Should I save scum?

[DynamoCamostar34]

Ok, tried it on a few pieces of gear, I like it, but I'm not save scumming.

 

[Dual]

The system itself is flawed with how to reroll. I don't care that it takes 30 matches to get 1, just 1 sea snail. It's nice and the turf war bonus is much appreciated but that's at least 90 minutes of grinding for 2 rerolls, and that's assuming you win all your matches. Yes there's ranked but once you reach S or S+ rank, you don't play for money. To cheat with gear at this point when you're so far, and I mean I've been playing this for over a year so either way is satisfying to me, is fine. I've put in the work. I've tried. So why should I use it on Spyke and his stupid rerolls when, in this point of a game, I deserve more. And this goes for everybody in my shoes, which I'm assuming is a lot. There is no reason at all for you to save scum with Splathax, which is much safer and faster so you shouldn't be doing that. The meta has evelved pass that. As for doing it for rank, no. I worked hard for that rank, and if you cheat, you don't deserve it. Now, I have a little pass for this, and that's if you're S or S+ in squads and you don't want to get screwed over by bad connection because believe me that idea has crossed my mind more than once. @Captain Woomy what you said makes sense, it feels good getting the rolls, but again it is RANDOM. I could get a triple strength up as a B, and at the same time there's the RANDOM possibility that waste all my money only to get nothing as an S. There's no skill, just luck that's worse than Mario Party.

 

[mercenariez]

I find if you don't save scum you look at people's gear more in the plaza, and you might be more inclined to order different sets, which helps you remember what clothes do what and what players are using. This is useful in ranked since you can gather information based on what an opponent is wearing.

I eventually gear edited and now I find I don't pay as much attention to this stuff anymore since I've gotten so complacent with what I own.

Downside to not gear editing though is you can't get those perfect sets very easily, which can definitely be a disadvantage in the short run until you get them.

Finally, I find a major part of what makes the game fun gets removed when you gear edit. Cheating to win is never as satisfying to me personally.

 

[swamphox]

When you cheat at something you do for fun all you do is turn the fun into work.

 

[SmokyWreck]

In all honesty, why do you want to save-scum ?

Is it because you want to have perfects gears like everyone ? Because you are low on money and sea snail ?


Because personally, i don't see the point in perfect gear nor save-scumming. It's also not rare to see amazing splatoon player with gears that aren't perfect for the simple reason that; Each subs they have, even if not a perfect 3, aid them in their play-style. It's more common to see a lot of power up on snipers and swim speed up on quick kill weapon like rollers..

So it's up to you. If you feel like save scumming is beneficial or not. I personally don't because i can't. I'm lacking a DS card and i have no clue how to use hax, so all my perfect gears are legit.. But gosh i find it useless //chuckles/

 

[Dual]

When you cheat at something you do for fun all you do is turn the fun into work.

Let's be real here. Is it fun to get a perfect roll on S when you know you can on B+? Whether you do or don't is completely random, and while yes it is nice for me personally it's nice to get good gear either way.

In all honesty, why do you want to save-scum ?

Is it because you want to have perfects gears like everyone ? Because you are low on money and sea snail ?


Because personally, i don't see the point in perfect gear nor save-scumming. It's also not rare to see amazing splatoon player with gears that aren't perfect for the simple reason that; Each subs they have, even if not a perfect 3, aid them in their play-style. It's more common to see a lot of power up on snipers and swim speed up on quick kill weapon like rollers..

So it's up to you. If you feel like save scumming is beneficial or not. I personally don't because i can't. I'm lacking a DS card and i have no clue how to use hax, so all my perfect gears are legit.. But gosh i find it useless //chuckles/

So are mine (I'm still trying to figure out Splathax) but for me at least, I've gotten to the point where I know what I want in my gear set up. If I don't want a perfect, I won't try to get a perfect.

 

[SmokyWreck]

So are mine (I'm still trying to figure out Splathax) but for me at least, I've gotten to the point where I know what I want in my gear set up. If I don't want a perfect, I won't try to get a perfect.

