Splatoon 2: Find Out What's Fresh! (General Discussion)

[Spaceswitchmars]

I have a lot of respect for you guys, but saying that someone is unsympathetic is a little out there,

Iunderstand the situation since 3 weapons I love the l-3 nozxlehose D, the neo splash o'matic, and the new squiffer aren't out yet, but we don't want to let the salt brew toxicity.

Honestly as @MINKUKEL brought out the competitie team is only 1 side of splatoon there is a casual side, and throwing all these weapons at
someone who is new to a game is overwelhming.

By spacing them out it gives players a chance to work on learning a new weapon, and swing how it works with their style.
It also give us in comp. scene a chance to see how much it has changed and what this tool works well with before we actually have a chance to use it.

So two things here:

1. I sympathy and empathy are two different things. I don't expect anyone to have sympathy for those of us annoyed by the rate of weapon releases, but willfully ignoring the reasons we're annoyed shows a lack of empathy. Maybe that's semantics, but here we are at this point in this incredibly stupid fight.

2. That overwhelming factor would be a good point... except what about people who pick up the game one month in? They have more weapons. Should they be allowed to use the post-launch-released weapons? How about four months in? A year in? More people will probably get the game from Christmas onward than any time before that. If having so many weapons is too overwhelming for beginners, what about all those beginners who get the game in December or later?

The fact is, "too many weapons" is a temporary excuse because, eventually, new players will face that too many weapons issue.

So we're made to suffer so the game isn't overwhelming for a very very small percentage of the new-to-Splatoon player base. It hurts us now and it helps almost nobody. That's not to say that a bunch of weapons isn't overwhelming to new players. It's just that most users are going to have to face a bunch of new weapons anyway, so why hold back?

 

[MINKUKEL]

I think you really underestimate how much of a selling point the frequent updates for this game is for the average player. Ending up with a whole bunch of weapons down the line or having them all at the beginning isn't the same for some, as stupid as that might sound to you.
I agree that Nintendo isn't doing this in the best way possible, with them alternating a bunch of new weapons and then a bunch of second versions. But that's Nintendo for ya.

I completely understand and emphatize with people who get annoyed by this, I'm just trying to point out another side to this.

 

[Reila]

Personally, I don't mind the so-called slow updates. I don't mind old weapons being released slowly. It is a good thing to keep new players interested and it also makes things less stale for older players. And I speak as someone who played the original Splatoon from day one.

There are plenty of weapons in the game already. If anything, the poor gear variety is far more bothersome.

 

[Spaceswitchmars]

I think you really underestimate how much of a selling point the frequent updates for this game is for the average player. Ending up with a whole bunch of weapons down the line or having them all at the beginning isn't the same for some, as stupid as that might sound to you.
I agree that Nintendo isn't doing this in the best way possible, with them alternating a bunch of new weapons and then a bunch of second versions. But that's Nintendo for ya.

I completely understand and emphatize with people who get annoyed by this, I'm just trying to point out another side to this.

It IS a big selling point, and I won't argue against that, but there are other ways to do it outside of how they're doing it now. Releasing the vanilla variants of all S1 weapons and then slow releasing the rest (including never before seen S2 weapons) would work just as well. They'd have to make the releases every two weeks instead of every week, but I highly doubt that would take away from the excitement. If anything, that could make it feel more special.

They also could give us more gear (sorely lacking), and use that to give us a release every week. Swapping between new weapon one week and new gear the next week would have done the trick just as easily without alienating veteran players. If anything, I'd find this more exciting because the gear game at this point is weirdly stark.

But like you said, this is Nintendo for ya. They do amazing innovation and flawless base gameplay, and then the make weird decisions elsewhere. It is what it is, but I think a lot of us are getting impatient. We need an S2 equivalent of S1's October update.

(Also we need a new ranked mode pronto. I'd give up a month's worth of new weapon releases for THAT.)

 

[Award]

@Award
I defend the inkmine cause I was a big miner back in vanilla Splatoon
It was a little hipster but I spent a whole lot of time figuring out different technique to use it and got to the point where I was going 18 splat with around 1/2 being splat from mines.

