Splatoon 2: How did your expectations compare to reality? (poll)

[AA Battery]

In my opinion, Splatoon 2 is a major improvement over its predecessor, at least from my experience. For one, I don’t get disconnected nearly as often as I do in the first game. Also, you don’t lose points for losing a match in which one of your players disconnect. These two changes are really all I’ve ever wanted (flashback to the time I played a 1v1 Charger vs. Charger Turf War ^.^’). There are still flaws with 2, such as the aforementioned new Rank system and the tickrate. I didn’t mind the former, probably because I’m pretty bad at the game (or at videogames in general, haha), and my experience with the first game’s online was completely overshadowed by disconnections and exchanging-splats from all the lag (splatting someone while getting splatted yourself), so while a lower tickrate is disappointing, I still personally prefer Spla2n’s online over 1’s. I don’t know about private servers, but it’d be great to have, especially with the upcoming paid online service.

Gameplay-wise, I’m among those who like the new Specials more, as they feel more technically-viable than mere powerful attacks. The Bubble Blower and Ink Storm are surprisingly powerful specials that can also serve as a deterrent, though don’t impact the entire map. The Inkjet and Baller are also quite powerful, as well as aggressive, but have clear weaknesses, rewarding you only if you play them well. I like the way the new Specials are balanced, which makes them feel less spontaneous to me (I always get triggered in Splatoon 1 when someone turns the tables on me with a Bubbler or Kraken). The Specials in Splatoon 1 were fun, but they were much simpler. Plus, sometimes I feel that the Inkstrike (which is useful in the least amount of situations) was there just to keep the weapons with better Weapon/Sub combinations from becoming the next Napoleon of weapons.

For the single-player, I was a bit deflated by Callie’s reason to be missing, but the dialogue’s more entertaining, plus we get to see Marie in a kimono ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

I also like the sound effects. The sound of ink being flung is strangely satisfying. Personally, I was quite impressed by Splatoon 2, but that’s just my opinion. I do think that we should wait for the game to age a bit before we hand down a verdict, as improvements are being made with every new update. The Stingray is an example of a well-executed gameplay improvement (in my opinion), and I hope my obviously-OP Octobrush does not get nerfed.

Oh yeah, and no more Damage/Defense Up. I’m sorry, but Damage Up dominated the meta harder than Marie dominated Callie in the last Splatfest (kidding, I love both). Sorry to mobile users for my long opninion post!

 

[KrackHead]

Overall, I am enjoying the game and I feel that it is an improvement over the original. The most irritating thing is that there is not enough players. Wait times are too long and when you want to leave a lobby to play with new players, you still end up with mostly the same players.

The ranking system leaves something to be desired, but I felt the same way with the original. I am not the best, but I feel that way too often I play with players who were obviously carried through the ranks.

I think if the player base was bigger, it would solve most of these issues.

As far as turf wars are concerned, obviously skill and play style is not taken into consideration, so that sucks. But I do like that it is more aggressive.

I would like to see more maps, but that will come in time. I would also like to see Walleye Warehouse. In fact, I'm surprised it was not one of the first Splatoon maps to be brought back.

 

[herrherr]

I’ll be echoing a lot of what has been said here. Overall, I’d say I am enjoying S2 more than I expected because I didn’t think I’d like Salmon Run as much as I do.

The maps do encourage aggressiveness, but I’m used to this now. If I want to play more casually, there’s Salmon Run.

Crusty Sean’s role in this game is cool, although I sort of wish the drink tickets increased the chance of rolling the ability you want. The grind is tough.

Also, personally I have helped keep the game fresh for myself by switching to the heavy splatling as my main this time around, where as I just played with shooters in S1.

That said, there are some issues for me:
-I wish there were an option like in Mario Kart where you could choose to join regional or worldwide
-The updates seem slow to me. I understand they’re probably trying to stretch it out, but at least throw us some new gear here and there or something
-Speaking of, I miss unlocking special gear as I level up like I could in S1
-Single player story is not good. I’m not one who needs much of a story, but I feel like they missed an opportunity here. I kept hoping Callie would be a boss battle.
-Spyke is cooler than Murch :P

 

[Либра]

Splatoon 2 is more or less better than I expected. I didn't pick up the game before hearing about all the issues the game had (on top of hearing how all my mains got nerfed, one of them beyond recognition) so I went in with the lowest expectations possible. Let's see what I got....

