Splatoon 2 Update, August 22nd patch notes and Discussion

A new Update will hit the servers today so i'd like to go over all of the patch notes given to us by Nintendo.

First up are the weapon changes

main weapon rebalances:
- Sploosh: Increase runspeed while shooting by 11%
- Luna: Jump RNG reduced by 17%, 15 frames faster shot after jumping
- Blaster: 15 frames faster shot after jumping
- Clash Blaster: Inks the ground more, reduces ink consumption by around 20%
- Carbon: Decreased amount of ink consumed by a horizontal or vertical swing by 25%
- Splat Roller: Decreased amount of ink consumed by a horizontal or vertical swing by 10%
- Dynamo: Extended range for dealing maximum damage to an opponent by 14%
- Splat Charger: 4 frames faster charge (Same as Splatoon 1 now)
- E-Liter: 4 frames faster charge time (Same as Splatoon 1 now)
- Goo Tuber: 5 frames faster charge time, 5 frames faster shot release after holding
- Splatling: Movement speed +20% when charging, +3% while shooting
- Splat Dualies: 9% more range, special 170->190
- Enperry: 9% more range, special charge 170 -> 200

Special weapon rebalances:
- Baller: During use, reduced amount of damage received from opponent Shooters (excluding Blasters), Splatlings, and Dualies by 40%.

Next are the multiplayer, salmon run, and Q.o.L. (quality of life) fixes to the game.

Multiplayer fixes:

• Fixed an issue where player rank would change slightly despite a message displaying that stated player rank would not change when other players disconnected early on in a match.
• Fixed an issue where, when taking damage continuously over a short time, the number of sound effects indicating damage did not match the number of times the player took damage.
• Stopped a sound effect that indicated damage dealt when hitting invulnerable opponents descending to the ground after activating their Splashdown special.
• Fixed an issue causing players hiding behind a Splat Brella to not appear when being targeted by a Sting Ray special or the Thermal Ink or Haunt abilities.
• Fixed an issue where opponents were not being damaged when run into with Roller or Brush weapons while standing on uninkable sloping surfaces.
• Inking the trees growing in The Reef and Inkblot Art Academy stages will no longer earn points or fill the special gauge.
• Fixed an issue occurring at specific points in Inkblot Art Academy where players returning to the point of activation after using the Inkjet special or landing after executing a Super Jump would occasionally fall through the stage.
• Fixed an issue occurring in Starfish Mainstage where specific areas would not appear to be inked on the turf map after they had been inked during play.
• Fixed an issue occurring in Sturgeon Shipyard where players would occasionally fall through the stage.
• Fixed an issue occurring in Port Mackerel where inking the top of an uninkable container near the center of the map earned a small amount of points and filled the special gauge slightly.
• Changed the movement range of the forklifts in Port Mackerel to fix an issue where players caught between the forklift and a sponge were occoasionally pushed inside the forklift.
• Adjusted the path of the tower in Tower Control mode in Port Mackerel to fix an issue where players caught between the tower’s pillar and a stage object when the tower entered a narrow space appeared to be shaking.
• Adjusted the size of the sponge near the spawn points in Port Mackerel to fix an issue where a slight discrepancy existed between the height of the sponge when fully expanded and the height of the platform on the tower.

Salmon run fixes:

• The new stage “Lost Outpost” is now available when playing Salmon Run via local wireless at The Shoal.
• 21 weapons have been added to the selection of those available when playing Salmon Run at The Shoal.
• Flyfish can now be defeated by using a Splashdown special on their launchers.
• Fixed an issue where direct hits on a Stinger Boss Salmonid from either a Blaster or shots fired while using the Ink Jet special did not deal the added damage of their shots exploding, and only destroyed one level of the towering enemy.
• Fixed an issue where Steelhead Boss Salmonids were not exploding with the player team’s ink color after being defeated by a Stingray special.
• Fixed an issue where destroying one of the Mothership Boss Salmonid’s coolers immediately after it appeared would cause an invulnerable cooler to appear on the enemy on the screens of other players.
• Fixed an issue causing players to occasionally clip into stage objects in Marooner’s Bay.
• Fixed an issue where playing “With Friends” repeatedly would allow random players to join the group before selecting “Recruit crew members”.