Then it got one of the most shameless nerf to a sub weapon that wasn't great to begin with which really stings to me and I am hopeful will be buffed (though I think octolings might come before that happens)

@Dessgeega The main way inkmine are use now does require turf control and it works really well when you can gain that control (which is why they put it on these weapons) though that is the big problem with mines it can fall apart the moment they gain an inch of ground.

I am curious if you can cancel the swing of the inkbrush into a mine to do a faux burst cancel attack

You know, I used it. I had fun with it. I actually did well with it. I was usually the TW lobby kill leader, and I developed a rivalry in tw with another excellent (vanilla) inkbrush, and we booyah'd when we were on the same team. Oddly they destroyed me often from the other team, but I usually outperformed when we were on the same team....weird. The trap and attack style is fun.

However the weapon is still useless for any real play.... any weapon that becomes unusable when the tide turns, which is when it's most needed to shine, is just really awful. It's like Opening Gambit given physical form as a main :P

But it's a fun to play amusing diversion as a gimmick :)

I also learned not to try playing chargers the night a new inkbrush is released..... :P

I kinda said that as a joke because, let's face it, it's a meme weapon at that point, but I unironically like the thing

Spoiler: image

It's a really good weapon, meme or no! Not a kill leader but it can really play well toward the objective. Crazy high skill floor to make it really useful but once you get going with it it's very solid. The kit really makes it, though. The second version is just going to be so meh compared to the OG.

Goolloom is the only person I trust to actually use that thing. The only one. Yes, that discounts Dude, who uses it like a lethargic squiffer :p

LOL, you know I never really got into the whole "watch Dude's video!" thing, but on the rare occasion I do watch one of his videos I find them oddly serene, like watching Bob Ross paint, or watching Norm Abrams build ridiculously esoteric furniture using the 30,000psi 30x30 seam fitter he just so happens to have laying around the garage..... it's scary how he can be so good while being so calm and aloof. I can totally picture the lethargic squiffer thing :P

@Ansible @SilverBlue-Neko
After trying it out a little I feel this weapon seems to be a road blocker/ bait in it's style and it is fun in moderatation.
Inkmine serve to keep turf or the objective covered and also as a trap so that you can quickly attack and force them to flee into a mine or move away from the mine to forced not to be wiped.
Baller pushes players into other specials in a dominating match and if the team is wiped it can force players to focus their attention on you and away from objectives.
Lastly the brush allow you to taunt the objective and then quickly get back out or continuously stall in modes like splat zones and rainmaker.

Is it great? No not even close (so much salt from dying to aerosprays and splattershot jr.)
I really prefer the other inkbrush, and favor octobrush overall in this class but it style is unique and I can get behind that even if I am not that big a fan of it.

A weapon even you can't love. A new low for the former EAD R&D2 :P

Oh man. You sure? Have you PLAYED many Splashdown weapons? It's hands down the best special in the game. There's a reason Splooshes and Splattershots are running amuck so much, and it's that dang panic button Splashdown.

Splash is kind of crummy as a panic button, really. It's much better as an ambush, occasional rush, and ability to survive a bomb rush.

This. It would have been one thing if they released something like five old weapons a week. Even that is a little insulting. We don't NEED weekly weapon releases. What we NEED is all the old weapons to have been available at launch, then drop new new weapons once a month or so. At the very least, we should have had the vanilla versions of all weapons at launch.

It's confusing because they already have the content available, and yet we have to wait a year or more for the game to become THE GAME. What if Zelda had released ten new quests a week instead of giving us the entire game at launch? That's what's going on here.

I get the feeling they were trying to reset the series as though WiiU never existed. I.E. they can pretend all the weapons are brand new because there were so few WiiU owners to care about they can treat us as though we didn't exist and pretend everything is brand new and the series is starting out for the first time. The campaign has plenty of tongue in cheek nods to the old game, but outside the campaign there's almost zero reference to anything that came before.

I also get the feeling the producer is a bit of a primadonna with a head the size of Pearl's, who's convinced his ideas are perfect, and Iwata probably kept him in check a bit...now he runs amuck as the creator of the single success on WiiU that made investors happy.

