Splatoon 3 general issues

[Cephalobro]

Honestly, it was inevitable that it was going to return to a single rank because at least one new ranked mode will definitely be added in a future update. While all ranked modes having their own ranks make sense in separating skills, it would, unfortunately, lead to something I call a "rank bloat", where there would be too many ranks for many players to be able to keep track of.

While right now it won't lead to that, but it would eventually happen if all of the ranks stay separated due to new ranked modes being added.

 

[Award]

That's a good point. There's got to be a better way, though, than having people of completely different ability levels playing in the same "rank" because they're actually good at a different modes really defeats the point of ranks.

I think a single rank would have made sense if the modes were random. If you just play "ranked" and you randomly drop into any of the modes on a given match, the rank would mean something because it means you're consistent across all modes. If you can cherry pick your mode on rotation and work up the ranks in one mode, it doesn't mean that much. Even I inadvertently do it. I'm more likely to play SZ when it's on because I like SZ best, and am best at it, so my rank inflates based on my skill in that. Then I drop into CB where I've literally played like 10 matches ever, and have absolutely no strategy beyond base defense or support because I just have little feel of the action. It didn't matter in S2 because I was never out of the C's in CB because i basically never played it. Now I'm in whatever CB rank my SZ rank is. Which is definitely higher than my CB skill. I can splat well, I can apply some RM mindset to it and stop the giant clam inkoming, but I'm definitely expecting my team to carry me in objective pushing.

I have a mixed history with the ranks in the series. I stopped at S in 1 because I didn't want to risk losing the shiny S in pursuit of S+. I basically didn't play ranked in S2. I got all modes up to either B or B+ I think and then just stopped there and only played private battles for ranked modes after that. When CB released I didn't really play it much. So for S3 I'm committing to doing more ranked, just one series a day, so I'm near the end of B+ and may or may not get a rank match to A- today. I'm hoping that the team balance is either more consistent in the A's (because it's pretty awful in the B's) or the loss penalties aren't that much worse if it's not. I'm trying to play more than just Zones...but it's hard when you want to rank up fast :) I like the new series system in general, but the single rank really isn't a good setup. It's like having a high rank in Tekken because you have one in Street Fighter. The games play similarly but are in reality completely different skill sets.

 

[Award]

I have to wonder what they were thinking with some of their special pairings with weapons. Aerospray, the fastest gun in the game, gets reefslider, the most OP offensive special in the game. Dynamo, the slowest weapon in the game, with a nerfed vertical flick still in place, desperately in need of an offensive weapon gets tacticooler....

For anyone that's not sure of possible lag effects in S3, I've observed a few things.

In S3 it seems like they've taken a more normal multiplayer design and it doesn't try to predict squids movements like 1 and 2. I think that's a plus from seeing things happen that never happened. But it does come with a side effect. Teleporting is back in a big way. It doesn't look like it tries to predict the squid anymore. But it seems to do something else, and seems to store the input they saw and apply it all at once.

As an example, there was a laggy ultra stamp user in a game yesterday. You'd see him hammering along, then stop and stand in place and maybe hold the hammer, or stamp it a few times and turn around, but still standing in place. Then all of a sudden he shoots accross the entire platform in the blink of an eye and you're splatted. I stopped at watch him a few times, same thing. It was a parked ultrastamp that suddenly became an accidental reef slider. On their console they were just hammering along normally. Lag stopped delivering the position updates, so on everyone else's console they appeared to be standing still. And then the console got the update of what they saw and applied the whole thing (their new position and everyone splatted in their way) all at once.

That showed me a little of what's really happening when there's those "hard" matches that the players are "so fast" - it's because they really are, the lag is making is so they actually move in bursts at lightening speed, and players that they splatted never even saw themselves being attacked. I.E. Dying before the roller fling animation is even showed on your console. There's also a lot of times I'll splat a squid and I have no allies around at the moment, but I get the "assist" icon rather than the "splat icon". They were already splatted before I even took my shot, but my console didn't know it yet.

