Pro or Con? - More/Better Gear-Ability Customization? (Sub and Main)

[Paragon-Yoshi]

My second topic of the "Pro or Con" kind.
This time, the topic is "Gear Abilities" and the ways of changing them.

Right now, you can only change Sub Abilties.
And only through a "Slot Machine" mechanic.

The Main Ability however is permanent and cannot be changed.


But then there are people, who think like this:

So yeah, that is a problem for some people.
Myself included.

We don't want to wear clothes, because they give us boosts.
We want to wear clothes, because they look awesome!

Then again, we cannot deny that we would like to have certain abilities, that our favourite looking gear just won't give us.
And that is the "Style vs Abilities" dilemma.


And as such, people like me would like to have more and/or better options to change abilities for gear we love to wear.
The current Rerolling-feature is just too luck-based, even with the brand-mechanic in place.
In fact, it limits the whole thing even more.

If the gear that looks great to have, doesn't support the abilities we would like to have, it plays even more against us.


Which is why I personally, would love to have more options, that aren't so luck-based and actually offer more freedom in creating my personal perfect kind of gear.


The first and foremost thing I would like to have, is "CHANGING MAIN ABILITIES".
And then there should be something in place to make changing Sub Abilities less of a gamble.

There are a lot of thing that could be done here.

Personally I have settled for a "Main Ability Transfer/Single Sub Reroll" combo.
Single Sub Reroll speaks for itself.
Just choose one Sub Ability and reroll only that, instead of all three.


And Main Ability Transfar is based on the "Skill Transfer" mechanic from "Hyrule Warriors".
Aka you first choose a piece of gear , which Main Ability you want changed.
And then you pick a piece of gear, that has the desired ability, transferring that one over to the other.
Which however DESTROYS the gear you get the ability from.

It doesn't prevent you from re-buying gear you lose through this process, provided the shops have it in store.
Still you want to tread carefully when using this feature.

Also, there would be restrictions for some types of gear:
- Cuttlegear and Amiibo gear can't have their abilities transferred to other gear
(Since that would destroy them with no way to get them back)
- Splatfest Tee's can't be used with this feature at all


But however it is done, OF COURSE THE COST WOULD BE MUCH HIGHER!
That goes without saying.

More effective ways to customize your gear should naturally be more expensive.
How expensive, is up to debate.


So what do you think?
Would the ability to change both Main and Sub Abilites more effectively be a good thing?
Or should the game stick to the current system, with the luck-based way of changing Subs and no way to change the Main Ability?

Feel free to discuss. :p

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

Con. It'd be nice but it's a definite con. The basic lowdown: Is it really such a problem that your colourful headphones don't have the ability you want? I guess you don't want to wear such things anyway.

Customisable Main gear abilities? Oh good, now i can see cold blooded, Ninja squid showing up together (along with various subs that perfectly complement your weapon etc). High cost? Grinding can fix that!...What? My gear is gone? Grinding solves everything! A new pair of Pro Trail boots! Now i can give this one Stealth jump and i'll be set!

All things seriously though, I'm not much of a "Stats > how i look" sort of squid (All honesty they're kinda equal.). I wear the designer/colourful headphones and the Ika Musume gear cause i like them and it looks fresh in my eyes.

Now from a different point of view. ,It's similar to how some people wanted main weapon's subs and specials to be customised, it'd just ruin the purpose of this "gear" thing Splatoon has. I feel like Splatoon wouldn't necessarily benefit from changing main abilities so much. Sure, it'd be nice of having your favourite clothing to have the abilities you want. But would that really be alright? To me, it seems like it separates those who are serious about the game and those maybe not so serious all in a competitive aspect. I mean, i hear stuff about "Ugly gas masks" but people did wear them for the ability it had right? You got the fiercest, yet really weird sense of fashion and not so fresh squid on one side of the underpass and then the happy going, Freshest Inkling on the plaza on the other side of the underpass. "But X is fresh AND competitively viable too" - Shhhhh... The point is my preference would be not to change what Splatoon has already got going.
(I can see people saying that "This method is super expensive, so it'll make them look competitive anyway with their gear anyway cause they had the time to grind" if you did, you're probably missing the point of my post or I'm not making myself clear enough xD)

Perhaps if this were the case when Splatoon first came out my opinion would be different, but as it stands now, changing Main abilities should just be limited to different clothes.