Here as in this forum or here as in Splatoon? Because I got Splatoon 1 at launch and it's one of my most played games ever (as is Splatoon 2).

If you've spend 500 hours on a weapon in Splatoon 1, you're 'super hardcore'. This is simply there to cater to more casual players. That's also a kind of player they want invested into the game for a long-time, and this is a good way to do that. I bet there's a lot of players who came back to the game to check some new stuff out, who would've perhaps left the game after its launch period otherwise.

And honestly, it's a bit entitled to become "seething" over a weapon in a video game.

I like the idea of the weekly weapon. I don't think it was so bad. But I think it went very wrong releasing variants before new weapons. If they stuck with all new/returning weapon vanilla versions before alternates, I don't think anyone would mind much. Did we really need the "bad inkbrush" before the half dozen missing weapons?

I say that as someone benefiting from Gold Dynamo being released. But hydra really should have been out first. As should squeezer and the rest.

 

[Award]

It IS a big selling point, and I won't argue against that, but there are other ways to do it outside of how they're doing it now. Releasing the vanilla variants of all S1 weapons and then slow releasing the rest (including never before seen S2 weapons) would work just as well. They'd have to make the releases every two weeks instead of every week, but I highly doubt that would take away from the excitement. If anything, that could make it feel more special.

They also could give us more gear (sorely lacking), and use that to give us a release every week. Swapping between new weapon one week and new gear the next week would have done the trick just as easily without alienating veteran players. If anything, I'd find this more exciting because the gear game at this point is weirdly stark.

But like you said, this is Nintendo for ya. They do amazing innovation and flawless base gameplay, and then the make weird decisions elsewhere. It is what it is, but I think a lot of us are getting impatient. We need an S2 equivalent of S1's October update.

(Also we need a new ranked mode pronto. I'd give up a month's worth of new weapon releases for THAT.)

Honestly I'm furious the 3 ranked modes are the same 3. I was hoping for *ALL* new ranked modes. More of the same 3 is just meh. Especially when the tower is *STILL* mechanically broken.

Heck I'd forgive it all if the matchmaker actually worked. But it's even more broken than ever now. When was the last time it felt like either team had to work for the win rather than it being obvious from the start one team was going to stomp the other and was massively better? I got frustrated the other day and decided to mess around. I was playing super tryhard, getting 20+ splats, carrying hard, and still losing. So I decided to stay on spawn and practice duelie dodge roll timing and not play at all. And won every round easily.

 

[Ansible]

Personally, I feel the slow drip feed of weekly weapons is just an excuse to maintain relevance and attendance—yes, I understand their viewpoint for the content trickle and it does keep me returning as well, yet it still feels like an excuse. To me.

But the least they could have done was release the vanilla/standard versions of all the remaining seven(?) weapons from the first game across the first month or two, then move on to a mixed released of new weapon and variants. Instead there's this ridiculous nonsense of waiting two months, three months, four months, and now maybe five months to release the remaining vanilla/standard versions of weapons from the first game.

And it's not just here you see that complaint voiced. You occasionally come across it on reddit, amino, twitter, discord, maybe facebook too, and probably some other places as well. Heck, check the twitter replies from Japanese players on the weekly weapon announcements.

 

[Award]

Personally, I feel the slow drip feed of weekly weapons is just an excuse to maintain relevance and attendance—yes, I understand their viewpoint for the content trickle and it does keep me returning as well, yet it still feels like an excuse. To me.

But the least they could have done was release the vanilla/standard versions of all the remaining seven(?) weapons from the first game across the first month or two, then move on to a mixed released of new weapon and variants. Instead there's this ridiculous nonsense of waiting two months, three months, four months, and now maybe five months to release the remaining vanilla/standard versions of weapons from the first game.

And it's not just here you see that complaint voiced. You occasionally come across it on reddit, amino, twitter, discord, maybe facebook too, and probably some other places as well. Heck, check the twitter replies from Japanese players on the weekly weapon announcements.