It looks like we have a temporary patch inkoming before a balance patch in future. It lists specific fixes, one for the disconnects in the lobby, but lists generic "control and feel of gameplay" changes, etc, so we won't really know what a lot of it does.

 

[Award]

This isn't really an "issue" with the game on its own, but I just noticed yesterday that squids you've played with that appear in the plaza or lobby no longer have their rank displayed on the little card if you examine them. After 2 games of being able to see player ranks of people you played with it seems curious that they no longer show the ranks of other players unless they're in your friends list (friends do show it.) It's like they intentionally don't want people to see what rank their opponents/teammates are now, like maybe ranked modes don't actually have you only playing within your own rank. It would explain a lot about balance. It's also weird because showing the ranks in the plaza to people you've played with was kind of like a trophy for being ranked. Now your rank is known to you alone, and to friends on your friends list.

I'm not finding ranked, so far, to be much fun at all. The MODES are all extremely fun, but thanks to the matchmaking doing what it does, the teams are almost always preordained with a winner and loser selected before the match. I almost never get a tightly contested, competitive match. You either get easy wins like you were pitted against a bunch of first time players or you get impossible losses where you get spawncamped in the first minute, can't touch the objective, and every time you leave spawn you're shredded by 3 simultaneous killer wails/tentamissiles over and over. I can't say my teams are bad, in fact in ranked, I have to say all my teams seem pretty decent with a few exceptions, though some have trouble pushing the objective. It's just that most of the time, one team is on a whole other level, collectively, with one team always appearing to be several skill ranks ahead of the other like they're "meant" to win - something we speculated about matchmaking in 2 as well, like matches are staged so that one side wins or loses almost by default as though it's designed to specifically lead to specific rank results for specific players the system decides should be a given rank.

Maybe into the A's (rank up match pending) it'll get better, B's are infamously bad since the first game, but I'm not too optimistic. I lose more than I win, but am still ranking up..... Failing upwards in ranks seems like a bad ranking system, although the losses are very rarely due to playing poorly on an individual level and mostly due to terrible team balance leading to a collective ability divide between the teams,, so I'd be furious enough to not play at all if those force losses counted against me.

I did lose rank points yesterday, though minimal, when they took the server down for the mandatory patch right after my hard fought win match ended, and before the stats came up with a "commication error" - not only did I get robbed of a win, but it gave me my third strike loss on the series and had the nerve to warn me about disconnecting during a match.

The positive is I no longer suck at CB. #HailHydra (I miss Moose and the old crew here :( )

 

[The Salamander King]

OTOH chargers don't feel as broken in this game as they did in 2. IDK what they fixed but they fixed something. Eliter feels more like S1 again, and I basically never touched it in 2. I still miss the lasers though. And I just realized while playing yesterday with chargers that you don't need to try to hide the laser anymore! All through 2 I played the same way I did in 1 trying to snap-aim because I've been trying to "hide the laser" for the past 5 years!! No wonder I was missing so many shots, lol!

Chargers still have lasers. Chargers in this game are actually way better than they were in Splat 2. The most notable reason for this is because the maps favor long range weapons more than they ever have before, with long hallways and mostly flat geometry. Another big reason is because the new specials in this game tend to have shorter range than S2 specials, so challenging chargers is more difficult.

This isn't really an "issue" with the game on its own, but I just noticed yesterday that squids you've played with that appear in the plaza or lobby no longer have their rank displayed on the little card if you examine them. After 2 games of being able to see player ranks of people you played with it seems curious that they no longer show the ranks of other players unless they're in your friends list (friends do show it.) It's like they intentionally don't want people to see what rank their opponents/teammates are now, like maybe ranked modes don't actually have you only playing within your own rank. It would explain a lot about balance.

