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

[Vitezen]

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.

I didn't make any claim regarding how many people do or don't. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, you. All I can verify is that I do it, and that as you can see in this thread, at least one other person does. If you want to claim that the vast majority don't, it's time to back up your claim with evidence.

I'd prefer to avoid being killed by knowing my opponent's strategy beforehand. One well-placed kill can change the course of the match, and a good way to avoid kills is knowing what your opponent is capable of doing, or at least intends to focus on doing. Not to mention that you can easily exert pressure and control areas without getting a single kill.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

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.

So I guess it is settled then?

I didn't make any claim regarding how many people do or don't. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, you.

Are we talking proof or common sense? <_<

Whatever, I need to consider this a troll-post for now.
First being picky about something so small, then being picky about "proof", as an attempt to void what I was saying.

 

[Noire]

What the hell happened here? The poor guy was just asking for an honest opinion of how the game deals with stats which quite frankly, suck. Having a lottery in which the games decides what you get is borderline moronic. Especially with how much it costs without snails.

And having a main ability transfer is not a bad idea in the grand scheme of things. It lets people wear what they want without being persuaded to wear something they don't want for stat's sake, like the Jungle Hat. Also, Ninja Squid and Stealth Jump are not as broken as people make them out to be. You're an easier target to kill if someone finds you with Ninja Squid and Stealth Jump take an age and a half to actually jump to your location and you may die shortly anyway.

Yeah, you can savescum stats, but that shows how horrid the system is if you have to resort to cheating to get what you want.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I getcha. Sorry about that.

But I really have the opinion that being against such a system, just because you can no longer scout abilities in the intro-sequences, is extremely (nit)picky.
Like "Inky Corruption" said, it is a moot point. And I agree with him.

And frankly, I can't see that many people giving a damn about it, let alone actually paying attention to that and bothering to memorize what abilities each and every piece of gear has.
Other than a few exteme hardcore-gamers maybe, who don't want their precious advantages taken away from them, even if they make no difference really.
But I am starting to sound racist again. I am sorry.

It is just way too much trouble to get every gear and it's ability set down, for most people who only play for fun.
Like me.


But whatever the case, I only saw onw guy complaining about this issue so far.
So I guess it is not really relevant... for now...

 

[Magix]

I love customization, I've spent a major chunk of my time in WoW the last few years just working on transmog sets(which is customization of the gear appearance). That being said, when I read this question, my first thought was exactly what Vitezen has said here. Not a lot of people "scout" the opponents' abilities, but that's only because the game is relatively young and filled with casual players(which is not a bad thing). I haven't tried to memorize all gear in the game, but as I've worked on my own setups and just played a lot in general, I have come to remember a whole lot of gear, and I do use this knowledge to scout the opponents. It's extremely useful, because information is key. It's the same as learning what different weapons look like, which subs and specials they have and so on. The more you know about your opponents, the more you'll know about how they are likely to play and the less the chance of you being caught off guard. That's the key to victory. As the game gets older, more people will automatically do this just by being experienced. Nobody wants to have to get killed to find out what gear the opponent is wearing, anyone who can recognize items will have an advantage, and adding customization would deny them the reward of good scouting.

You said "feel free to discuss", but you've been nothing but dismissive of what Vitezen said just because it doesn't align with what you personally want. Vitezen's point is a very good one and wether or not one considers it an important part of the game, the facts of what he said are undeniable. By calling it silly, nitpicking and trolling, you're making yourself look really bad and narrow-minded.

As for the actual topic ... Obviously I agree with Vitezen on that full customization would not be a good idea, as it would remove one aspect of the game for players. But as I also said, I love customization, so I would love for more of it to be in the game. It's just not a good solution to take away something from the competitive side of the game because of it. In my opinion there are other, simpler solutions. For example, what if you could pick what gear you had for abilities, and what gear you had for appearance simultaneously, and in non-ranked modes you would have the appearance gear displayed? Or if in the options, you could choose wether to display customized gear on others or not?
And as for sub abilities, the lottery isn't really the best. I'd like to have the option to either reroll just one slot at a time for 30'000, or the option to pick one sub ability for 100'000. Something like that would be a huge improvement, and still quite expensive if one wants to do this to a lot of items.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I find it ironic that everyone tramples on me, yet nobody addressed "Inky Corruptions" post, which was the most detailed post on the Pro-side right now.

