas and the problem is all but fixed.

Like a wall on the elevators' side by the ramp so you can peek down the corridor both ways, a pole up top to poke out from on either side, and V shaped barriers rather than straight lines. There still could be imbalances, but much fewer. The best solution would be for projectiles to originate from the center of the model so there's no inherent difference between directions.

The U-shape / mirroring aspect means the kind of analysis by flc in the first post must be done to make it at least as balanced as the rotated maps are by default. For every left that becomes a right, there must be a corresponding right that becomes a left, placed intelligently rather than simple natural occurrence.

Well, to bring back chess as an example, there is the fact that both kings are on the same row in chess when you begin, as are the queens. This makes certain strategies possible for white but bad ideas for black and vice versa. (I mentioned that only black can checkmate by the second turn, for instance.)

You are right, though--a last-turn advantage cannot be built up in the way a first-turn advantage could. (By the way, there is a pretty large banlist for pinball tournaments. This is a list of banned and restricted machines, and the reasons for them, if anyone is curious. It might be relevant to the discussion here to see reasons for another competitive kind of game that should theoretically be completely fair to all players but isn't. Most of the entries are simply recommended settings and adjustments to make for tournament organizers, however, to make sure they're fair. Not listed here is Who Dunnit?, which was made in 1998 but was just banned this last month due to one player at a major competition discovering a beneficial glitch whose means of activation is still unknown.)

I'm wondering now--could Saltspray Rig become perfectly balanced, at least in Turf War, by forcing a time-out at 1:30, then putting everyone on the other spawn point and letting the match resume from there? Then again, I get the feeling doing so would invite a slew of other issues, and it'd become apparent even to people who had never heard of peeking (I didn't prior to this topic) that something was fundamentally wrong with Saltspray Rig.

Yeah, the placement is mirrored here because, as you mentioned earlier, rotating them could present even worse problems. I wonder if swapping the king and queen would give one side larger than 54% win rate? Imagine if pawns were the only pieces both reflectively AND rotationally symmetrical, such as all paired rooks, bishops, and knights all on the same side (ex. RRNNKQBB), how would the strategies for each side differ? And would a mirrored or rotated layout provide better balance between white and black?

Sitting here right now, you can't know. Not without actually playing it and/or deep analysis. It might seem fine since both sides have the same kinds of pieces no matter what, even if they're swapped around, it's still Chess. Maybe nothing major happens just by swapping one type of piece around, like bishops or knights in the corners rather than rooks for both players. But if Black sets up their pieces entirely differently from White, then we might see something crazy happen.

Nintendo's been pretty good at patching out the exploits and things that either side can do on specific maps, like unintended shortcuts and places to hide, so I think banning a stage for these kinds of reasons wouldn't last long. But Saltspray is quite a bit different than any other stage, and it's had problems due to its unique layout before.

Swapping the sides halfway wouldn't really fix anything. Especially in Turf War where the last minute may as well be the only time you spend inking turf at all. It would just mean the team that switches to the advantageous side would win more often than the team that started there. And if the scores from both halves of the match were added, you may as well just play a 2nd match. Although it would be interesting if every time the Splat Zone or Tower switched control, the entire stage would flip down the middle. And probably nauseating.

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Having the projectiles originate from the middle rather than the left would look kind of weird though, at least unless every Inkling was now holding their projectile in the middle like a movie mobster. I hear most other shooters have instantaneous ammunition, so it wouldn't look too strange from other people's perspective: You see a flash from the gun (if that) but never see the bullet. But here, you DO see the ammunition, and I certainly would feel bugged to see Inklings holding their weapons but firing from within their bodies.

I am left-handed, so it actually already bugs me a bit that there is no left-handed customization for Inklings. Games like Zack & Wiki I don't mind that there's no left-handed option, since you are playing as one single unique character, and that character was established as a right-hander. Same with The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, since the entire games were designed around Link's hand orientation. But except for the single-player mode, there's nothing theoretically to make playing Splatoon more awkward if your Inkling is left-handed, Inklings are customizable blank slates anyway, and Nintendo's normally very good with giving left-handed options where it'd make sense (even more so considering left-handedness is still punished in schools in Japan, so its lefty rate is around 2%--but maybe it's because Shigeru Miyamoto draws with his left hand). And if it's true that no one thought about peeking as thing until after the game came out, then theoretically, a left-handed Agent 3 should have a roughly equal time handing the Octarians as a right-handed Agent 3.