The ranked matchmaking in this game is different than in the first two, and yes that means you will frequently fight people who are not in your rank. Let me explain:
In the first two games you match with people based on your letter rank. S+ would only fight other S+, for example. In Splat 3 they've changed it so that you match with people based on your hidden mmr, not letter rank. This is why people have been fighting X-level battles in B-. This is also why you may match with people outside of your letter rank. The game doesn't tell you this at all, but dataminers have found that matchmaking also takes your Splat 2 mmr into account. I would have to guess this new matchmaking system is designed to combat smurfing.

I have to wonder what they were thinking with some of their special pairings with weapons. Aerospray, the fastest gun in the game, gets reefslider, the most OP offensive special in the game. Dynamo, the slowest weapon in the game, with a nerfed vertical flick still in place, desperately in need of an offensive weapon gets tacticooler....

Most of the kits in this game are actually pretty darn solid, especially compared to their approach in Splat 2. Aerospray has a strong offensive kit because it's a terrible main weapon. It has dreadful accuracy, awful range, and the lowest damage per shot of any shooter weapon. All it can do is paint, and even then there are much better weapons that paint just as well if not better.
If you're having trouble dealing with Reefslider, try shooting it just before it starts moving or just after if explodes. Squid rolls also parry the Reefslider if it's coming at you so you can survive an explosion.
As for Dynamo, Nintendo gave it a kit that strengthens what it already does well; mid range paint support. Dynamo with, say, Reefslider, would be bad because the Dynamo player would use the Reefslider and end up super vulnerable and out of position when the explosion ended. It would basically be suicide against good players.

 

[Award]

Chargers still have lasers. Chargers in this game are actually way better than they were in Splat 2. The most notable reason for this is because the maps favor long range weapons more than they ever have before, with long hallways and mostly flat geometry. Another big reason is because the new specials in this game tend to have shorter range than S2 specials, so challenging chargers is more difficult.

Chargers have those short little lasers that show the aim direction if you're looking at the charger, but it's really different than the red full-distance laser-sight they had in the first game. Sure they were completely broken, but it was a REALLY different experience, both as a charger user that had pretty much an echolocator on you every time you charged, and as someone running from chargers where the laser sights were directly visible at all times. The need for flick-shots that dominated charger use in the first game isn't the same anymore.

But yeah I've noticed that chargers are waaaay better this time around. I was a charger main in the first game, but learned early on in S2 that chargers pretty much flat out sucked at that point. I still more or less mained goo tuber, but the long chargers were terrible. I picked up early on that the chargers feel a lot better in S3. It's the maps, sure, but I think there's also something very improved about handling them somehow. I've heard about there being motion control lag improvements from 2 to 3, and that neither are as instant as the WiiU's gyros in 1, so that may be a big part of it. I took an eliter into SZ solo Q the other day when the maps REALLY did not favor my normal Dynamo. I didn't dare to take an eliter into ranked once in S2.

The ranked matchmaking in this game is different than in the first two, and yes that means you will frequently fight people who are not in your rank. Let me explain:

That's REALLY interesting! It felt really off, but that's interesting. Is there more info somewhere on the hidden mmr? That's the stuff we had gigantic threads theorizing about and following patterns on back in the day here, and it sounds like a lot of what we landed on was spot on the money. I'd love to see more detail about what's been found.

At the same time that's an absolutely horrible system. Having letter ranks that are basically meaningless, and are not actually ranks in which to play makes really zero sense at all. The rank means next to nothing, and really ends up having nothing to do with your play experience at all. It kind of makes me wonder why ranks themselves are still a thing at all if it doesn't govern how you're matched, and it's not visible as a trophy to others....why does it even exist? Why not ditch letter ranks and just make the "ranked" modes just open modes like TW if the ranks are invisible other than to the player and don't seriously affect the play experience?

The benefit of ranks was that everyone should be in the similar group and have a fairly even play experience. Without that it means ranks are the same as TW where the matches are just weird (broken) composites. The idea that former X level players aren't just dominating the C's as they work up makes some sense ,but it brings ranked back to the same broken mess TW is, with that whole pattern of hero+scurbs vs mid-tier team, the matchmaker always thinks that's balanced, but the game needs balanced teams, not lone heroes.