It getcha, you want to be able to "Psycho Mantis" your opponents, as perfect as you can.
And I can see that every bit of information helps.

But personally, I am against such a thing.
I mean what fun is a game, when you already know beforehand, what your opponent is gonna do?
That and it would only widen the skill-gap between players.
Which I also don't like. Well if it is too wide at least.
But I am starting to get side-tracked here.

My point is: You don't need to know what abilities your opponents have to win the game.
That and half of the abilities are invisible to you anyways, until you get splatted by said player.
Referring to Sub Abilities btw.

But I am pretty much repeating what "Inky Corruption" said.
So why not just addressing him directly?


EDIT:

You said "feel free to discuss", but you've been nothing but dismissive of what Vitezen said just because it doesn't align with what you personally want.

I am sour, because he came with the "proof-bat", as an attempt to discredit me.
Sorry, but I do get agitated, if someone pulls such a dirty stunt.

My Reflect-question was supposed to point out the adsurdity in that.
Being able to pinpoint just how many people care about "Ability Scouting/Mind Reading" and how many don't is IMPOSSIBLE!
Aka, it CAN'T BE PROVEN!

But given the game's casual nature, how many people do you think care about "Ability Scouting"?
If you ask me, not many!

 

[Captain Norris]

My point is: You don't need to know what abilities your opponents have to win the game.

I must disagree with this personally. Knowing opponents' abilities will allow you to know possible strategies each player may have. And you could know, for example, which opponents have ninja squid and be prepared.
Knowing abilities can save you from being splatted or allow you to splat someone. And splatting someone, such as the other team's best player, can in fact help you win the game immensely.
But that is all I will say about the topic, as the rest is just opinions being lashed at people from both sides. :)

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

Well fine then.
As long as you don't pull dirty discrediting-tricks, like the "Proof-Bat", I am fine with you.


I will stand by my point, that it is helpful, but unnecessary.
And also way too much trouble, than it is worth.
Memorizing everything I mean.

I do have a life.
And I have more important things to do in my life, than memorizing ability-sets for who-knows-how-many pieces of gear, put my gas mask on and try to read my opponent "like an open book".

 

[Captain Norris]

Well fine then.
As long as you don't pull dirty discrediting-tricks, like the "Proof-Bat", I am fine with you.


I will stand by my point, that it is helpful, but unnecessary.
And also way too much trouble, than it is worth.
Memorizing everything I mean.

I do have a life.
And I have more important things to do in my life, than memorizing ability-sets for who-knows-how-many pieces of gear, put my gas mask on and try to read my opponent "like an open book".

You memorize hundreds of pokemon and movesets in that meta. So in Splatoon it is relatively small :(

 

[Elecmaw]

If the game starts and shows me the enemy team for a second, i'm going to be looking at their weapons not their gear. Their weapons tell me a lot more about what my enemy team is capable of than someone having a hat with Ink Saver. I'll only be looking for shirts with CB if i use a weapon that has point sensors on it.
Even if i did look at their gear i still don't know what subs they'll have, additionally gear is completely hidden while inklings are in squid form.

 

[Yellowkirbyguy]

the game starts and shows me the enemy team for a second, i'm going to be looking at their weapons not their gear.

Pretty much this for me. Unless if the gear really stands out or it's the same one i'm using, i'm usually not on the look out of gear. But this talking from a not so competitive aspect.

So based on this recent discussion about knowing gear before a match starts (And i could be wrong, so feel free to correct me on somethings if it needs correcting). For those competitive players, knowing gear before a match starts is better sooner rather than later, you might see a popular Ninja squid clothing and know that you're going to be more weary of your surroundings and keep your guard up as that squid can swim and not make a trace in his own ink.

If we were able to change our main ability, then that popular Ninja squid clothing could now become cold blooded. Lets say a Squid from Team Ninja uses this clothing that was previously Ninja squid, but now Cold blooded.