As for subs; you want your sub ability that you really want? Guess it's up to Game Guy! I'll just take all your coins/seasnails... xD (Mario party 3 reference).
I think it'd be more fun keeping it random like that. If you want specific sub abilities, then fork over the cash/seasnails. Spyke's in the back alley, even the game said the area he's in looked a little shady. And LOOK how many seasnails he has! Either that man has been rocking some serious splatfests or he's been at this "switching slots" thing for quite a while. (You could even take it as an inside joke or fourth wall joke from Nintendo saying that Spyke got filthy rich due to players giving him all their seasnails just for abilities they want.).
So basically, it's gambling Splatoon style. If you desire something, then you must be willing to pay, if you lose, tough. That's show biz err i mean Tough luck.

Oh well, each to their own right? But for the good of the game the way it is now, i think it should stay like how it is now. As i see it, those who disagree with the way it is now disagrees with what Splatoon is currently. Can't say who's correct or not. But at the moment, i feel the Developers of splatoon are doing it right at the moment. If they change it however i'll look like a big idiot and everyone can laugh xD.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I don't really understand what you are trying to say.
It would be bad, because... why?

Is it really wrong to have gear you like AND with the abilities you want?
Of course, you would have to go an extra mile to get that, by feeding Spike even more Snails, than he already wants.

But seriously, what exactly is your point?
It would ruin Splatoon as it already is? How?
I don't get it.

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

Hrmm, whether it's bad or good huh? I guess i've been talking about it too subjectively and selfishly.

I guess my point was:
Is it really wrong with the way it is now? Is it so wrong that it might lead to something drastic? I mean just because i can't give my headphones Ninja squid doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It's simply how the game is currently. I'm sure it was implemented like that with reason...Maybe a reason that i might not know but oh well!

So, with that, my apologies for talking in such a biased way. (EDIT): I might of gotten mixed up in thinking that this was a thread for personal opinions on why it would be good or bad. Turns out you seem to want legit reasons. Again, apologies if that's what you wanted in the first place.

Of course it'd be a pro, no doubt, more customisation always benefits for a game. There can really be no con other than what gamers actually think what would be wrong about this in a biased opinion -Like what i did for example- or just how much customisation there is. If anything, players should buy "stickers" from a specifc to replace the current ability that the gear already has. That would seem to be a simpler way and it would fit in with this Inkopilis theme of having 3 clothing shops with different gear every day just now with "stickers" at expensive prices. There you go you already made me think of a suggestion xD

So from a not so personal stand point, there shouldn't be anything wrong with adding more customisation. Simply because it's a thing that would be fair for everyone, you work hard for your abilities, then you get rewarded for it. Were there really any cons apart from personal opinons?

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Is it really wrong with the way it is now?

Wrong? No.
Terribly inconvenient? Yes.

Also, on another note: Being able to have Ninja Squid and Cold-Blooded at the same time, is impossible.
Since both abilities are exclusive to Body-Gear.
That wouldn't change, even with such a system in place.


The Sticker-suggestion is a nice one though.


Sorry, but I am just one of those people, who cares about appearance, when it comes to clothing.
But I don't want to be left with the short end of the stick (aka unwanted abilities), just because my taste disagrees with the gear that has the ones I want.

 

[SquiliamTentacles]

I would think the Main ability transfer would work better if you brought all the stats from one piece of gear to another. That way, there will be no easy to get OP main/sub combos, but you can use whatever abilities you want on whatever clothes you want. The gear destruction is fair, as it opens up an opportunity to rebuy it at the store. Hopefully if they do something like this, they keep a nice low price since it is purely cosmetic.

I would like the single ability rerolling too, more because of it's timesaving benefits. It would have to be a good bit more expensive, but it would be highly useful.

