Splatoon 2 TEST FIRE

[Spraylan]

I am excited for Splatoon 2, but...

I really hated the maps. They felt cluttered, overly designed, like a company saw that Turf Wars was popular among the kids and decided to hastily erect their own park to attract business. Fortunately, they didn't seem to have any serious play issues. I just hope they're not all as ugly looking.

 

[Torloth]

Promised footage. excluded game one due to recording error
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Ko45HsT-SdwBTtnxofRdsNI0sGgRys9
Separated footage for easy watching

 

[Award]

Is it just me or are the characters all smaller in this game? Everything feels less screen-filling. Which can be good or bad. But it was string that objects seemed smaller.

Going through some of the video playbacks and I'm seeing a few vicious rollers mixing up both their horizontal and vertical flicks—carbon mains perhaps? lol

Not sure how I feel about the Splashdown, it seems to have a long windup time which is good or bad depending on which end of it you're on.

Stingray it seems you need to keep a constant stream on the target to splat them. To me it's looking like if the target takes a few hits but gets of the stream then gets in the stream again, their hit counter restarts. I'm sure that'll be fixed and/or it'll get a mild buff.

Wonder when the next Nintendo Direct is.

I get the feeling that specials in general were toned down massively from the first game so that they aren't as game-dominating. All of them provide more ample room to escape than not and all seem oriented at escape tricks or a "special move" to make you do more damage/area damage/intimitation than your main/sub, but none of them seem to be a "the whole map freezes as massive destruction is unleashed" like the original specials. Special moves more than tactical nukes, basically. That's only a few of them so maybe that will be different in the final game with all of them accounted for.

If so, though, I like it. I never liked how specials and timing of specials dominated the trajectory of the game almost more than the straight up gameplay which detracted from the games strengths IMO.

And yeah I still say the new roller plays a lot like a carbon :P I did BAD with it in the night time run, getting myself splatted constantly, but did great with it during the day. Not sure the difference, it seemed like opponents were never in a position to hit, and a lone roller against an army of dodge rolling duelies is trouble :P

Oh! OH!

I played test fire! I WANNA SHARE MY THOUGHTS! xD

For reference I played all but 2 of the times (so 4 hours total?)
First, the negatives
- Lag was still as present as in Squidy Potter and the sorcerer's ink, I pray to the great fax machine that they fix this or NOT charge us to play online

- I played with almost zero japan players, despite joining a new lobby between each match. I had about 3 games where a Kanji name showed in lobby. AND on top of that, quite a few times I actually got paired with the same players throughtout the hour, not just getting popped back into the lobby I left mind you, I would get a slow trickle in of the same players I played against over the course of a few minutes

-Some lobbies, especially the 4am ones, lasted a looooong time, most likely due to the game desperately trying to keep the matches regional

-The new splat roller felt like hot trash. The 1hko range felt less like the splat roller and more of a carbon, no jumping then horizontal flicking at the apex really screwed with my muscle memory of playing so much sploon 1 roller. (Iflicked a n inkjet what *felt* like was within my kill range 4 TIMES, back-to back flicks, and he he still livedI couldn't grasp the roller's vertical flick effective range for the one hour long play session I devoted to it.(the rest I played ~80% splat charger with ~20% dooly sprinkled here and there, and about 2 games with the splattershot xP)
This is most likely just me personally not adapting well to the roller changes, but I feel there is some merit in sharing regardless

-The the new charge hold mechanic on chargers felt very niche as you can only hold it for ~1.5 seconds before it goes away completely
for your average encounter, its much more effective to simply keep charging and firing as you can easily recharge in the time it allows you to hold one.

POSITIVES!
-That being said, the charger shot hold definately felt nice when facing another charger, allowing for sneak charge from behind cover and popping out for a near instant splat. I can also see this being much stronger on eliters since their charge time is much longer than splatcharger. Of course this also means the mechanic will be utterly useless on the fast chargers; Bamboozler and squiffer so...

-Stingray! Not the most amazing special, in the grand scheme of all Splatoon's specials, a well placed grenade or tentamissle strike while you are using it will spell sure death(you move VERY slowly while firing the stingray, and you can;t stop firing until it ends.) HOWEVER, it felt VERY powerful when used at proper distance. When you are far enough away, ex. standing just above the first dropdown on The Reef, the slow turn is a non issue on targets at mid and even less so the further back they are. You can easily track from a good vantage point of the stage, splat enemies your teammates have pinned down in their "cover" and then move on to splat squids as they leave their spawn! I got numerous double Splats with the stingray(though, remember the n00b factor here) and even one triple splat ;P
It's very Killer Wail-esque in that if you use it while too close to enemy squids, you're as good as dead, but if you are positioned just right, it can be deadly... This time around you just need to practice your enemy tracking skills in order to follow them despite not having line of sight 100% of the time

-Splat Dualies(too much to write, find someone else's post talking more indepth, I recommend looking up a fellow called LHoT10820)
The short version? Aerospray 2.0 now with superior aim and combat movement capabilites!