Now for people (lets say hypothetically they're same skill level as the aforementioned squid) on the other team (Team Echo) saw this "Ninja squid" They would implement Ninja squid tactics and their Echolocator/point sensor user would try and use these Sub/special more frequently in order to flush out the Ninja squid (this is based on what i think the strategy would be for countering Ninja squid). But, since the main ability would have been changed, Team Echo would only be able to track this squid for two or so seconds and then the tracker would dissapear, now that could lead to some serious confusion for the Team Echo, the worst case being that this cold blooded user flanks the team entirely getting multiple surprise splats putting Team Echo at a disadvantage during the first minute of the match and Team Ninja could get the head start on them.

I know, the situation is hypothetical, it could or could not happen, but the fact remains that is has a chance to happen. You never know what could go wrong or right in the scheme of things so it's key to be as best prepared as possible in the competitive side of things.

The only way to prevent this confusion from happening is having some sort of indicator that the main ability has been changed. There would be a number of ways to do this, and really, Nintendo is able to do this. The "Sticker" idea is just one example of probably countless other ideas for Main ability indicators.

And that's just for main abilities, as it stands now, unless you get splatted by the entire enemy team, you wont know what the other team has for sub abilities Which is pretty important too i guess but i'll let someone else handle that.

Concluding on this, in my opinion i can assume that changing main abilities are going to be a bad thing UNLESS they also add an (noticeable) indicator of some sort indicating to everyone in the match that they have changed their main ability during the start of the match. Having said that, just because you might run certain abilities doesn't mean that you'll play to that specific style, some one could assume that because a squid runs at least Quick Super jump Main, that they'll be more likely to super jump out of a dire situation when really, the squid's only using it to get to the battlefield quicker

But casuals don't have to worry about any of this at all. If a change to main abilities were allowed, they'd pick what they like, Ninja squid "Oh yeah I'm a ninja now!" Run speed up "Sanic speed!" etc It'd just allow them to customise their ability on their favourite clothing. The only thing they have to remotely worry about, is the price of the Main ability. And the price itself could deter them from changing it in the first place.

So in a main ability aspect, Nintendo has the potential to add changeable Main abilities that would positively affects everyone equally. Granted that when changing the Main ability, an indicator of some sort appears for the competitive side. And the pro would out weigh the con with no real downsides apart from complaining about prices, grinding AND how the competitive side of Splatoon interferes with the"casual" aspect of the game. But there's ranked and turf war so that is pretty much already the separation that the game need.
Me personally i reckon if they made it so we could change main abilities, they should have Spyke suddenly become rich enough to have his own store selling main abilities and what not xD

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

You memorize hundreds of pokemon and movesets in that meta. So in Splatoon it is relatively small :(

I don't.
Memorizing hundreds of Pokemon and their movesets would be even harder on my brain.

If the game starts and shows me the enemy team for a second, i'm going to be looking at their weapons not their gear.

Signed

The Weapons are more obvious and far easier to recognize potential playstyles by.
But on top of that, looking at the gear as well, memorizing all the abilities they have and then predicting the future on how they are going to play and developing countermeasures against these playstyles you predicted....
Sorry, it would just make my head hurt. It is just too much for me.

I don't even care about this.
I am, y'know, just playing the freaking game.

 

[Captain Norris]

I don't.
Memorizing hundreds of Pokemon and their movesets would be even harder on my brain.


Signed

The Weapons are more obvious and far easier to recognize potential playstyles by.
But on top of that, looking at the gear as well, memorizing all the abilities they have and then predicting the future on how they are going to play and developing countermeasures against these playstyles you predicted....
Sorry, it would just make my head hurt. It is just too much for me.

I don't even care about this.
I am, y'know, just playing the freaking game.

oh when I said you I wasn't referring to you specifically. I meant you as in "people"

 

[Inky Corruption]

All right, I will attempt to adress the principles of scouting in more detail, specifically about where the abilties matter, in no particular order.

Spoiler: Worthwhile Information

Ninja Squid
This information is actually quite useful as it means you never know when that particular enemy is nearby. It invokes a more paranoid playstyle where you don't want to be too close to enemy ink in fear of a Ninja lying in wait.