It *IS* just an excuse to maintain relevance an attendance. That's kind of the driving force through most of multiplayer gaming, to be fair, evne CoD and the like. But I fear Nintendo is drawing too much from mobile marketing, and taking the viral social aspect too far. They did it with BotW as well for that matter. It's backfiring unlike the WiiU thought. WiiU needed it because it was practically the only game around. Switch is starting to get crowded with other, arguably bigger, titles and the little carrot of a custom jet squelcher isn't really that big a deal anymore. It keeps Splatoon in the news cycle but after unimpressive updates every week for months it now looks sad.

But it's also that "reset like WiiU never happened" thinking. They're saving hydra because they want it to be, like other new weapons "look at this new impressive totally different weapon like nothing else in the game!" They're trying to give it the same rush and infusion into the game it had the first time because for most players, it will be the first time. Plus they want to make the post-Christmas play a new, changing experience just like it was the first time. Everything they do is for cultivating the "Switch experience" more than for making the most balanced game they can, in this case. More about consumerism than competition. Can't blame them for that, trying to make it fun for the mass market, and make it memorable. if I'd never found squidboards I probably would be that group.

But considering they unveiled switch with eSports imagery, it's a little surprising. And considering the Japanese player base is equally frustrated, it's downright surprising. It proves that Nintendo is so Nintendo it's not even about pandering to the home market....they really don't care so long as everybody in the compound is happy :P

 

[Cyan]

Personally, I don't mind the so-called slow updates. I don't mind old weapons being released slowly. It is a good thing to keep new players interested and it also makes things less stale for older players. And I speak as someone who played the original Splatoon from day one.

There are plenty of weapons in the game already. If anything, the poor gear variety is far more bothersome.

I do mind the slow updates to be honest, in Splatoon 1 at this point in time (4 months from launch) we were getting double weapon updates fairly regularly, we had our massive 2.0.0 update in August (2 and a half months after launch) and the game was being pretty well supported. It's an even bigger slap in the face to us veterans of the first title because Nintendo sold this game to us as "it has more content than 1 at launch and will have even more after all the updates!" which has been a bit of a lie thus far.

Yes we had more weapons and maps at launch (8 vs 5, Sloshers, Splatlings and Dualies at launch), but as of this point in time Splatoon 1 is tying 2 for maps, both have twelve 4 months from launch, both have the same 3 ranked modes, both have Level 50 and S+ as caps, but Splatoon 1 was more generous with weapon gifting (23 vs 17) and maps (7 vs 4, but granted this is from the 5 vs 8 starting maps). On top of that, we had a gear update and all 12 maps stuck out with designs and felt very different to play.

In Splatoon 2, The Reef, Inkblot, Starfish, Musselforge and Sturgeon are all basically the same map (square design with raised or lowered mid). Humpback and Blackbelly are very similar in design choice, no-one really likes Port and Moray so this leaves us Snapper Canal, Kelp Dome and Manta Maria. In Splatoon 1 we had Urchin, Walleye, Saltspray, Blackbelly, Arowana, Port, Kelp Dome, Bluefin, Moray, Triggerfish, Flounder and Hammerhead. Look at that diversity difference, because Splatoon 1's maps all had their own theme and layout structure to make them FEEL different, Splatoon 2 has very forgettable samey maps.

At this point in time their "generous" claim of 1 year of content updates is nothing more than a "we want weapon and map releases to be slow and painful whilst you get bored of this game" claim. If this game is due to have more maps and weapons than Splatoon 1, where are the double weapon releases? Where are the new maps? Where's the gear? Where's a new and unique ranked mode? This game has earned its status as Splatoon 1.5 because the devs simply haven't put enough effort in to MAKE it a 2nd game. This is where our frustration has kicked in.