But it's interesting that the patterns some of us were tracking and some theories/assumptions we were making about what the matchmaker was doing, even in 2, seem to be exactly how it actually does work now (and probably did work then on a slightly different scale.)

My 8 year love-hate relationship with Splatoon continues. It's the most fun online game to play ever created, but it's also so completely broken in how it works it's almost a joke, and each time they try to "fix" the brokenness they actually break it more (Fes Power anyone?)

Most of the kits in this game are actually pretty darn solid

Yeah, it's pretty good. They took my beloved Goo Tuber and made it an absolute monster with torpedoes and missiles, and the partial charges are really remeniscent of S1 chargers with DMG+++. Eliter's kit is ok. Mines work great for it still. I think storm was a much better special for it. Breaker's ok, though. But dynamo, I agree it shouldn't have slider, but giving it cooler essentially forces it back to a support-only role on a weapon that's very hard to push with. Splatoon isn't a game where a weapon can just sit back purely to support outside private battles, weapons need to be dynamic. I'm sure there will be another dynamo eventually, and that other config will almost certainly be superior.

Aerospray....I know it's been popular since S1 to downplay it as so weak a main weapon, but I've always disagreed with that assessment. It's not the highest damage, it's not the fasted output, it's not the longest range, but it has the right blend of the 3 that it can be an absolutely dominating main weapon. The ability to quickly bind the enemy to the ground, and from more distance than a sploosh makes it more dangerous than people give it credit for. Movement is the most offensive weapon in Splatoon, and aero neuters that.

 

[The Salamander King]

Chargers have those short little lasers that show the aim direction if you're looking at the charger, but it's really different than the red full-distance laser-sight they had in the first game. Sure they were completely broken, but it was a REALLY different experience, both as a charger user that had pretty much an echolocator on you every time you charged, and as someone running from chargers where the laser sights were directly visible at all times. The need for flick-shots that dominated charger use in the first game isn't the same anymore.

But yeah I've noticed that chargers are waaaay better this time around. I was a charger main in the first game, but learned early on in S2 that chargers pretty much flat out sucked at that point. I still more or less mained goo tuber, but the long chargers were terrible. I picked up early on that the chargers feel a lot better in S3. It's the maps, sure, but I think there's also something very improved about handling them somehow. I've heard about there being motion control lag improvements from 2 to 3, and that neither are as instant as the WiiU's gyros in 1, so that may be a big part of it. I took an eliter into SZ solo Q the other day when the maps REALLY did not favor my normal Dynamo. I didn't dare to take an eliter into ranked once in S2.



That's REALLY interesting! It felt really off, but that's interesting. Is there more info somewhere on the hidden mmr? That's the stuff we had gigantic threads theorizing about and following patterns on back in the day here, and it sounds like a lot of what we landed on was spot on the money. I'd love to see more detail about what's been found.

At the same time that's an absolutely horrible system. Having letter ranks that are basically meaningless, and are not actually ranks in which to play makes really zero sense at all. The rank means next to nothing, and really ends up having nothing to do with your play experience at all. It kind of makes me wonder why ranks themselves are still a thing at all if it doesn't govern how you're matched, and it's not visible as a trophy to others....why does it even exist? Why not ditch letter ranks and just make the "ranked" modes just open modes like TW if the ranks are invisible other than to the player and don't seriously affect the play experience?

The benefit of ranks was that everyone should be in the similar group and have a fairly even play experience. Without that it means ranks are the same as TW where the matches are just weird (broken) composites. The idea that former X level players aren't just dominating the C's as they work up makes some sense ,but it brings ranked back to the same broken mess TW is, with that whole pattern of hero+scurbs vs mid-tier team, the matchmaker always thinks that's balanced, but the game needs balanced teams, not lone heroes.

But it's interesting that the patterns some of us were tracking and some theories/assumptions we were making about what the matchmaker was doing, even in 2, seem to be exactly how it actually does work now (and probably did work then on a slightly different scale.)

