Cyan
Inkling Commander
Here's the thing. Most people who cared that much about Salmon Run specifically stated that it was the sole reason they were going to buy Splatoon 2. As such these people would have little to no impact on the overall player population at launch and the coming months, as they would stick solely to Salmon Run and be bored of it in the space of a week or 2. I feel that those kinds of players would be completely and utterly wasting their money on the game anyway, as a 3 wave and done PvE is extremely short, not to mention repetitive (granted harder levels use different boss salmonids and there are special variants like the Salmon Rush event). If you aren't buying the game for the Single Player, or more crucially, the Multiplayer, then clearly the game is not for you and spending £50/€50/$60 is like burning money.
That's on the same level as buying Mario Kart and only playing Battle Mode, you buy the game with all this content and ignore it for the ONE thing you care about (in this case Salmon Run). These players will be the ones who would complain about having to reach Level 4 in multiplayer to access the only thing they care for in this game, and would complain some more about the lack of length in a single Salmon Run match (about 6-7mins with the preparation for wave timer and the 100 seconds a round limit). In a way I'm thankful these people have been put off from buying the game, as it saves us from hearing their complaints and whinging, whilst allowing the people who bought the game for the main meat (Turf War, Ranked, Splatfests, Competitive and Single Player) to just get on and do their own thing.
Nintendo is well within their rights to prevent the player base from splitting everywhere. Look at how badly the Wii U sold, if Splatoon only got a few hundred thousand sales and you could search specific game modes, the player base would be completely dead in some areas, but full of life in others. Mario Kart 8 is the best example of this, and it got worse with DLC. Suddenly you could search 50cc WWs, 100cc, 150cc, Mirror, 200cc, different item strengths, what DLC packs to play, and the whole community just died out. Yes that's an extreme example, but Splatoon 2 could quite easily have gone the same way. Allowing you to search Splat Zones, Tower, Rainmaker, Squads of any ranked mode, Turf, Private Battles, Salmon Run, would fragment the player base so much the game would die out quicker. It's a sensible way of keeping the player base larger as for the most part you have a 25/25/25/25 choice (Privates, Turf, Ranked, Squads), and if Salmon Run is event based (which would suck, but there it is) it would just replace another mode, or be densely populated when it's on as everyone flocks to play it for gear.
We still have no definitive answer on whether it is timed online or has the "always available at Level 4" response. Either way those players who want the game for Salmon Run will still be insignificant on the online population, and if they want to waste their money like that let them, if they don't, who cares? We don't need those sorts of players anyway, as we won't see them on Turf or Ranked. This message is longer than I planned, but I just had to say that people who won't buy it because Salmon Run may not always be available online is a non-issue :P
were already announced before hand which were also stealth jump (which I do believe was changed from the original), but it seems with the nerf to QR, salt jumping will most likely die