The game is stale because the maps aren't different enough, the weapons aren't coming quick enough and we still don't have a very interesting or enjoyable meta because the devs have refused to do proper balance updates unless they've been forced to because of blatant issues (Tri-Slosher, Inkjet, Ink Armor, Baller etc.). I have 205 or more hours on the Switch play log, and I barely play anymore, I've seen all this content in Splatoon 1 (ignoring new weapons, Salmon Run and new weapon kits) and it's just dull now. I hop on for Splatfests and new weapon releases when they're interesting, but the game hasn't done enough to keep me interested the way Splatoon 1 did. This is in part to us having experience with the first and this being a carbon copy (thus already being bored of Splat Zones, Tower and Rainmaker), which isn't helping matters. Then to be told to wait 4+months just to get access to a weapon that was in the first game already is too much for some who still don't have their mains or are waiting for alt kits because their main has a trash kit.

This became a giant rant, wasn't entirely aimed at you though but holding back content is a much better way of making it grow stale faster than having most of the weapons already available. Think about this, if 60 of the 80 weapons were at launch (number for arguments' sake) we'd be going from one thing to the next and the next spending a good chunk of time on every weapon whilst ranking up you'd take longer to rank up and longer to grow bored. If we have 20 of 80 with the following 60 coming out one a week for 60 weeks we get our promised year of content, but we use the one meta weapon already in (Splattershot), get to S/S+ with ease, play a weapon that releases on a Friday/Saturday for 1 hour and then junk it because it most likely sucks. It means you get to the "end" of the game before it's even done updating because you're at Level 50, at the best rank (who cares about the numbering system in S+?) and bored because the game is hiding the rest of the maps and weapon from you to avoid "overwhelming" newcomers. I'm just hoping this November patch is giving us the 2.0.0 style update and that we'll be seeing a new Nintendo Direct either this week or next, because one of those should be due soon. Meanwhile I'll be lurking in the shadows waiting for the game to have enough content to come back to it properly.

 

[Reila]

"Holding back content is a much better way of making it grow stale faster than having most of the weapons already available."

Objectively speaking, it is not. Releasing content slowly is a much better approach and is why the companies behind popular games like League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Smite, Dota 2 do exactly that. If you want people to quickly get bored of a game, the best way to do that is release everything at once. They will play around with the shiny new toys, get bored and leave.

Release new content every few weeks or every week and players have something to look forward to consistently.

You might not like having to wait, but from a business perspective, releasing content slowly makes a lot more sense and it is a much better strategy than releasing everything at once.

Edited because typo.

 

[Ulk]

"Holding back content is a much better way of making it grow stale faster than having most of the weapons already available."

Objectively speaking, it is not. Releasing content slowly is a much better approach and is why the companies behind popular games like League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Smite, Dota 2 do exactly that. If you want people to quickly get bored of a game, the best way to do that is release everything at once. They will play around with the shiny new toys, get bored and leave.

Release new content every few weeks or every week and players have something to look forward to consistently.

You might not like having to wait, but from a business perspective, releasing content slowly makes a lot more sense and it is a much better strategy than releasing everything at once.

Edited because typo.

Agreed, but I think it's also important that we also look at a more negative example, where this system did in fact damage the game. That example is ARMS.
ARMS launched with so little content and took so much time to add some updated content that the game started to rot. Not only were the updates way too slow, they were also way too marginal considering how long it took them to bring them in. Especially the first update was a disaster, as it did nothing but unlock content that was already seen in the game but not made playable. It took three months until they finally actually brought something new to the game. In that time span, ARMS lost all of its momentum, making the average sales falling behind even 1 2 Switch far from surprising. They launched the game with a very very small amount of content. And without constant updates with short periods of times inbetween them to keep the game fresh despite the naturally small amount of content it launches with, the update system does not help a game. It kills a game.

With that said, ARMS did it wrong, Splatoon definitely did it right. Splatoon 2 however, while still doing it right, is not doing a great job. Every bit of content to Splatoon 1 was actually new and unique, putting aside the different versions of weapons. Splatoon 2 on the other hand releases more Splatoon 1 weapons repackaged as new weapons than actually releases new weapons that were never seen before. And this is definitely causing a bit an update drought lately.

 

[Reila]

I mean, it is important to keep in mind a lot of people who play Splatoon 2 didn't play the original, so "old weapons repackaged" is only an issue for some old timers. They do release new weapons every now and then, though. We got the Tenta Brella not so long ago.