Eeeh-- I personally don't seek anything in my gears, i just want to have gears i actually like the look of.. Plus, it's pointless to have perfect gears if the person is going to rely on them... Gears serve as a way to boost the player's play style, having perfect gears that you rely on will make it so you won't play as well without them.. For exemple, someone that rely too much of ink saver main might have a hard time returning to a set of gears that doesn't have ink saver main.. I know i used to rely on my gears and it took time to get over this(I didn,t even realise i was relying on them).. But hey-- Who am i to speak :'>

 

[swamphox]

Let's be real here. Is it fun to get a perfect roll on S when you know you can on B+? Whether you do or don't is completely random, and while yes it is nice for me personally it's nice to get good gear either way.

So are mine (I'm still trying to figure out Splathax) but for me at least, I've gotten to the point where I know what I want in my gear set up. If I don't want a perfect, I won't try to get a perfect.

Thats what sea snails and 30k cash money are for...

 

[Heart of Ice]

My thoughts on save scumming is it's perfectly legitimate means of getting gear. If you're seriously patient enough to sit through that monotony than I suppose you've earned that gear. As for Splathax I do consider that cheating as that allows you to get ability combinations that were probably never intended to be easily possible. However I do consider Splathax to be a legal but not legitimate hack since it's still stuff that can exist in the game, even if the odds are astronomical. Keep in mind that legal and legitimate mean different things. Legal means it can be obtained in the game, but it was obtained through other methods. Legitimate means that it can and is obtained through in-game means. But truth be told I'm really not that mad at players who use Splathax, because the abilities in this game are hardly game changers and if you're more skilled than your opponent you'll probably still win. The only time I'd be mad at a hacker is if they used an illegal hack like making an E-liter instantly charge, have infinite range, and the ability to shoot clean through walls or other obstacles. Because that is bullsh*t!

 

[Lyn]

I'm out of the loop. What is 'scumming'?

 

[Ulk]

I have a very strong opinion about save scumming. Save scumming is without a doubt a form cheating. This is in no way debatable. You gain an unfair and unintended advantage against other players.

However, I have an even stronger opinion about the gear ability system. I'm more than just critical towards it. The reason is not just that it's entirely luck-based, but also that it forces you to choose between style and stats. The simple reason for that is that only the exact gear that favors your desired ability and possesses your desired main ability has realistic chances of turning out as you want it to without having to resort to save-scumming.

To visualize this:


The odds of getting the abilities you want for a gear that favors the ability you want is 2.78% per roll. So for 100 attempts, which equals 100 snails or 3.000.000 coins, you have the very good chance of 94.052% to succeed.

The odds of getting the abilities you want for a gear that does not favor/disfavor any ability is 0.0455% per roll. So for 100 attempts you have a chance of 4.45% to succeed.

The odds of getting the abilities you want for a gear that neither favors nor disfavors the ability you want is 0.0223% per roll. So for 100 attempts you have a chance of 2.2% to succeed

The odds of getting the abilities you want for a gear that disfavors the ability you want is 0.000028% per roll. So for 100 attempts you have a chance of 0.28% to succeed.

Thinking about how time-consuming it is to gather this amount of money for odds this terrible (even if we provide that we could win all our matches with 100% certainty), and also considering that even IF you don't care for style, the combination of main- and favored sub-ability you need may not be existent, this is simply insane.

So in conclusion, I believe save scumming to be a definite way of cheating. However, I also believe the system to be absolutely ridiculous, and bypassing it with methods like these is therefore absolutely excusable in my eyes. I myself am a save scummer and although I do believe in experiencing a game as it should be experienced, I don't feel bad about cheating to bypass this system.

However, this does not go for save scumming your rank. Save scumming to reach a higher rank is in my eyes not excusable, as, unlike gear abilities, pure skill, training and talent can get you ahead. You won't be having to rely on luck.

 

[shani]

I have a very strong opinion about save scumming. Save scumming is without a doubt a form cheating. This is in no way debatable. You gain an unfair and unintended advantage against other players.

How do you gain an unfair and unintended advantage against other players? Both claims are wrong.

Unfair: You can't achieve anything that other players can't (the same goes for Splathax). You can't achieve anything that you couldn't (theoretically) reach by wasting (more of) your time on rerolling and getting money and snails. The only 'advantage' I see here is that you possibly spend less time on getting your desired gear than others. Then again, since it's all luck-based, others might actually get their gear faster than you by sheer luck, without savescumming or splathacking.
Unintended: It's obviously intended that way. Otherwise Nintendo would've prevented it. It would've been pretty easy to store your rank, level, gear, weapons, money and snails online on a server. Just a few bits and bytes. But no, instead Nintendo chose to store those things locally. That tells me that they wanted it to be like this.