Spectator mode fixes:

• When spectating from a player’s viewpoint, opposing team player names will no longer display unless ZL is pressed.
• When spectating from a player’s viewpoint in Rainmaker mode, the on-screen warnings “DON’T RETREAT!” and “Rainmaker-Free Zone!” will now be displayed.
• When spectating from a player’s viewpoint, the on-screen ink border that indicates the player is taking damage will now be displayed.
• Fixed an issue where, when a matches ended while spectating from a Bravo team player’s viewpoint the turf map results were mistakenly displayed from Bravo team’s perspective, despite other results being displayed from Alpha team’s perspective.
• Fixed a graphical issue affecting player appearance when standing in the zones in Splat Zones mode.

Misc.:

• Players who were in your last played Splatfest Battle will now appear in Inkopolis Square.
• Fixed an issue where attempting to open the League Battle “Records” section caused the game to crash.
• Fixed an issue where content could not be drawn on the edges of the screen when zoomed in while creating a post for display in Inkopolis Square.
• Fixed an issue where following a multiplayer match, a long animation played appearing to award the player far more experience points than they had actually earned.

 

After looking over and testing the changes i can say for certain that this patch did allow for more weapon clases to function much better than they used to by a small margin

Take the Carbon for instance, it used to be able to do 16 flicks per ink tank and now does 22. It could only do 3 flicks after using autobomb and now does 6. over much better quality of life change, im glad to see they brought attention to that.

The blasters feel much better to use, disregarding people's hate for jump shooting, something that is so necessary to do made it much harder to function and actually affected the weapon in a poor way. Im glad they focused on that aspect since making something harder to use by adding an RNG effect is not the right course of action. it's a minor tweek but they do feel much better because of it, glad they touched on it.



The only way to land a complete one shot kill with a charger in splatoon 2 is to fully charge, a non full charge caps at around 70-80 damage, so it does not work like damage up at all.

Chargers charge rate is now as it used to be from Splat 1 (charger mains rejoice!), overall they should feel much better, but there is still some work to be done...

both splatling and sploosh gained a nice run speed buff, they arent soooo noticeable but it's a welcoming change nonetheless

dynamo and clash blaster barely seem any different from pre-patch, the kill range on dynamo is barely noticeable to the point where it was almost unneeded, clash blaster does seem to pain more consistently, but again barely noticeable.

Overall, small update, but things are definitely feeling much better to use in light of the current shooter/tri slosher meta we're seeing online. I know some of you might not welcome buffs to some of these weapons, but let's be honest it can't get any worse than what we've already experienced...

adapt and overcome,
-HawK

I'll say this about the blaster changes... I think a lot of people look at the prevalence of the rapid blaster as a sign of that weapon being OP. I always took it as proof that they nerfed the other blasters too much, so the rapid blaster was the only one that was still usable. With these changes, we'll see if that bares out over the next few weeks. (The luna could still stand to get a small ink consumption buff, but we'll see.)

I felt like there was a huge change with the clash blaster, but I wonder if that was just a placebo effect because I was LOOKING for a change. It's a gun I want to love, so I hope the effect is not of that placebo quality.

 

I'll say this about the blaster changes... I think a lot of people look at the prevalence of the rapid blaster as a sign of that weapon being OP. I always took it as proof that they nerfed the other blasters too much, so the rapid blaster was the only one that was still usable. With these changes, we'll see if that bares out over the next few weeks. (The luna could still stand to get a small ink consumption buff, but we'll see.)