 

[Vitezen]

An important part of gear with abilities tied to it is that you can immediately tell some of the abilities someone will have just by looking. I don't think that removing this ability to predict what your opponent is capable of doing is a good idea, just for the sake of customization. Add more clothing for more variety, don't change how it works.

 

[Noire]

I'd like more ways to get the stats I want without resorting to savescumming. I don't think the main should be changed as that's what makes each outfit different than the rest and if we could change the main, everyone would wear the best looking outfits (Such as SQUID GIRL, and amiibo stuff) and you'll rarely see anything else. But the subs should be handled in a much easier way instead of playing Spike's Lottery.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

An important part of gear with abilities tied to it is that you can immediately tell some of the abilities someone will have just by looking. I don't think that removing this ability to predict what your opponent is capable of doing is a good idea, just for the sake of customization. Add more clothing for more variety, don't change how it works.

90% of the players don't pay attention to that anyways.
Let alone go through the trouble of memorizing what main ability each and every piece of gear in the game has.

So sorry, but that point sound very silly to me.

I'd like more ways to get the stats I want without resorting to savescumming. I don't think the main should be changed as that's what makes each outfit different than the rest and if we could change the main, everyone would wear the best looking outfits (Such as SQUID GIRL, and amiibo stuff) and you'll rarely see anything else. But the subs should be handled in a much easier way instead of playing Spike's Lottery.

It depends on personal taste. So we could still see plenty of variety.

 

[Elecmaw]

Pro, pro, pro. I cannot say that enough.

The idea of having your subs, in a sense your entire other half of your perks randomly determined for you doesn't sit well with me at all. You'll eventually get the stuff you'll want, but it's entirely based on luck and tedious grinding. People who managed to luck out on re-rolls/use rollscumming will have a wider pool of perks to pick from. It's not entirely unfair for other players, but it's a very clumsy system. That, or i'm just biased because i personally really hate gashapon-esque systems in games.

I'd rather have it like this: Be able to choose any sub-abilities you want, this way people who are only interested from a competitive standpoint will be able to pick the perks they want without caring how they look like. Instead, make main abilties re-rollable but have them still initally start out with the default ability(ex. Dark Urban Gilet still starts with CB).
This way, players who like the way a specific piece of gear looks but don't like the main ability for it will have to use re-rolls, and even if it turns out to be an undesired roll there will still be other gear with the same ability so they aren't entirely disadvantaged.

Something akin of a trading system would be good, too.

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

Wrong? No.
Terribly inconvenient? Yes.

Also, on another note: Being able to have Ninja Squid and Cold-Blooded at the same time, is impossible.
Since both abilities are exclusive to Body-Gear.
That wouldn't change, even with such a system in place.

The Sticker-suggestion is a nice one though.


Sorry, but I am just one of those people, who cares about appearance, when it comes to clothing.
But I don't want to be left with the short end of the stick (aka unwanted abilities), just because my taste disagrees with the gear that has the ones I want.

But you can see why i'd use Ninja squid and Cold blooded as an example though. If you would be able to change main abilities, people would start wanting to remove restrictions for even more customisations. But yeah i know what you mean, with the system like it is now, it wouldn't exist.

No need to be sorry xD We all have our personal opinions.

An important part of gear with abilities tied to it is that you can immediately tell some of the abilities someone will have just by looking

You know, the sticker idea could fix that. You would slap on stickers to your gear right at the front where it's visible, so in matches you could tell what they replaced their main with. If you're worried about how some stickers would work on say, fake contacts, you could occasionally have the sticker fade in and out from their eyes, or even place the sticker on their hair xD... it'd be amusing to see but whether that looks good is beyond me, but yeah that would solve the problem of "Predicting" granted that these "Stickers" are sizable enough to see especially for the beginning of the match.

Though as a squid who doesn't think about main abilities instantly when i see a particular piece of clothing (and one who usually looks at that stuff during respawn), to me it'd seem like that idea would get your favourite gear covered up by some icky sticker.

