[Post-Mortem] Big Run #2 - March 3-5, 2023

[#8 regret]

The Numbers​

This month's Big Run has come to an end; the high score distribution for rewards is surprisingly similar to that of the thresholds for December's Big Run, with the Top 5% and Top 20% thresholds only having gone up by 4 Golden Eggs each (137 -> 141; 113 -> 117) and the Top 50% threshold only having increased by 2 Golden Eggs (88 -> 90).

Personal Experience & Thoughts​

Having only played enough Big Run to get to 2400 points, I got to a high score of 108 Golden Eggs. Inkblot Art Academy was a much tougher map to manage than Wahoo World, as most tiers of the map are confined and don't give you many outs when being chased by a horde of Salmonids. Conversely, Glowflies was quite possibly the easiest it's ever been on Inkblot, with several high walls around the map to stand atop and be effectively immune to the Salmonids' attacks.

Horrorboros is, in my opinion, a much more interesting King Salmonid than Cohozuna. Having a unique body type, attack style, and weak point help to differentiate it from the big bullet sponge that is Cohozuna; additionally, giving Horrorboros a weak point makes the fight more planned out and interactive than just "aim in the direction of the big thing."

All in all, if they're going to keep doing Big Runs to introduce a new King Salmonid every season, I think that's a lovely way to put a spotlight on them while keeping the gamemode somewhat fresh. Ideally, maps will be added in the future that better serve Salmon Run in terms of design. (Sturgeon Shipyard?)

—

Spoiler: Charts and Data

 

[Cephalobro]

Yeah, I liked fighting against the Horrorboros more than Cohozuna, mainly because the Cohozuna takes too much ground space, especially with its hit-box. It makes it a lot easier when dealing with the other Salmonids on the field.

 

[#8 regret]

Yeah, that's another factor that I never really thought about. Not having Cohozuna take up a gargantuan amount of ground space makes things more navigable, especially on high tide waves. Granted, high tide Inkblot is obscenely cramped in and of itself (my first Horrorboros encounter was on high tide) but I imagine it'll be more tolerable when Horrorboros is featured in rotation on a more standard Salmon Run map.

 

[aquasys]

inkblot's layout is super punishing for salmon run, but when things weren't going horribly wrong, it was pretty fun. the map being divided into multiple layers made the different tides real interesting (even if low tide was effectively normal but with the basket in the middle)

 

[#8 regret]

That's true; the tiered design of Inkblot did serve to make it more distinct between waves. I would've preferred if the high tide layout went down a little further since it basically kept you at only the very top of spawn, but otherwise the map design itself was very interesting.

I think that the area within those tiers was small, which made the map feel cramped in practice. Even if there's a lot of ground space in the overall area, the separate tiered arenas in which you were fighting the Salmonids was just a bit cramped.

 

[Forma]

They did a good job with block and ramp placement to make Inkblot a lot easier to manage in Salmon Run, which I greatly appreciate. As long as you did what you should always do and cover important walls ASAP, it was pretty simple to get anywhere you wanted on the map. I really like how most of the map was used this time around - there were reasons to go to basically everywhere but the opposing spawn, whereas Wahoo World had a lot of wasted space.
Although it could be tougher to manage regular waves, special waves were all VERY easy to overfish on compared to last time around, which probably resulted in the slightly higher total overall.

 

[#8 regret]

Maybe it's because I'm so used to the multiplayer design of the map, but I never really thought to use the walls more than absolutely necessary. I do agree on your other points; Inkblot gave much more reason to use the entire map available to you (up to mid, anyway) whereas Wahoo was more just the immediate area around you. I never got to do Mothership on Inkblot, but Glowflies was COMICALLY easy on Inkblot. Just stand on a wall and shoot!

Honestly, the higher total is such a small margin of error that it isn't particularly possible to say if it's because of the map, happenstance, or just an overall skill growth of the playerbase due to Salmon Run being pushed harder. I think one more Big Run should be enough to determine that, but we'll see.

 

[Cephalobro]

I do think Inkblot was better overall for Salmon Run. Wahoo World had places where it was incredibly difficult to escape Salmonids when needed, while some parts of Inkblot made it easier to escape Salmonids.

 

[#8 regret]

The inkable walls in Inkblot made it really easy to escape from Salmonid hordes, especially with waves like Glowflies.

The walls couldn't save me when I was in the middle of the available area, though...

 

[TOD13]

i thought inkblot was a pretty good salmon run map! my only big issue was it was hard for me to memorize where the egg basket was, since there wasnt much of a visual difference (for me anyway) between mid- and low-tides.

 

[#8 regret]

Yeah, the difference between mid-tide and low-tide is really unpronounced until the egg basket pops up. That's probably just a compromise they had to make due to the design of the map, but it would've been creative to maybe have the egg basket in one of the lowest side areas at low tide.

 

[KillJoyye]

I only got to play it once, but the scream is really cool.