I am not playing the devil's advocate here, people who know me know that I am very critical of Nintendo and their often very questionable design decisions, but I literally think this "lack of content" issue is really minor.

 

[IHaveAToaster]

I am not playing the devil's advocate here.

If you won't then I will. :p

I like the idea of the weekly weapon. I don't think it was so bad. But I think it went very wrong releasing variants before new weapons. If they stuck with all new/returning weapon vanilla versions before alternates.

I say that as someone benefiting from Gold Dynamo being released. But hydra really should have been out first. As should squeezer and the rest.

To be fair, we shouldn't actually know about the Squeezer and new Dualies, and the fact that the Brellas and Grizzco weapons got announced long before they were made available (plus the potentially 'Unreleased Gear') suggests to me that we might get them during or after a 2.0-type update and holding them back seem pretty understandable. Or it could just be baseless speculation on my part idk. No excuses for the Hydra though, it should already be out.

I personally think we should at least be getting an extra weapon every other week. Everyone's pretty much explained why.

Spoiler: Unrelated, but...

Also I think the Custom Jet is making me into Jet Squelcher trash lel.

 

[Award]

Agreed, but I think it's also important that we also look at a more negative example, where this system did in fact damage the game. That example is ARMS.
ARMS launched with so little content and took so much time to add some updated content that the game started to rot. Not only were the updates way too slow, they were also way too marginal considering how long it took them to bring them in. Especially the first update was a disaster, as it did nothing but unlock content that was already seen in the game but not made playable. It took three months until they finally actually brought something new to the game. In that time span, ARMS lost all of its momentum, making the average sales falling behind even 1 2 Switch far from surprising. Because they launched the game with a very very small amount of content. And without constant updates with short periods of times inbetween them, the update system does not help a game. It kills a game.

With that said, ARMS did it wrong, Splatoon definitely did it right. Splatoon 2 however, while still doing it right, is not doing a great job. Every bit of content to Splatoon 1 was actually new and unique, putting aside the different versions of weapons. Splatoon 2 on the other hand releases more Splatoon 1 weapons repackaged as new weapons than actually releases new weapons that were never seen before. And this is definitely causing a bit an update drought lately.

I mean, it is important to keep in mind a lot of people who play Splatoon 2 didn't play the original, so "old weapons repackaged" is only an issue for some old timers. They do release new weapons every now and then, though. We got the Tenta Brella not so long ago.

I am not playing the devil's advocate here, people who know me know that I am very critical of Nintendo and their often very questionable design decisions, but I literally think this "lack of content" issue is really minor.

I think some of that goes into the whole "they're trying to pretend WiiU never happened" so this is the "first Splatoon" in their strategy. Thus, you've never seen a Hydra before and don't know it exists. It's new and exciting and unprecidented when they release it, just like the Inkbrush Nouveau! (irony intended.)

Plus the intent to pad out content post Christmas, which is Nintndo's biggest sales season.

The mention of ARMS reminded me of the other element though that we all keep forgetting. Nitnendo's entire strategy for their release schedule of a bunch of multiplayer online games in Summer was built around selling their new subscription service. Pushing Kart, followed by ARMS, followed by Splatoon, Pokken, was all designed around the expectation that they'd be launching the online paid service right after Splatoon came out. Sure, ARMS was put to pasture fast because of Splatoon. Releasing them so close was a bad plan but they wanted something "big" in the pipeline in case ARMS tanked bad, it wouldn't make them look like "WiiU all over again!" in the chaos that would last exactly 3 weeks from a new IP failing. So then they held off the updates while they launched Splatoon and predictably it died off (though it might get a second wind after Christmas.)

But while all that was going on remember they were supposed to be pulling revenues off subscription. And that didn't happen. So they're selling Splatoon play for free which they didn't plan on doing. And who knows what costs have lead them to have to push back the paid service by half a year at least.

So as I think about it, dragging out the updates, maps, modes, basically anything we want but basic gameplay may be more about dragging the progression of the game into whenever paid service begins than anything else. If the subscription were up and running already, I wonder how many maps and modes we'd already have?