And it would seem that it'd become sorta like TF2 in the sense that they'd only be adding new clothes without much point other than just fashion. Since the Main would be changed later on, the "Default" ability would just be deemed inconvenient (And somewhat silly) for people if it didn't have their ability they needed so they'd just end up changing the ability anyway. So there would be an added dialogue once you buy something like "Would you like fries wi-" I mean "Would you like to change the default ability?"

That said, if they didn't change it and kept it the way it is now. I certainly wouldn't mind, but other people would.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

My question is: Why do you even have to predict the abilities your opponent is using from the start?
Wouldn't it be better to find out as the match is going?

Personally I would hate everyone being completely predictable, before the match even starts.

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

My question is: Why do you even have to predict the abilities your opponent is using from the start?
Wouldn't it be better to find out as the match is going?

Personally I would hate everyone being completely predictable, before the match even starts.

Convenience perhaps, those really interested would actually pay attention to that sorta stuff.

Though, honestly, if you see a weapon that pretty much needs an ability to work a ton better, like the rapid blaster (deco or vanilla), you'd automatically assume that they're running Power up abilities because increasing the splash damage would mean that you wouldn't have to hit them 4-6 times for a splat but rather three indirect hits.

In this way you can already predict what abilities they have from the beginning. Not like it'll change that much, just makes it more noticeable.

But with someone on the less competitive side, being splatted is rather common, so looking that their "killer's" stats is just a convenience during respawn. I guess it's a matter of what would be better for a particular player in terms of convenience in that regard.

 

[Inky Corruption]

On the topic of Main Ability Transfer

This doesn't sound bad, actually. As for Cuttlegear you could just buy them from Judd (since he seems to mysteriously find these things) after destroying them, for a price (higher than what you'd see in the shops).

The "sticker" idea is pretty good, too.

On the topic of Sub Ability Rolling

There is another thing I would like to propose instead of single sub rolling that works generally the way you'd like it to.
Slot-locking. This is a feature I know from an MMO where you can reroll your equipment for bonuses and pay an increasing amount of money the more slots you roll. However, to keep rolling for, say, three slots, you must pick the three slots option so that you don't obliterate your other slot(s) in favour of rolling just the one. How did they do this? By locking the slots that had bonuses they desired.

In summary, instead of limiting rolling to a single slot, have Spyke roll all slots and maybe ask a higher fee for preserving selected slots to keep rolling for the one ability you're still missing. The ideal would be that we could just buy the exact slot we want, because honestly, that's exactly what we're doing - only we're getting ripped off at present.

General

I find that the overall way ability rolling works is a bit ridiculous considering there is no trade market (my opinion can be found in this thread) so the system doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I like using gear I find aesthetically pleasing so personally I can get behind this.

Wrong? No.
Terribly inconvenient? Yes.

Also, I would actually argue that it is wrong. Again, referring to the link up above. It's a really clumsy system that frankly doesn't work for this game. The fact that so many savescum is evidence of that.

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

So basically, the competitive atmosphere completely denies this "Luck based" system. Save scumming is proof of that, Also luck based things have been known to be competitively unreliable (Pokemon moves, Mr Game and Watch's Judge attack from Smash bros etc) While the more "Casual" and for fun type of players there would be virtually no difference. You just have more offered to you. Creating a more customisable experience i guess?

So you could say competitive sees the current gear ability system as "wrong" ,
And casual doesn't really see it as wrong but it wouldn't hurt to add such things.

Would that be the correct assumption?

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

On the topic of Main Ability Transfer

This doesn't sound bad, actually. As for Cuttlegear you could just buy them from Judd (since he seems to mysteriously find these things) after destroying them, for a price (higher than what you'd see in the shops).

The "sticker" idea is pretty good, too.

On the topic of Sub Ability Rolling

There is another thing I would like to propose instead of single sub rolling that works generally the way you'd like it to.
Slot-locking. This is a feature I know from an MMO where you can reroll your equipment for bonuses and pay an increasing amount of money the more slots you roll. However, to keep rolling for, say, three slots, you must pick the three slots option so that you don't obliterate your other slot(s) in favour of rolling just the one. How did they do this? By locking the slots that had bonuses they desired.