But as you already mentioned, the real problem lies in the gear system of Splatoon. If it was more controllable/adjustable, we wouldn't even be discussing save scumming or splathacking. I only started trying these things after putting 500+ hours into this game, after giving it so much effort and amassing so many snails and so much money to do some proper rerolls. In the end, I spent everything and still didn't get the desired gear. So that frustration led me to trying out other methods in the first place.
As I mentioned above: the developers obviously want this. They are aware of this. They could've changed or prevented it. But they didn't. Essentially that means it's not cheating, it's a feature.

Of course, I only mean gear-save-scumming, not rank-save-scumming.

 

[Ulk]

How do you gain an unfair and unintended advantage against other players? Both claims are wrong.

Unfair: You can't achieve anything that other players can't (the same goes for Splathax). You can't achieve anything that you couldn't (theoretically) reach by wasting (more of) your time on rerolling and getting money and snails. The only 'advantage' I see here is that you possibly spend less time on getting your desired gear than others. Then again, since it's all luck-based, others might actually get their gear faster than you by sheer luck, without savescumming or splathacking.
Unintended: It's obviously intended that way. Otherwise Nintendo would've prevented it. It would've been pretty easy to store your rank, level, gear, weapons, money and snails online on a server. Just a few bits and bytes. But no, instead Nintendo chose to store those things locally. That tells me that they wanted it to be like this.

Sorry, I can't agree in any possible way with that.

We can say the same about doping. "You can't achieve anything that other participants can't. You can't achieve anything that you couldn't theoretically reach by wasting (more of) your time training. The only 'advantage' is that you possibly spend less time on getting to your desired performance.".
It's nonetheless unfair and cheating no matter how you look at it. You also can't separate rank and gear scumming. They use the exact same process. So if Nintendo intended for users to gear scum, they also intended for users to rank scum.

Nintendo most certainly did not want it to be like this either. The ranking system for example is clearly designed to drop and raise players who lose or win, with the only way to get up or drop down being either winning or losing matches. If they intended for people to simply save scum, why would they bother creating these systems? Why would they bother reducing points when you lose if they intend for you to undo this process with save scumming? Why would put a price on how often you can do a reroll if they intend for you to save scum in order to get unlimited rolls? The game is definitely not designed so people save scum. It's a clear exploit.

 

[Elecmaw]

OP wasn't here since 5 Nov and probably won't be coming back. I think you're all wasting your breath.

 

[shani]

We can say the same about doping. "You can't achieve anything that other participants can't. You can't achieve anything that you couldn't theoretically reach by wasting (more of) your time training. The only 'advantage' is that you possibly spend less time on getting to your desired performance.".

That analogy doesn't work at all! You can't achieve the same advantage by training that you get with doping. If we're talking about professional athletes, they most definitely will train as much as anyone else but will use doping on top of that. In a way, doping gives them 'superhuman' abilities (more strength, speed, endurance etc) that they couldn't achieve just by training more. That's not how it works.
So no, we absolute cannot say the same about doping.
Besides, you left out two key differences: Doping is forbidden. Savescumming is not. Doping damages your body, savescumming does not.

Nintendo most certainly did not want it to be like this either. The ranking system for example is clearly designed to drop and raise players who lose or win, with the only way to get up or drop down being either winning or losing matches. If they intended for people to simply save scum, why would they bother creating these systems? Why would they bother reducing points when you lose if they intend for you to undo this process with save scumming? Why would put a price on how often you can do a reroll if they intend for you to save scum in order to get unlimited rolls? The game is definitely not designed so people save scum. It's a clear exploit.