I felt like there was a huge change with the clash blaster, but I wonder if that was just a placebo effect because I was LOOKING for a change. It's a gun I want to love, so I hope the effect is not of that placebo quality.

People see the blasters as OP mostly because the blasters don't have to direct hit you for a kill (Which is basically the whole point, it's an explosive AOE, and it would REALLY hit lower skilled individuals very hard because of that), the thing is the luna getting the ink consumption nerf was an ok thing to do because it now forces it to be more conservative with ink usage and not as trigger happy.

Clash Blaster buff isnt noticeable as much as you think it is but i'm sure there is some sort of placebo involved, it does paint much better tho, that I can say for certain.

 

People see the blasters as OP mostly because the blasters don't have to direct hit you for a kill (Which is basically the whole point, it's an explosive AOE, and it would REALLY hit lower skilled individuals very hard because of that), the thing is the luna getting the ink consumption nerf was an ok thing to do because it now forces it to be more conservative with ink usage and not as trigger happy.

Clash Blaster buff isnt noticeable as much as you think it is but i'm sure there is some sort of placebo involved, it does paint much better tho, that I can say for certain.

I was okay with the luna nerf -- just not to the extent that it happened. At that point, I may be splitting hairs, and at any rate, it's far from the most pressing issue.

For the clash buff, I was referring specifically to how much better it paints. I'd still like to see a before/after video that directly compares, but it feels like there are fewer holes in the paint. Again, may need be a placebo effect, so I'd really love a side-by-side comparison.

I'll add that my wife is a carbon roller main, and she seems thrilled with the buff. She was a little disappointed in how underpowered rollers felt in this game compared to S1. I'll be interested to see what other rollers think of those buffs.

 

Is it just me or has the dualies range increased but at the increased range they paint but don't splat?

 

Is it just me or has the dualies range increased but at the increased range they paint but don't splat?

Definitely just your imagination. You can't increase paint range without also increasing damage range, as both are determined by how far the bullet goes.

 

Is it just me or has the dualies range increased but at the increased range they paint but don't splat?

You could be talking about "fall-off damage"? With shooter weapons the bullets do less damage after a certain point (you can check what this point is by testing the weapon on dummies in the firing range). This only applies if you're hitting people with the very end of your weapon's range, so that might be what you're experiencing.

 

It was actually through the testing range that made me think it. The paint goes quite a way past the dummies without doing any damage at all. I have only more recently been using lot more different weapons as I get more experienced with the game but hadn't noticed this before on other weapons.

 

A sequel should have adequate content. My personal opinion is there could be more stages. Got it?

Yeah, i kinda have to agree with you on this one. While both Splatoon 1 + 2 had five unique stages to begin with, it took less than a week for Mackerel to appear(hooray) and Kelp Dome didn't take much longer after that. The first dlc stage in 2 is going to appear a month past launch, not counting shifty station. (Why not rework parts of that in a stage?)
Maybe the first game spoiled me a bit, but there's too little going on now. Playing on the same 5 maps and the 2 other ones that i already played many times on in the previous game gets kinda dull.

Damage up essentially reduced charge time....this is reducing charge time. The only one that truly needed a buff was the goo tuber IMO. The others are perfectly viable.

This is 4 frames we're talking about, basically it speeds up the charge by 67 milliseconds. It's no game changer. Since it says "Same as Splatoon 1" i think they did it for consistency's sake.

 

This is a cool patch (more surprising a certain weapon was untouched)and whatnot, but I honestly cant wait for more stages.

Heres hoping the new one scratches the big stage itch.

 

This is 4 frames we're talking about, basically it speeds up the charge by 7 milliseconds. It's no game changer.

4 frames is 66.67 milliseconds. Not a dramatic amount, but these little tweaks can be felt by high-tier players.

 

4 frames is 66.67 milliseconds. Not a dramatic amount, but these little tweaks can be felt by high-tier players.

My bad, i thought milliseconds were on a 1/100 scale rather than a 1/1000 one.