The "Tech"

Spoiler

The Tickrate:
Yes, the infamous tickrate which is lower than in the first game and it shows. I have stopped counting how often I would get splatted by what was just one droplet of ink or one "put"-tick from the Stingray. Sniper duels making you sweat bullets because it's basically just a 50/50 coin toss whose shot gets registered sooner. Or get splatted before even crawling up a wall because the game would show your inkling already on top before you even get there. Yeah, all this, but wait, there's more.

P2P:
Seriously Ninty? You actually went ahead and still make the game run on a fragile P2P connection? You have more than enough funds to give us dedicated servers, for the love of Satan, make it happen. I'm done having to deal with even more DCs than in the first game despite that one having used worldwide matchmaking. Yes, I'm not putting in my rose-tinted glasse of nostalgia on. It's a fact. I have experienced so much more DCing happening in the second game that I don't even know what to feel anymore. And that's regional matchmaking only, lol.

Lack of a second screen:
Not the end of the world, but boi do I miss just taking a quick glance down instead of having to open and close the map within a second multiple times during the match, disrupting my flow.

Maps & Modes

Spoiler

The Maps:
There was no reason in hell to bring Moray and Port back and yet they went ahead and brought them back. The new maps are a mixed bag, frankly. They favor hyper-aggressive play in turf, are way too open and mid-centered for the most part. Good on Snapper for finally breaking that formula and I'm hoping there's more coming in the future but right now, two of the new stages are already on my most hated list and with Moray and Port back, make that four maps I'm not quite happy about. :x Can't please anyone, I get it, but still....

The Story:
The Singleplayer story was abysmal. Not only is it recycling content for a living, the whole idea of brainwashing Callie (and that terrible joke when re-playing the boss-fight) instead of giving her more depth is a complete miss. The boss-battle feels uninspired and boring by comparison and the material you're getting from the scrolls is a joke. And what's with Pearl and Marina anyway? You learn next to nothing about these characters. Marina is an octoling playing idol in inkopolis while we're still fighting Octavio, so what the duck is going on, please tell me?

It also doesn't help that to unlock each hero weapon you'd have to play each and every stage again. Talk about unnecessary grinds, yo.

Turf War:
Where did all the hyper-aggressive Splooshes and Splattershots come from? What happened to the chillaxed nature of Turf? I don't even know who's to blame on this one, but Turf has turned into one stressful bloodbath in S2, not gonna lie. Even at lv 50 in S1 I never felt Turf was by default one giant slaughter deathmatch mode with a side of sal---turfing but rather the other way around. Yes you'd swat someone when you get the chance but now you have so many people go for kills like crazed maniacs, sharkers have become way more common. e_e I still sorta enjoy Turf but not as much as I used to. The chaotic but more relaxed nature of Turf like I had in S1 is gonezo.

Ranked:
What happened to ranked? I know the old system wasn't perfect but I felt that the skill levels were way more accurate in the first game. I'm getting way too many clueless people in S-Rank who still have no idea how the modes work.... They should've made de-ranking easier, as things are right now, scrubs can easily grind their way up to S+ no problem given enough persistence and that's not good at all, imo. Single queue can either be bearable or just beyond frustrating. You need lots of salt management to keep playing it for more than an hour straight. Oh, and now you have seperate ranks for all modes. Hm, that's probably the only good thing I have to say about the new ranked. I'm still getting punished for having DCs on my team more often than not, so it's something they should work on.

League:
Decent for the most part. Playing with friends makes plenty of these frustrations bearable and once you quad up, other than the matchmaker doing questionable things at times or not enough people available causing you to face the same team over and over again it's certainly still one of my favorite ways to play the game. Too bad most of my friends are from the US so with college blocking me from playing late in the evening, it's become a tad rarer. Nothing too tragic though. I give league lots of credit for making the game worthwhile.

Salmon Run:
One of the game's saving graces, SR is the go-to mode whenever I don't feel like stressing out in PvP and want to try new weapons without worrying about dragging down my team. I feel that it still needs a bit of fresh updates to keep it from growing stale after a while, i.e introduce more all-random-slots and give us a couple new maps to fight for our survival but I gotta say even after weeks and weeks of playing, SR is just fun and there's that. It's sometimes a headscrather on how incompetent a couple profreshionals can be, not knowing how certain waves work but it's really good overall.