Nope. If the developers regarded it as an exploit, they would've already done something against it. Like they have with Octolings and other methods of hacking. If you do those things (at least in the wrong places), you will get banned. So the devs are obviously okay with save-scumming, but not okay with hacking. Otherwise they would've done something about it. Because it's actually very easy to prevent save-scumming, as I explained in my previous post.
And what does the rank and gear system have to do with it? It doesn't matter how they designed it or what their (well-reasoned) thoughts behind those systems were. Because - and that's the only thing that matters - they designed the save system - where and how your rank, gear etc is stored - in a way that allows savescumming with no penalty at all.
A non-action still counts as an action. Just like non-communication is a form of communication or like zero is still a number. If you let somebody die right in front of you (when you actually had the chance to save that person), their death is (at the very least partly) your fault. In the same way, if you don't prevent save-scumming although you could've, you condone it.

So if Nintendo intended for users to gear scum, they also intended for users to rank scum.

That's exactly the case.

But to answer your question If they intended for people to simply save scum, why would they bother creating these systems?
My assumption is: Probably because they wanted a working in-game-system for most people, but also to reward (or not penalize) save-scummers. Because save-scummintg takes an awful lot of time and it's no fun. It's actually a very annoying and ineffective process. So anyone who does it, must be really desperate and has to endure it. Just like my history teacher in school once said "If someone successfully cheats during an exam without anyone noticing it, it's an accomplishment by itself and they've earned their reward for achieving it", the Splatoon developers probably thought "If anyone goes through the trouble of savescumming, they deserve to achieve their goal".

Just to be clear: I'm not a friend of cheating in general and I've never cheated in any online game but definitely have suffered from playing against cheaters online (Pro Evolution Soccer, for example). I also think there should be a clear distinction between real cheating - where you get an otherwise unachievable advantage like godmode, aimbots etc - and just using the 'tools' or rather 'opportunities' the developers gave you. As long as you don't break the rules or break the game - and rerolling through savescumming definitely doesn't break any of those - it's not cheating.
And btw: Splatoon had it's own fair share of really unfair cheating (I don't mean octolings, but auto-kill, superspeed etc) and luckily, they eradicated those from the game.

Not to mention, the classic method of cheating - entering cheat codes or gamepad inputs - in video games is actually intended by the developers. These cheat codes are used by the developers for developing reasons. After finishing the game, some of them leave the codes in the game and others don't. Gamepad inputs like the konami code on the other hand are just for fun and also intentionally implemented by the developers.
Two examples for these - and the only two I remember ever doing:
1. controller inputs (konami code) in the start screen of ISS64 which gave you big heads (just cosmetic, they had no impact on gameplay) or unlocked Europe and World Allstar Teams that weren't unlockable by merely playing the game (remember, 'achievements' didn't exist back then)
2. Cheat codes for GTA IV that you could just enter into the characters mobile phone. I sometimes used them to spawn a specific vehicle or refill ammo, but never in missions, only when I was screwing around in the open world - mostly when I was playing together with friends (offline!). We actually invented our own two-player-mode: One player would drive the car with the keyboard and other one would activate (pre-entered) cheatcodes from the phone with the mouse. So the mouse-controlling player let vehicles spontaneously spawn right in front of them and the keyboard-controlling player had to evade those cars that came out of nowwhere. Man that was fun!

OP wasn't here since 5 Nov and probably won't be coming back. I think you're all wasting your breath.

I don't care about the OP and I don't even know who started this thread. It's a thread, not a monologue - I don't have to adress the OP. I just like to discuss stuff. :)

 

[Elecmaw]

Well I've elaborated on this topic before, but hey doesn't hurt to tell twice or something.

The reason people gear scum is because Spyke is easily the worst aspect of the entire game, to the point people are willing to cheat past that money-swindling *******. Not being able to customize your gear to your choosing is bad enough, but having such incredibly bad odds to get the exact loadout you want(and I'm not even talking about pures or anything) that it's nigh impossible to get your dream loadout for even one single weapon. It's so poorly done it might aswell never have existed.
I really, really hope it gets taken out of Splatoon 2 and replaced with something else because it's a clunky, badly-designed unfun system that makes absolutely no sense.

A lot of people are arguing that it's cheating, and in a sense it is. But it's not something to worth getting fuzzed over when the other option is to deal with Spyke himself, and in reality a perfect set of gear won't matter too much compared to a slightly imperfect set of gear. But it's nonetheless still really dumb that you can't just pick what you want and be done with it.