Of course the problem is, by the time they get their act together in 2018 and decide "ok Splatoon can continue now" I'll probably be long since done with the game aside from jumping in with friends sometimes, and so will half the people here.

 

[Goolloom]

I think some of that goes into the whole "they're trying to pretend WiiU never happened" so this is the "first Splatoon" in their strategy. Thus, you've never seen a Hydra before and don't know it exists. It's new and exciting and unprecidented when they release it, just like the Inkbrush Nouveau! (irony intended.)

At this point I strongly beleive that's what they're thinking with Splatoon 2 as well, considering that the Wii U was a failure.
Because of how they handle the weapon releases, I'll say it again, it just feels like the old Splatoon 1 veterans gets slapped in the face for playing the new game. There isn't enough actually new stuff right now for the old players, and it gets stale rather quickly.
All the original weapons from Splat 1 not being released 4+months in is the cherry on top of the poop sundae

The conversations I had with my friends when Inkbrush Nouveau was announced were mostly ''Where's the Hydra/actually new weapons?'' and ''This thing is probably going to see use during the weekend because new weapon and then completely disappear'' seeing that the kit is arguably worse than the regular Inkbrush's

I know it's ''just the minority'' but as someone involved in the competitve scene, seeing that it's only a variant of a weapon coming out is just a waste because that won't even affect the meta in the slightest at all, unless it has a good kit, like Custom Jet.

 

[Danku]

Ugh. I typed up something lengthy about "muh new players" and "muh veterans" but I just deleted it because it didn't sound good. Also stop taking so long to give us the Hydra Splatling, sheesh.

Essentially...

All I want is version 2.0, Splatoon 1 got it 2 and a half months after launch and we're currently sitting at almost 4 months and there hasn't even been a single gear update.

 

[MINKUKEL]

I don't really see how gear is a problem with Splatnet 2 being a thing?

 

[the]

Just caught up with this thread again. If we're still on the topic of slow weapon releases, then I'll say that while I agree with the slow-drip rate of weap releases to keep people playing, I wouldn't mind multiple releases at once. Even down the line, newbies probably won't have a huge crisis of ovewhelming choice due to the fact that the weapons unlock at each level. I know that at the beginning of the game I sometimes just used the same weapon for multiple levels just because I didn't unlock anything that interested me, so I feel like new players won't have a huge problem with that even when all weaps are out. (And I think the raised maximum unlocking level from 20 to 30 will help space stuff out and prevent the "unlock half the weapons in the game at level 20" from the first splatoon)

 

[Award]

Of course we can't forget there's still the balance problems we were talking about that there's far too many weapons to actually achieve balance. The glut of weapons in general isn't necessarily a good thing. In many ways I think the idea of "alt kits" never should have existed, or at least should be a late cycle addition like the Sheldon's Picks to make something special from underused weapons. There's enough main weapons in the game that a fixed kit designed to perfectly balance the actual weapon would have produced plenty of variety and made a much more intricate balance than every weapon type with almost any combination of kit. I think the twin kits create a problem that in order to balance the ability to have two kits you can't necessarily have the single best kit for it, because that would then make the alt kit too broken, so you get, say, two eliters with cruddy kits rather than one eliter with an ideal kit. Or on the other spectrum you DO end up with "the good one" and the "forgotten" one as inkbrush, tuber, and CJS will be.

It seems a lot of the game is designed less around competitive balance and more around compulsive redemption game mechanics (gear/ticket system says hello.)

Much of that can be ignored, of course, but it feels at times like all their effort gets put into the redemption machine, and not enough into basic functionality, such as players actually being able to be shot when you hit them with projectiles, and having enough maps to play on without seeing Moray. Freaking. Towers. every other rotation.... :P

 

[Flair]

Good news to all you Hydra lovers!

Like you, I've been waiting anxiously for the release of the mighty Hydra.

I've been having battery issues with my Switch. I just sent it in for repairs. It will probably come back in 2 to 3 weeks. I'm now fully expecting the Hydra to be released on Friday, followed by a nerfing the following week.

Enjoy!