Splatfest:
I don't get why regional Splatfests are still a thing, frankly. The last two region-locked Splatfests I played were the worst experience I've had in the game hands-down. I don't know what the issue with matchmaking is but try to win Turf Wars when you end up with power level differences ranging from 200 to 400 points - while you're on the lower half of the deal. Losing streaks that can hold on for 10 matches haven't been uncommon and I can't wait for the next cross-regional Splatfest to happen so I can quad up. Playing this in single queue is the worst experience one can hope for and it's something I'd wish for my mortal enemies to go through.

Weapons and Specials

Spoiler

The Specials:
Are definitely more team-reliant but I can't help but miss the old Specials a lot, especially Ink-Strike. The Tenta-Missiles feel like a weak expy of those. Splashdown has become the new panic button, and so on, and so on. While I'm glad the Lagzooka is gone, most Specials don't feel like Specials anymore, more like additional glorified Subs with a few exceptions. I still don't get why the Stingray can't use Subs while Bomb Rush users can still use their main weapon, but eh..... More or less neutral on them. They're not great, but not the worst either.

Weapons, Kits:
Can't help but feel certain long-ranged weapons are getting the short end of the stick here, probably in an attempt to further ensuring they won't make a return to the meta. I'm okay with my Splatterscopes, but sheesh, what happened to the Liter? It's gone from one of the best weapons in the game to absolute trash tier, only the Goo-Tuber is worse than that. Speaking of which, they lose out on so much potential on many corners with weapons in general; the Tenta Brella feeling trash tier, the Brella having needed patches before becoming more viable, same could be said for the Flingza and Clash Blaster. Dualies are a neat idea but feel too much like your average shooter with a side of extra maneuvers, also doesn't help that they feel a little bit like copy+paste right now. Also, R.I.P. Dynamo, former king of rollers, now King of Salt. All in all, when I first started playing S2 my initial impression was that the weapons + subs combinatons felt more random than well-thought-through. I don't know man, it's certainly more colorful than before (maybe) but I'm not a huge fan of the current metas, just glad the Baller meta is gone.

Gear:
Thank cod there's Annie and Murch now. No more being forced to wear crappy outfits to get the abilities you want. You can now fully dictate your inkling's look while having a good build and while still a grindfest, being able to use ability Chunks to complete your gear is something I take over Spyke's old scam any day. I don't think save-scumming Snail Rolls has been that healthy for my Wii U either, lol.

Everything else

Spoiler

Customization:
Probably one of the disappointments for me, personally. Still no decent "hair-down" hairstyle for the bois and while we're at it, they could've made everything unisex to begin with. Good thing I can now pick pants to better suit my inkling's outfit but it was still a tad underwhelming. And where's the playable Octolings, Ninty? Stop teasing us with Marina and then give us nothing. D:<

Music:
Quite honestly, with Ninty bringing back old stages they should consider playing old tracks on said stages. I barely remember any of the new background tunes while plenty of the old S1 stage tracks have never stopped being stuck in my head. That's highly subjective of course but if they insist on bringing back some old stuff, they might as well just add the music, right?

Updates, Level Cap...:
Coming as slow as the revolving doors in the crappiest Shifty Station layout Marina ever designed, releasing multiple variants before giving us more base weapons to play with. Other than (mostly fugly) Grizz gear, there's only weapons and stages coming out (or, just making a return). Add the fact that we're not unlocking new gear through level ups anymore, and some other minor annoyances like receiving exp tickets after reaching max level, you have next to no incentive of even trying to get to Level 50 other than just happening to get there through playing the game alone... I hope they'll raise the level cap this time around.

Final words:
Yeah, I get it, most of it sounds like a neverending rant. :D
Splatoon 2 is a salt-inducing game like many other online-shooters and has lots of issues waiting to be fixed. It did improve on certain aspects (Most notably customization, gear and how to grind, also SR and League add lots of value) and failed to learn from past mistakes on others. I can't help but feel they tried to appeal to both casuals and "pros" and failed to pull it off. The core gameplay is still lots of fun and joining the misery with friends makes it so much more worthwhile. Trying to get back into Chargers with their shots feeling slower and more likely to miss was lotsa work but I caught myself using a larger variety of weapons this time around, keeping my experience from growing stale very fast. I'm still looking foward to newer updates and see where things go. It has lots of potential ready to be used so let's see what direction Ninty will pick for Sploon2. I for one am hoping that the playerbase won't die out once paid-online is out and that they give us an option to choose whether we want to play regionally or internationally. Also, give us Octolings already, sheesh. If they did that, they would've probably blown me away enough to turn a blind eye to the issues I've ranted about. ;3