It's even more mind-boggling that a game that has fashion as one of it's focus points wouldn't focus on making Spyke hand out unique cosmetic items instead, and make that the primary motivation for people to grind snails. That way people can tinker with their skills to their own design but still get motivated to grind for those unique cosmetics.
It's something this game could've easily taken from other MOBA games with it's crates and random loot, but it didn't.

 

[shani]

Not being able to customize your gear to your choosing is bad enough, but having such incredibly bad odds to get the exact loadout you want(and I'm not even talking about pures or anything) that it's nigh impossible to get your dream loadout for even one single weapon. It's so poorly done it might aswell never have existed.

That's exactly the point and the only reason why save-scumming or splathacking is even a topic. There's nothing more frustrating in Splatoon than the gear system, because it doesn't reward you for the effort or time you put into the game, it just randomly hands out crappy gear that you don't need and have spent tons of money and snails on. If you could at least exactly modify slots for money or if there was a trading system (or if you could own more than one of any gear piece), it would soften the blow, but it would still be a crappy gear system.
It angered me more than any loss of rank or unnecessarily lost matches up to the point where I temporarily lost any interest in the game, because it was so frustrating that you can't get what you want (without savescumming or splathacking), no matter how much time you invest into this game.
And not only that. If you don't keep a backup of your savegame - something I started way earlier because I read of people losing their savegames due to faulty USB drives and then, many months later (before I even knew the term 'save scum' existed), I discovered by myself that you could save scum - every reroll potentially destroys your whole gear setup.
Because if you had a decent set of gear, but wanted to improve it because you needed an additional skill (by filling the 'right' three subslots that were previously occupied by useless skills), the chance that you screwed up your setup was way higher than the chance of success. That actually prevents people from rerolling at all, out of fear of losing a halfway decent setup and getting some completely useless **** instead. That's really not how it should be.

 

[Ulk]

Spoiler

That analogy doesn't work at all! You can't achieve the same advantage by training that you get with doping. If we're talking about professional athletes, they most definitely will train as much as anyone else but will use doping on top of that. In a way, doping gives them 'superhuman' abilities (more strength, speed, endurance etc) that they couldn't achieve just by training more. That's not how it works.
So no, we absolute cannot say the same about doping.
Besides, you left out two key differences: Doping is forbidden. Savescumming is not. Doping damages your body, savescumming does not.

Nope. If the developers regarded it as an exploit, they would've already done something against it. Like they have with Octolings and other methods of hacking. If you do those things (at least in the wrong places), you will get banned. So the devs are obviously okay with save-scumming, but not okay with hacking. Otherwise they would've done something about it. Because it's actually very easy to prevent save-scumming, as I explained in my previous post.
And what does the rank and gear system have to do with it? It doesn't matter how they designed it or what their (well-reasoned) thoughts behind those systems were. Because - and that's the only thing that matters - they designed the save system - where and how your rank, gear etc is stored - in a way that allows savescumming with no penalty at all.
A non-action still counts as an action. Just like non-communication is a form of communication or like zero is still a number. If you let somebody die right in front of you (when you actually had the chance to save that person), their death is (at the very least partly) your fault. In the same way, if you don't prevent save-scumming although you could've, you condone it.
That's exactly the case.

But to answer your question If they intended for people to simply save scum, why would they bother creating these systems?
My assumption is: Probably because they wanted a working in-game-system for most people, but also to reward (or not penalize) save-scummers. Because save-scummintg takes an awful lot of time and it's no fun. It's actually a very annoying and ineffective process. So anyone who does it, must be really desperate and has to endure it. Just like my history teacher in school once said "If someone successfully cheats during an exam without anyone noticing it, it's an accomplishment by itself and they've earned their reward for achieving it", the Splatoon developers probably thought "If anyone goes through the trouble of savescumming, they deserve to achieve their goal".

Just to be clear: I'm not a friend of cheating in general and I've never cheated in any online game but definitely have suffered from playing against cheaters online (Pro Evolution Soccer, for example). I also think there should be a clear distinction between real cheating - where you get an otherwise unachievable advantage like godmode, aimbots etc - and just using the 'tools' or rather 'opportunities' the developers gave you. As long as you don't break the rules or break the game - and rerolling through savescumming definitely doesn't break any of those - it's not cheating.
And btw: Splatoon had it's own fair share of really unfair cheating (I don't mean octolings, but auto-kill, superspeed etc) and luckily, they eradicated those from the game.

