Playing with Limited Time

[Kuwata]

Hello Squidboards, we meet again!

I wanted to make a thread discussing one of my biggest constraints with the game at the moment: time. This is NOT a thread to vent, rather, I’d like to have a space to discuss similar experiences with others!

Everyone has different circumstances that affect the way they’re able to interact with the game, whether it be time, living circumstances, crazy parents, health, etc. the myriad of reasons goes on. And that’s okay! I remember I started playing competitively in Splatoon 2, where I had to balance high school, marching band, SAT classes, volunteering, internships and more. I also had the “crazy parent” excuse, so all of my tournaments were quietly spent playing on handheld in the closet LMAO. I’m in college now, and things have only gotten busier since then!

However, I notice that my lack of ability to dedicate time to the game affects the way I feel about grinding and practice. For example, I don’t even play X rank all that often anymore. I just calculate at the beginning of the season (~2300 takoroka or so) and call it a day. I’m quite content with where I’m at now given all this restraint, but I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I had more freedom on the game, especially now that I want to try playing competitively more often.

How do you guys try and squeeze the best you can out of practice during the limited time you have on Splatoon? Do you focus X rank, scrims, sendouQ, or are you just here for fun? Let’s share our experiences :D

 

[MintyMisc]

Limited time means one must take full advantage of that time. I would say it is important to play purposefully, or in other words, make the most of the limited time you have. Give the games you can play your all, analyzing & reflecting both mid-game & post-game. Ofc, vod review yourself, that will always help.

 

[gay4bigman]

i have college classes and highschool taking up most of my day, so i dont get that much time to play... despite having nearly 900 hours on the game- most of that was in summer while on break. when i do get to play, i just want to have fun but high level players seem to see me as a target because i cant play as well as a majority of other people .. id put in time to practice if i had more free time.

 

[ThestralZ]

During school I watch videos on being competitive and read articles on Sendou, and then during my free time I play Splatoon. It works pretty well

 

[sevenleaf]

i got into splatoon with the release of 3, which was a couple months after i graduated college… as much as i regret not getting into the series earlier, i totally couldn’t have balanced school with playing enough to feel confident in my skills, especially not if i were playing when i was in college. so i commend y’all for balancing school and splatoon lol

but now i work and between that, household responsibilities, and not having a ton of energy i only have a few hours of true free time. right now i try to use that to build/maintain my mechanical skills in solo queue (and sometimes semi-casually with friends), since i don’t have a team right now. if i don’t really feel like playing (or i take one look at the rotations for the night and go “hm. maybe not”) i might instead look at guides/competitive content to study. i feel like eventually having a team and scheduling practice would help me stay on track, since i do pretty well with routines.

 

[Aiko.Octo]

This is something I'm puzzling through lately. I also struggle with limited time between work, keeping the house in shape, social obligations, and general executive function struggles.

For a while, I had a solid and effective routine going in which I would get up early, eat breakfast, and play anarchy a couple hours before having to start work. I tend to be usually at my peak energy and focus in the mornings, so it worked out really well. Then in the evenings after work I would socialize and we'd casually play turf or salmon together.

These days though, I'm traveling every couple weeks which makes staying on my early-bird sleeping schedule borderline impossible, so I don't have time to play in the mornings anymore. And in the evenings, my social time and play time rarely take up the same timeslot anymore. I'm the only one in my circles that still really, really enjoys playing splatoon, so I usually have to chose between them. Additionally, in the evenings when I'm tired after work I sometimes get anxious about trying to play seriously because it's harder to focus and I feel like I won't do well, so I'll study videos/resources instead. It's better than nothing, but lately I think I'm studying more than I am playing, which isn't really going to get me anywhere.

It's a little frustrating because ideally, eventually, I'd think I'd like to be a part of a team, and I think that regularly scheduled, focused team practice would be ideal for keeping me consistent, but I'm not comfortable looking for a team until I can develop my own skill in solo queue a lot more, and yet I'm starting to think I simply will not be able to effectively do that until I can get back on some kind of schedule. I just need to figure out how to make something work for myself despite fluctuating energy levels and sleep schedules. So lately I'm starting to explore addressing this on a deeper level by looking at my lifestyle habits (eating, physical activity, etc) and see if adjusting those can stabilize my energy better, so maybe by the end of the workday I can still have the energy/focus to play effectively. It's a work in progress, I suppose.

 

[Kuwata]

(Cut for space)

I think your experience is pretty similar to mine, Aiko! I like how you’re addressing your lifestyle as a whole as a side effect of addressing the little valuable time you have left to play Splatoon.

I end up playing in the mornings before I have my college lectures, but this has the quirky unintended effect of being able to meet more EU players because mornings for me are nighttimes for them. I think that my quirky situation has lended itself to me being able to connect with people I wouldn’t have been able to network with before.

Team commitment is rough when your schedule is packed! I’m also in the weird case where I can’t actually attend the usual practices at nighttime due to my living situation. I might have to end up playing for a team in a totally different time zone than mine in the end - have you considered this as a possibility as well?

 

[Aiko.Octo]

...
Team commitment is rough when your schedule is packed! I’m also in the weird case where I can’t actually attend the usual practices at nighttime due to my living situation. I might have to end up playing for a team in a totally different time zone than mine in the end - have you considered this as a possibility as well?

You know, I haven't thought of that, but that might be a possibility. I guess as long as the ping isn't unbearable I don't see how it couldn't work!

 

[zyf_]

hi im div 1 and i play like
at most 3 times a week, ~2 hours per session, and have been since i started comp in 2020

if you wanna get good in a comp sense, the name of the game is to work on what you need to most, and to make sure you're very intentionally working on things every time you play

what you should focus on really depends on what your weaknesses are
happy to elaborate on that later

as far as motivation to grind goes, that's independent of how much free time you have, honestly. if you don't wanna actually grind, having more time will just lead to you doing other time-wasters
and something that i heard once that has always stuck with me: if you really want to grind something, you'll make the time for it

 

[SquidAbortions]

wauw div 1 im like div 11

 

[Yosi Spring]

I probably have more free time than you, but I still choose to not play Rank X because the matchmaking takes forever. I've gotten the "Not enough players!" message enough times to make me not want to queue up anymore . In contrast, queuing up for Anarchy Series always results in a match in under 2 minutes.

 

[Alphine_Agnitio]

Honestly I just try to play with friends as much as possible, and try to multitask during gameplay to work on what I need to improve on. (Ex recently I've been trying to get sub strafing down to a habit by doing it in the lobby during aim drills and forcing myself to use it during actual gameplay)

I don't get to play as *much* as I would like but one benefit of working evenings while everyone else works mornings is usually I can get 4-5 hours of uninterrupted gameplay in per week Mon-Fri then grind the game nonstop Sat-Sun(I do need to get into healthy hygene habits a bit more cause adhd brain is a ***** at time management but thats a seperate topic) so I usually average 7-10 hours of gameplay a week, sometimes more sometimes less, and the short term improvement is definitly noticable when I look back at my older VODS.