 

[UnLucky]

The inklings hold their weapons somewhat off to the side, which looks especially awkward with Gal weapons since those have shoulder stocks which aren't pressed against one's shoulder.

Most small arms could easily be held directly in front of the player model's body without issue, it's just larger weapons like chargers that would cause clipping. I think it would look fine if they were tilted and angled slightly towards the center, so shots weren't coming directly out of the muzzle completely straight, but not fully removed either.

 

[CasualNerd729]

Following this logic, should Bluefin Depot Splat Zones be allowed? As the zone is only on one side, meaning that one side has the advantage of peeking. Just thinking aloud.

 

[seakingtheonixpected]

Following this logic, should Bluefin Depot Splat Zones be allowed? As the zone is only on one side, meaning that one side has the advantage of peeking. Just thinking aloud.

There are right and left walls no matter which half of the base you are on so there are positions that E-Liters can snipe from either way.

But yeah, Bluefin Depot could have been at risk since the closest half of the base to the Splatzone is difference for each team.

 

[LockeExile]

I'd like to add to this discussion by pointing out Saltspray's significantly high KO rates. https://stat.ink/entire/knockout

Total vs Saltspray
RM: 36.4% vs 59.3%
SZ: 70.3% vs 87.5%
TC: 39.7% vs 69.4%

These are the highest rates in each category except Blackbelly RM at 75.3%

Take that as you will.

 

[Mott Scurry]

REGARDING THE BANNING OF SALTSPRAY​

What's sad is that Nintendo could easily JUST MIRROR THE SQUIDS on the east side along with the stage. Since the camera for the E-Liter and Splat Charger Scopes zoom in from the center and not from the side, it would not disorientate the player firing the weapon that normally fires from the right. The only noticable change would be the gun being held on the left instead of the right. They could also make it easier by just mirroring the guns, since the rollers are unaffected by this mechanic, or if they are it's an insignificant advantage in comparison to with guns since the opponent could easily see the edge of the roller, either way.
In fact, they could do that in an update. Should we petition this, or at least let it be known?

REGARDING PEEKING​

Actually, the rollers can peek on both sides (more so with small rollers) without the body being exposed, but would really only work in a close-quarters situation, not only because the rollers are short-ranged, but because the horizontal range of the rollers are cut by about 66.6%. Guns are unaffected, since their horizontal range is generally point-blank. Small rollers are easier to peek because of the more guaranteed forward angle of the ink being shot, whereas the Dynamo rollers' ink direction is not always certain, especially when only 1 strand of ink will be shot, however, the larger size of the Dynamo makes not only the exposure window smaller, but also increases the horizontal range window from same spot as the smaller rollers. While Dynamos would have the point blank guarantee dropped, it is made up with the Dynamo's range, obviously, so the sacrifice would be range vs accuracy (practically the complete opposite of shooters, oddly enough). The advantage to this is that rollers can do this from either the left or the right side of a corner, since the ink comes from the entire roller. The only problem is the exposed edge of the roller that is really easy to see, especially from a Scoped charger, but if the charger is opposing you with a right-side peak, then the likelihood of you being killed by the sniper is low as long as you don't expose your inkling's body, assuming the charger is in the peeking spot opposite yours in a map where players can easily snipe opponents on the exact opposite sniping spot. The only danger to the roller would be the close-ranged shooters with limited accuracy (a.k.a. not the Splash-o-matic) and bombs, since the roller's vision isn't limited by a scope's FOV and the roller can see just as much of the map as any opposing shooter approaching the inkling. Not only that, but the small rollers' quick Trigger-To-Squid (a term I thought of as a calculation for the time it takes to turn back into a squid from the second you TAP the trigger) makes it even more difficult for enemy players to notice you before a splat, just as it is even without peaking.
The biggest advantage this has over chargers' peaking is mobility. Even the Dynamo roller has more mobility during the rise than the E-liter and even Splatter have during their charge. So they can easily and more quickly move not only their inkling out of the way, but the roller as well.
The biggest disadvantage with this is with the Dynamo and is really the main disadvantage with the Dynamo in general and that is that you cant cancel the rise until the flick, but all Dynamos know about that problem.