Not to mention, the classic method of cheating - entering cheat codes or gamepad inputs - in video games is actually intended by the developers. These cheat codes are used by the developers for developing reasons. After finishing the game, some of them leave the codes in the game and others don't. Gamepad inputs like the konami code on the other hand are just for fun and also intentionally implemented by the developers.
Two examples for these - and the only two I remember ever doing:
1. controller inputs (konami code) in the start screen of ISS64 which gave you big heads (just cosmetic, they had no impact on gameplay) or unlocked Europe and World Allstar Teams that weren't unlockable by merely playing the game (remember, 'achievements' didn't exist back then)
2. Cheat codes for GTA IV that you could just enter into the characters mobile phone. I sometimes used them to spawn a specific vehicle or refill ammo, but never in missions, only when I was screwing around in the open world - mostly when I was playing together with friends (offline!). We actually invented our own two-player-mode: One player would drive the car with the keyboard and other one would activate (pre-entered) cheatcodes from the phone with the mouse. So the mouse-controlling player let vehicles spontaneously spawn right in front of them and the keyboard-controlling player had to evade those cars that came out of nowwhere. Man that was fun!

I don't care about the OP and I don't even know who started this thread. It's a thread, not a monologue - I don't have to adress the OP. I just like to discuss stuff. :)

You can very well achieve the same advantage. We're not talking about training and doping at the same time. Only that would not be an unfitting analogy. That would be stacking two advantages on top of each other, one being fair, the other not. Nothing is fair about save scumming, and save scummers do not boost any advantages through save scumming, which isn't even a possibility. Either you re-use your money for gear rolls with save scumming, or you spend it without save scumming. You can't do both and gain a double advantage. So the correct comparison would be achieving a viable performance through doping alone. We can basically make that example with any form of cheating. Cheating during a test for example. We could have learned, but we chose to google the answers during the test. Others could have also received a 100% score with learning after all Same logic.

Doping is also not considered cheating for damaging your body. That makes some substances illegal to use, which is substance abuse and is an entirely different field. It is for example not considered cheating if you abuse substances that do in no way influence your performance during sports. That's not the reason doping is forbidden. Also don't mistake "not forbidden" with "not addressed". Nintendo cannot monitor our hardware. The entire process of save scumming is an unmonitored and offline process that cannot come with consequences due to not being traceable. That does not mean it's not cheating or forbidden. It only means it's not detectable. Miiverse for example, which isn't the best example but the only official instance of Nintendo we have, clearly views methods such as save scumming as cheating and forbid sharing information about it.

Again, save scumming is an untracable process. They do not punish save scumming because save scumming is not verifiable. That in no way indicates they are fine with it. During things such as Octoling skins, you are using corrupted data as you interact with other players. In the process of save scumming you corrupt your data but regularly interact with other players. They are not responsible for this exploit either and cannot simply fix it. They cannot simply patch out a flaw like that. It is deeply connected to the Wii U hardware, not only to the game itself.

I can practically guarantee you that is not how they think in the slightest. There is a way they intended for this game to be played. If they were convinced something was wrong about their system, they wouldn't approve of exploits, they would address the problems of the system.

Any form of cheating is "real cheating". Cheating is cheating. Save scumming is cheating. We can view certain forms of cheating as justified, for example as I personally think save scumming is justified, but we cannot argue that it's cheating or try to give it a different label.

The difference between cheats like that of GTA and clear exploits like save scumming is really simple: Cheat codes were intentionally implemented into the game for people to use. The developers specifically intended for this to be a used method. in case of Splatoon we are abusing an exploit they most certainly did not intend for being used.

 

[shani]

Again, save scumming is an untracable process. They do not punish save scumming because save scumming is not verifiable. That in no way indicates they are fine with it.

This may all be true, but you're still ignoring one important thing: Nobody forced them to store the rank, gear, money, snails and weapons in the save file. They could've just stored it online (like Mario Maker stores your levels and stars online). But the made a deliberate decision to store those things offline. That's enough for me to say: it's intended that way (for whatever reasons). It didn't happen by accident, it happened because the developers chose to do it this way. So they accepted the consequences.