-The in match UI is very detailed, I'll cut this down too, I've gone on for too long already xP Plus I'm sure many have already expanded on this bit already.

-The loss music is more mellow, great for us more salty squids xP

And that's only what was in the testfire, we haven't even gotten our tentacles on the character gear/customization or Single player! And there might even be more they haven't reveled

TLDR? I'm still pretty mixed about this new splatoon 2, honestly.
There is still A LOT to be wary of, but equally as much to be excited for.

LAG: Like I said above, my first thought is that they fixed NOTHING in the netcode and just copied it right on over because it worked "well enough (in Japan)". My second thought is, with the WiFi issues Switch is known for so far, even if they fixed it would it look very different right now with most players using the WiFi? Third, as long as they keep that *#$*@*($#@*(#%@ *$#@ predictive AI smoothing, you're never, ever going to actually have accurate player positions in Splatoon. Ever. Not for online anyay, this game will support lan for the true competitions and such meaning it doesn't remove it from the board for tournament play, but for regular online, it will always be plauged with randomness because we're not really playing our opponents, we're playing an AI approximation of our opponents. The bad: still P2P and we're not paying for dedicated servers. Same internet, less money, thanks Nintendo! The good: It looks like we're getting regional servers maybe (we had them for this), so maybe the money's going to pay the server expansion.

Roller: I dual mained eliter+sploosh and submained carbon+krakon (and changed eliter to splat charger after the Great Nerf Wars). No wonder I like the new roller it's what I liked about carbon and krakon combined into one. With suction bombs. :P I'm inconsistent with it, but playing for like an hour with it max will do that....I was trying to get all 4 wps in all 3 times I got to play.

Duelies: Hmm, well I LOVED aero but hated it's combat uselessness in ranked....that's an interesting comparison!

 

[CM86]

Before Splatoon 1 came out, I was very interested in the roller. Unfortunately, I never really got to much into the weapon category aside from the carbon roller here and there. HOWEVER, after playing the Splatoon 2 global test fire, all I am going to say concerning the roller is,

Oh...My...Money (If you get the reference your awesome)

If the Splatoon 2 roller were pancakes, it would be some really good f#$%ing pancakes.

Oh your going to approach me while I am using the roller? That's cute. Let me just swing it like a sledge hammer and splat you from afar.

Sorry for my roller rant. I didn't think it would be my favorite weapon and it was. I look forward to trying it out more when the game is released.

 

[Slurmp]

@CM86, how are the roombombs with the roller?

Is it likely that on spla2n's release there will be a switch bundle with it?

 

[Award]

@CM86, how are the roombombs with the roller?

Is it likely that on spla2n's release there will be a switch bundle with it?

I think a summer bundle for Switch is unlikely. I'd expect to see the bundles appear for November/December. Some think it will include Mario, I doubt it since they know they can sell that on its own, same for BotW. I would guess bundles will be for Switch, Kart, and/or Arms. Especially since it's a "free" game that will require a subscription :)

 

[RelicRaider]

Unfortunately due to being pretty busy I didn't get to play much of the testfire, however I did get time for the last one, I made sure to save time for at least the last one, so when I got on to play, I found my switch refused to connect to the internet. I tried it so am you times and every time it failed. I even tried it on my mobile hotspot and again it failed, in tablet and docked mode. So it was half an hour in and I physically couldn't get it to work, til I held down the power button, pressed power options and then restarted the console, and then it accepted my internet. It was so frustrating but I got to play in the end. I think I did best with the dualiesand Roller, but my favourite weapon would be splattershot. Unfortunately my only charger game disconnected halfway through. I remember one fight with the splattershot, knowing there was good players on the other team by the way that was the only game with more than two, and I was being hunted down, so I hid behind something, and sent out a quick tenta missiles, dodged away as they charged in, all three of them, and two of them were killed by the missiles, the third I got with my gun, and the fourth mowed me down sadly. I did unfortunately suffer a few disconnects, but I think it md eup for it by getting a super jump splash down kill, and loving that new curling bomb, I tricked a lot of people into diving straight into it, as if you hold the button down it doesn't roll as far and blows up more quickly, so there is a fair amount of strategy behind it. Ultimately I was impressed it's the game, but not the connection, as I did see numerous disconnects. I suppose to make up for my missed thirty mins, the test fire went on for ten minutes longer and I got two extra games in before I was disconnected at the end of the second one.

 

[CM86]

@CM86, how are the roombombs with the roller?

Is it likely that on spla2n's release there will be a switch bundle with it?