Stealth Jump
This information is less useful with experienced players, but it's something to keep in mind. Personally, I take the time to glance at the skies in anticipation of incoming Stealth Jumpers after taking out an opponent, provided I'm not too busy with multiple battles, but in these cases the Stealth Jumper would get you regardless unless your sixth sense tells you they're coming.

Quick Respawn
Good to know, but probably not as important as Stealth Jump if not only because without the combo you only have to be wary near Beak-Ons and the enemy spawn, as they will come out of the woodworks, as it were, far quicker.

Bomb Range Up
Knowing how far the enemy can lob a bomb is very good information to have, as you could have a Burst Bomb cut your escape short or an unexpected Splat Bomb flung at you from incredible distances, giving the wielder a larger combat area.

Defence Up*
Probably more useful for Chargers than any other weapon class simply because they would need a longer charge to break through the extra defence if they've got Damage Ups to decrease charge time. With any other weapon you would simply keep firing until they drop.

Damage Up*
Watch out for these if the wearer wields a Charger. It bascially gives you a shorter timer between shots. Burst Bombs lobbers and Bomb Rushers may become scarier with this ability as well. Otherwise it generally doesn't matter unless you rock Defence Ups and the wearer is wielding a weapon that you would otherwise tank an extra shot against.

Ink Saver (Sub)
Burst Bombers who are dedicated to their lobbing may surprise you with an extra bomb, but if the wearer isn't wielding a weapon with a Burst Bomb sub this means absolutely nothing.

Opening Gambit
(Who runs this anyway?) They'll charge for middle / other hotspots on the map. Be prepared to see them there before you get there, but otherwise doesn't make a lick of difference.

Recon
(Again, who runs this?) The least useful on this list. If you're playing against competitive teams that you know use voice-comms, this may encourage you to play unpredictably to counter map scouting. Otherwise, completely useless information.

* These can give you a hint if you recognise them in a Main Slot piece of equipment, but otherwise may be hidden. Could be argued to be useless information.

Spoiler: Useless Information

Comeback
This ability means they'll be a little faster and have better ink efficiency and recovery for twenty seconds after revival, but doesn't make a difference on the battlefield as something you should watch out for.

Last Ditch Effort
Better ink efficiency and recovery. Big whoop. You're not going to pay attention to it.

Tenacity
They get a negligible amount of special charge as their team-mates die. You're not going to pay attention to it.

Cold-Blooded
Be entirely honest here, what does this change? You're still going to use your Echolocator when you see the entire enemy team is alive. At best maybe you won't spend as much time lobbing Point Sensors against this one player, if you run a weapon that has it as its sub.

Haunt
They're going to Point Sensor you when you kill them. It's going to happen. Not killing them would be senseless.

Bomb Sniffer
It makes them less likely to die to your Suction Bomb, but it shouldn't make you less likely to want to zone them with it.

Ink Resistance Up
Maybe they'll try walking through your ink for an ambush, but if you're at the stage where you're trying to memorise gear you should already be looking at your map.

Special Duration Up
Longer point sensors from Echolocator and overall longer active durability on Specials like the Bubbler, Kraken and Inkzooka may be worth keeping in mind, but if these are being used then you should already paying attention to them.

All other non-main exclusive Abilities
As far as I know, other than the ones I mentioned in the previous list there are no other abilities to look out for because they either don't make a difference you can't already see or there is no way to physically keep track of their effects.

Yes, I can see why you would want to pay attention to their gear, but consider the following. First of all, at the start of the match you're given only about a second to look at all four of your opponents. As has already been mentioned in this thread you're more likely to be looking at the weapons rather than the gear they're wearing. As I also mentioned earlier, they tend to speak for themselves. Otherwise, you've got fairly limited vision on their gear during battle unless they're using something that stands out in particular.

One thing that could circumvent the whole Main Ability swapping, should that ever become a thing, would be the aforementioned "stickers" idea. You see a sticker on the gear, now you know what the new ability is. Not that bad now, is it?

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I wanted to apologize if anything I wrote came off as offensive.
But like I said, if someone pulls the "Proof or your arguments are invalid" card, especially over something that cannot be proven, it does tick me off.
And tbh, it really felt like I was discussing with jerks, who got so defensive over a thing, that may or may not be dropped in favour of more ability-freedom, and thus wanted the other side to be in the wrong no matter what.