In summary, instead of limiting rolling to a single slot, have Spyke roll all slots and maybe ask a higher fee for preserving selected slots to keep rolling for the one ability you're still missing. The ideal would be that we could just buy the exact slot we want, because honestly, that's exactly what we're doing - only we're getting ripped off at present.

General

I find that the overall way ability rolling works is a bit ridiculous considering there is no trade market (my opinion can be found in this thread) so the system doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I like using gear I find aesthetically pleasing so personally I can get behind this.


Also, I would actually argue that it is wrong. Again, referring to the link up above. It's a really clumsy system that frankly doesn't work for this game. The fact that so many savescum is evidence of that.

Good points you've brought up there, pal. : 3
Personally I also think it is wrong. But I didn't want to be a jerk, so... ^^;

That link was an interesting read for sure.
And IMO there really needs to be a more reliable system to give you a fair chance of getting abilities you want for the gear you want.
In the end, gear is also abourt asthetics.
So in response to this "Style vs Abilities" dilemma, I say: "Why not both?"

You can already get the abilities you want.
Why not allowing us to go the extra mile, to get them on gear that actually looks cool in our eyes?


Also, as for your suggestion to get Cuttlegear and Amiibo Gear back, by re-buying it from Judd.
Even if the option would be there, I doubt a lot of people would actually bother destroying those to transfer their abilities to other gear.
Since you can already get every single Main Ability from the shops.

Neither of the Cuttlegear or Amiibo Gear have any exclusive abilities.
So there wouldn't be really any sense in destroying those and having to re-buy them for tons of money, when previously you got them "for free", after doing certain tasks.

 

[Vitezen]

90% of the players don't pay attention to that anyways.
Let alone go through the trouble of memorizing what main ability each and every piece of gear in the game has.

So sorry, but that point sound very silly to me.

How do you know how much people pay attention to this? Do you have any data to back that up?

Also, keep in mind that not every ability is as relevant to keep track of. What can be more important is looking at the package that the other player put together as a whole, and figuring out what they may be doing. A great example would be something like seeing someone with comeback, quick respawn, and stealth jump equipped on tower control. Just from seeing that you can already predict what this player is likely to be doing, and that you need to stay wary of it BEFORE it happens. Other examples are seeing cold blooded when you have point locators or echolocator equipped, seeing someone with recon equipped, special duration with inkzooka, or someone who stacked defense up when you use certain weapons.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

How do you know how much people pay attention to this? Do you have any data to back that up?

Do you have any data to back up, that there are a lot of people who do?


Is it really that important to see what the opponent is wearing and immediately know what he or she is going to do?
I don't think so.

In fact, I would actually consider it a good thing, if you don't know what your opponent is up to from the beginning and only find out as you go.
If you get splatted, all their abilities are revealed anyways
So is can't possibly that bad.

Sorry, but personally I consider this nitpicking.
Even with the ability to change gear-abilities and thus denying you of letting you know what your opponent is going to do before the match even begins, you are gonna find out eventually.

 

[Inky Corruption]

Regarding the whole scouting the abilities by appearance debate, the main ability only represents half of the abilities that one piece of equipment has. You may be able to spot certain abilities like Ninja Squid, Ink Resistance or what have you, but what you don't see are the nine sub-slots that may actually contain the class-defining abilities you would be looking for in the main slots. Depending on their build, the main ability may either be a clue or throw you completely off, so all in all it's a fairly moot point.

If you're looking to scout what kind of playstyle the opponent has, the weapon they use generally tends to speak for itself.

 

[SquiliamTentacles]

I admit I do scout playstyle and stuff based on abilities, but I rather have more aesthetic customisation than a tactical advantage. Besides, getting splatted gives you info of their loadout, and lets you know their main abilities for the next few games. If needed, there should be some small sticker or emblem on the gear representing the new main ability.

Also, I really would like to be able to change the Splatfest Tee, and don't go well together often.