Roombombs? Do you mean the special? If that is what your talking about, it is a fantastic special. It is your panic button, if you do get in a pinch. I was surprised with how much I liked it and how useful it is. If you mean something else, I am not sure what you mean.

 

[Ansible]

Roombombs? Do you mean the special? If that is what your talking about, it is a fantastic special. It is your panic button, if you do get in a pinch. I was surprised with how much I liked it and how useful it is. If you mean something else, I am not sure what you mean.

I believe @Slurmp is referring to the Curling Bombs—aka my would-be subweapon love interest, aka my side piece after the Inkbrush, aka my would-be future main, aka you-are-so-interesting-don't-you-dare-break-my-heart-bomb.

How is it? Give it my number and tell it to text me sometime!

 

[RespawningJesus]

I believe @Slurmp is referring to the Curling Bombs—aka my would-be subweapon love interest, aka my side piece after the Inkbrush, aka my would-be future main, aka you-are-so-interesting-don't-you-dare-break-my-heart-bomb.

How is it? Give it my number and tell it to text me sometime!

The Curling Bombs are pretty swell. Very versatile, but you gotta get used to the timing, which will take practice. But once people get used to this sub, it will be very good. Curling bombs can even travel over grates.

 

[Award]

Unfortunately due to being pretty busy I didn't get to play much of the testfire, however I did get time for the last one, I made sure to save time for at least the last one, so when I got on to play, I found my switch refused to connect to the internet. I tried it so am you times and every time it failed. I even tried it on my mobile hotspot and again it failed, in tablet and docked mode. So it was half an hour in and I physically couldn't get it to work, til I held down the power button, pressed power options and then restarted the console, and then it accepted my internet. It was so frustrating but I got to play in the end. I think I did best with the dualiesand Roller, but my favourite weapon would be splattershot. Unfortunately my only charger game disconnected halfway through. I remember one fight with the splattershot, knowing there was good players on the other team by the way that was the only game with more than two, and I was being hunted down, so I hid behind something, and sent out a quick tenta missiles, dodged away as they charged in, all three of them, and two of them were killed by the missiles, the third I got with my gun, and the fourth mowed me down sadly. I did unfortunately suffer a few disconnects, but I think it md eup for it by getting a super jump splash down kill, and loving that new curling bomb, I tricked a lot of people into diving straight into it, as if you hold the button down it doesn't roll as far and blows up more quickly, so there is a fair amount of strategy behind it. Ultimately I was impressed it's the game, but not the connection, as I did see numerous disconnects. I suppose to make up for my missed thirty mins, the test fire went on for ten minutes longer and I got two extra games in before I was disconnected at the end of the second one.

I experienced that issue when starting out too, and experienced it again yesterday. I think it's a firmware issue on Switch and I THINK yesterday's System Update was rumored to fix it. Rebooting is the only way to get internet back. FWIW it also affects wired, it's not just wifi.

Yeah I loved the curling bomb. Some people question whether many veterans were playing the testfire, but I saw few people that DIDN"T know to watch the ink trail for a squid swimming through it vis a vis seekers :)

 

[Vinyl.]

The update is just Stability Improvements. BotW still runs and performs the same, Wifi signal issues remain the same, and Auto-Brightness issues remain the same.

 

[Fullmental]

I'm curious to know what people's WiFi speeds and bands were on the connection test if you got DC'd a lot (or didn't)? I never DC'd and my speeds on the switch are 50 down 20 up on average, which is more than enough. I did however notice that if I connected to my router's 2.4GHz band instead of 5GHz, the speeds got cut in half and the signal strength was worse.

 

[Torloth]

I'm curious to know what people's WiFi speeds and bands were on the connection test if you got DC'd a lot (or didn't)? I never DC'd and my speeds on the switch are 50 down 20 up on average, which is more than enough. I did however notice that if I connected to my router's 2.4GHz band instead of 5GHz, the speeds got cut in half and the signal strength was worse.

I can't use wifi near my TV at all. To much interference (old house). I had the same this exact problem with My WiiU (also my PS4 PS3 and PC attached to the TV) . Ended up buying a third party Ethernet adapter. (And running a 100 ft of Ethernet to the TV.)
My Wifi speeds drop dramatically around my TV going from 4 bars to 1 bar (and disconnected) by my TV. Speeds range from 5 up and 10 down. Wired I get 25 down and 10 up ( Canadian internet is strange)

 

[RelicRaider]

Hmmn' whilst I did disconnect twice, one was probably inevitable as it was after the testfire had ended, my internet speed isn't great at all, around 11 down, and 0.5 up. My upload speed was never this bad before but according to multiple tests recently, it's pretty bad. The thing was, I rarely dc with splatoon on the Wii u, same with mariokart. It happens more often with the former than the latter, but it hasn't happened a whole lot recently. Hopefully everything will improve with the switch over time, and it'll be able to find my wifi without crashing.