That's very subjective. Who gets to decide whether it is bad now? You? I? I suppose we have to agree to disagree here.
We don't really because mostly everyone competitive already agrees but is just used to it.
I'm sure Halo was like that. And I believe you that you played 1000 more hours after hacking. But you need to keep in mind that this game largely targets kids.
It can be both, fair and entertaining for kids.
When you say that developers who add bigger grinding aspects make bad content, then you are generalizing because that simply does not apply to every case. There are some great games with grinding out there. People play them by the thousands for years. Just cause you've got a grinding aversion it doesn't mean that the content of the game containing grinding straight away sucks., heh.
If we're talking about games like JPRGs (Disgaea which I love for instance) then sure, but look at shooters out there with heavy grinds and tell me how many of them are really good. I might call em decent, like Battlefield and such, but even still I see it as a crutch. "I need to keep playing so I an get the next weapon!" over "I
want to keep playing because I enjoy this game".
This whole tangent is a distraction from the purpose behind my dissatisfaction with Splatoons gear grind however. In halo 2 I can, day 1 on a new account, go in and smash half the player base because I'm better than they are. I don't need to piss around with unlocking gear or abilities. The only variable is the only one that should ever matter.
I'm better than them so I win. The old argument here was "You can get to S+ without abilities!" and I'm going to shoot that down right now just in case anyone feels like making it, "
just because you can doesn't mean you should have to". If Splatoon wants to be Esports it's going to have to get rid of RNG like this. I played in matches above the skill level of S+, and when you're pushing that hard for every advantage you can get the gear choices you make absolutely make a difference.
And I really have no idea how you can claim 2 pures of gear in fifty minutes. I spend hours farming up the sixty chunks needed for a pure, even with drinks. That's not an attack on you or anything, I'm just actually not sure how you can manage that.
You make some fair points here. If you believe that the game would be better off if all good gear was only a few battles away, then fair enough. Heck, maybe you're right and Splatoon 2 is so good, people would just stay with it anyway, even when they run out of mini-goals (like finishing that next piece of gear).
I can only speak for myself and I would definitely still play Splatoon without the grind. So by all means, fire a mail towards Nintendo and suggest your proposal be added to Splatoon 3. : -P
Thank you, and I do believe this because I've seen it work. Halo Reach was incredibly successful with zero gameplay related unlocks(Or at least mostly so I don't quite remember) and a handful of purely cosmetic unlocks. I think there's enough raw gear in Splatoon to keep people interested on that front for a time, but they could have gone the "Weapon skins" route where turfing so much with a weapon awards you a skin for it. That usually goes over pretty well.
