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Splatoon 1 and 2 skill ceiling compared to other shooters

Drew Sebastino

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Espozo
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Splatoon is probably an anomaly for me when you look at the rest of the video games I'm into. My favorite shooters other than Splatoon are Doom I and II (never played Doom 2016; I'm still holding out for a better computer) and the original Quake (Quake III looks great, but I've just never played it). I liked Halo 1-3, but playing them again, the games are a lot more shallow than I remember, with intense aim assist even for a console shooter and relatively slow movement.

I could never get into Call of Duty; slow movement even when running, slow as hell when using sights (which you have to do to hit something; otherwise the accuracy of the gun is zero) garbage health, and the ability to shoot through most anything, all of which ultimately makes the game very slow paced and tedious, because everyone is afraid to approach anyone else (camping). Ironically, I liked the newer futuristic Call of Duty games more for increasing your mobility and giving you more health, but as Call of Duty fans have vocalized all over the internet, that's clearly not what they want.

Ironically, a lot of the things I dislike about Call of Duty are prevalent in Splatoon, like piss-poor health and slow movement. However, I actually like Splatoon (obviously). I think a lot of this has to do with it being the first original shooter since 2008 and the likeable character designs, but I think I've always been intrigued by the teamwork aspect even if I have never fully experienced it (lack of communication). Positioning (I think) has greater emphasis than actual shooting ability, like in Call of Duty, but here, teammates can potentially tell you where others are due to the fact that maps are much smaller and there are only four players on the other team. Additionally, making impassible areas for the other team with ink and the fact that none of the matches are solely based on the number of kills makes camping a much less viable strategy.

What do you people think? I really found it interesting how Nintendo has been marketing Splatoon 2 as a competitive game, even if it is solely for marketing (as they're not going to help any competitive scene because they're too stingy to donate to the prize pot...). I'm not actually going to try and compare Splatoon to other shooters because I don't think it would be fair with me never playing with zero lag and teammates I can communicate with.
 

Либра

「Pavor Nocturnus」
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Disclaimer: This post is purely subjective and can sound very...questionable for someone who has been grinding all kinds of FPS over the past ten years. I have always been more casual than competitive in my mindset and as such have completely different perception.

As I have not played many FPS/TPS games on console except for maybe Gears of War I can't really compare Splatoon to other console shooters. Heck, even after having played Splatoon 1 and Overwatch (when I was younger, plenty of CoD, CS 1.6 etc) a lot I can't compare those games at all and don't want to. I just don't think that the skills needed to play both really translate that well - gyroscopic aim or not. When playing "normal" shooters there may be modes which have different objectives, the basic gameplay essentially stays the same: Shoot or get shot. But first of all, I'll say what skills might translate to Splatoon and maybe vise-versa:
  • Positioning
  • Observational Skills (being easier to track / notice movements)
  • Teamplay
  • Having a general understanding of what different weapons can do in general
  • Navigational Skills (through being able to learn maps faster after a while)

Now, what would you still have to learn when diving into Splatoon?
  • dat ink
Kind of hard for me to put this into words but... the ink and swim mechanics Splatoon provides is something I haven't seen in other shooters and might be what makes the game special in this regard. You have to take many more things in consideration which go beyond the general shooter tactics. In turf, picking the correct weapon and kit that not only works with your playstyle but also is superior on certain maps and for ink coverage is essential. Knowing your roles, the range of all those weapons and being able to pin-point (original word got hit by the word censor, whoops?!) on how much damage they deal becomes crucial. And in ranked, some things you learn in turf don't translate entirely into ranked. I could go on and on but at the end of the day, even though I had enough experience with FPS and TPS it took me a while to actually get better in Splatoon.

Now, for the skill ceiling... if we went by game design I would say that the skill ceiling seems lower than with your average FPS game, as the hitboxes and hit-registration can be very forgiving. One full-charged bodyshot with a charger? Certain splat. One (full-charged) bodyshot in any other FPS? Lolnope. But then there's "lag" that comes into play which makes you reconsider many things under certain circumstances which brings me to my final answer: It's technically a lower skill ceiling but then I see some VODs of Japanese people and find out that the sky is the limit, haha. I really can't compare it to traditional shooters at all and I certainly hope that Nintendo stops pushing Splatoon 2 as a competitive game while it's still heavily reliant on p2p networking instead of dedicated servers.

Libra out. o7

Edit: Typos
 
Last edited:

Drew Sebastino

Inkling Cadet
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Espozo
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That last bit times infinity. I agree that p2p really hampers this game's competitive potential; who wins up-close encounters often ends up being a dice roll. A large part of why I believe your movement is as slow as it is, is because of lag and how you would seemingly be teleporting otherwise. This is one big mistake I think they made with the Dualies, for both people using it, and others fighting people using it. I have had people teleport all around instead of roll, and I have been splatted after I have rolled behind cover. Unfortunately though, I don't see Nintendo using dedicated servers. They're pretty cheap when it comes to this stuff.
 

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