Just what it felt like to me at the time. Not saying it was actually that.


In any case, I'd still rather look at the weapons, than the gear.
Just one thing to watch out for, for each enemy player, instead of 4.
And I don't have to memorize tons of things.

I am not saying ability scouting is useless, but unnecessary IMO.
But that is a matter of personal taste.


Whichever side you are going for, one doesn't have to outrule the other.

 

[Misery]

I'm for any change, any change at all, that either A: removes the sea snails and the need for them, or B: produces a different way of earning them.

At this point, I dont even care what the change is. Just.... ANYTHING other than what it currently is.

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

Dump the triple subs in favor of 1 sub ability just as strong as a main. Theyre completely random, brand influence can stay. You either have to hunt the shops or order them off someone, 30% chance of getting the same ability. The system we have now is utter trash, all it does is give a long term use for the currency.

 

[Paragon-Yoshi]

I find it noteworthy, that the con-voices keep calling the concept of better Gear-customization "gamebreaking",
While completely avoiding some of the good points that have been raised, speaking for it.

Personally, I find it facepalm-worthy, if someone calls this gamebreaking, simply because you will no longer be able to scout out abilities, unless they splat you.
And even if Nintendo intended for ability-scouting to be a thing, there are ways to include this feature, without taking the scouting away.
Again, like the Sticker-idea.

Weapon loadouts I can get the idea of potential gamebreaking combos, if you had complete freedom to pick Subs and Specials you like.
But gear-abilities?
You can already get all the ability-combo's you want, as far as Main Abilities are concerned.
With the proposed feature in this thread, you would simply be able to move them to better looking gear to suit your tastes.

And as for subs... Well savescumming is already a thing.
So you can get all the Sub-Ability combos you want, if you have the proper patience.


So the ability to change Main Abilities and having better ways to customize your Sub Abilities, really wouldn't do anything, other than pleasing asthetic tastes, while having the abilities you want.
Gamebreaking, my butt! -_-

 

[Dolphoshi]

I'm Pro
for this as long as a the "special abilities" :)ability_haunt:) stay in the clothing class (ie you can't have on a hat, or on shoes) it would be great we would get to look FRESH! but i think that the current reroll system is great because it makes sure that you don't rely on your skill alone and makes it really hard to get a perfect set so you have to work around what non-perfect skills you have and try to use them to your advantage and balances it so you don't have the high level players with perfect slots and the lower character just screwed because they don't have the super sea snails/ money/ time to get it so it work, the current system makes it very hard for even high level players to get perfect gear, it is true that you won't get to figure out what kind of player everyone is but when you die they show you the gear and the main abilities/ sub abilities they have so I see no problem with that besides you can't tell what someones play style is depending on the clothes they have because they can ( and often do) change the style of their play mid fight so you have to be able to adapt to their adaption in order to win so prescouting does nothing because I get so many splats because people think i'm an idiot (e-liter with mains of ,,) so they die and realize i'm no idiot and adapt then I get splated then I adapt to the new statagy they use and the match goes on it's not who has the better set up it's who can adapt the best that will win
but I don't think there need to have a reason to destroy the item the skills came from just make it so you can only trade skills with the same clothing group and make it go both ways (example if a had | and you wanted to trade it with a | it would make it so the jungle hat has the mask skills and the mask has the jungle hat skills ) this way it is purely cos-medic and will give you no added benefit other then looking good in the outfit you want.
besides the amount of gain for the gear you actually get is not very large at all and won't help you if you get into a weapons ideal zone (your damage up won't help you if you get within my charger range nor will your defence up, nor will my ninja squid help me when i'm in front of a dynamo roller

 

[magfive]

CON - only because I want the devs to put out new gear with fresh ideas rather than opening up customization like this and shutting down new clothing, because why create more when the players can create whatever they want. I'd also like any new clothing items to have new ability combinations because we didn't need Punk Whites when we already had the Turquoise Kicks or the Orange Cardigan when we already had the Red Vector Tee. Hats and shoes are incredibly lacking, please give us some Rockenberg hats or some Squidforce shoes!