My 8 year love-hate relationship with Splatoon continues. It's the most fun online game to play ever created, but it's also so completely broken in how it works it's almost a joke, and each time they try to "fix" the brokenness they actually break it more (Fes Power anyone?)



Yeah, it's pretty good. They took my beloved Goo Tuber and made it an absolute monster with torpedoes and missiles, and the partial charges are really remeniscent of S1 chargers with DMG+++. Eliter's kit is ok. Mines work great for it still. I think storm was a much better special for it. Breaker's ok, though. But dynamo, I agree it shouldn't have slider, but giving it cooler essentially forces it back to a support-only role on a weapon that's very hard to push with. Splatoon isn't a game where a weapon can just sit back purely to support outside private battles, weapons need to be dynamic. I'm sure there will be another dynamo eventually, and that other config will almost certainly be superior.

Aerospray....I know it's been popular since S1 to downplay it as so weak a main weapon, but I've always disagreed with that assessment. It's not the highest damage, it's not the fasted output, it's not the longest range, but it has the right blend of the 3 that it can be an absolutely dominating main weapon. The ability to quickly bind the enemy to the ground, and from more distance than a sploosh makes it more dangerous than people give it credit for. Movement is the most offensive weapon in Splatoon, and aero neuters that.

I'm honestly not sure what to think about the rank system change. I suspect that they've changed it to get rid of noobs having to play experienced players (specifically at launch) but I'm not sure. There is a possibility that they will change it back to the way it is in the future. The dev team has been very open with us in their patch notes and they are definitely listening. Maybe they'll revert it back to letter rank matchmaking after this season, as new players wouldn't be playing with pros at that point.

I guess the lasers seem a little bit thinner. I didn't really notice it tbh.

I disagree with your assessment of Dynamo and Tacticooler. Cooler is the most supportive special we've ever gotten, but it actually favors higher aggression. Tacticooler works better if you throw it in front of your team before they push, so the best players will be playing on the front lines. This is why the Nzap is so good (barring the current meta, where using cooler just gets you sniped because the enemy can see the boost arrows floating next to you). Even if Dynamo couldn't push, Tacticooler gives your team a massive boost and strengthens their push. Also... Splatoon is a game where you can potentially sit back and exclusively support. The Ink Armor meta that was prominent thorough the latter half of Splat 2 was literally that, and so was the Tentamissile meta (which is potentially still ongoing, since people are running Reef-Lux to spam missiles all game).

Aerospray on the other hand... You can hard-counter an Aerospray by walking backwards and shooting. It paints like a god but you are never going to kill a good player with it. What's the point of painting well if you can can't even push? If you want a weapon that paints well, moves fast, and can do things other than that, you have many, much superior options. Splash, Sploosh, Nzap, etc. Even if you're using it for Reefslider, it's still outclassed by Tetra Dualies, which doesn't paint as well but just annihilate Aero in every other quality. Aerospray is just screwed conceptually.

Anyway, that's not what this thread is supposed to be about. I personally haven't found any major glitches, but it is unfortunate that this game is so bizarrely buggy. I get the impression that the dev team just kept adding new things and didn't have enough time to fully test all of it. The worst bug that I've heard of is the one where certain weapons can shoot through walls. Weapons that attack using AOE, like Sloshers, Blasters, and Rollers, can sometimes just shoot right through thin stage geometry. The comp scene is currently discussing banning certain weapons until this glitch gets patched.

 

[Award]

I'm honestly not sure what to think about the rank system change. I suspect that they've changed it to get rid of noobs having to play experienced players (specifically at launch) but I'm not sure. There is a possibility that they will change it back to the way it is in the future. The dev team has been very open with us in their patch notes and they are definitely listening. Maybe they'll revert it back to letter rank matchmaking after this season, as new players wouldn't be playing with pros at that point.

I guess the lasers seem a little bit thinner. I didn't really notice it tbh.

I disagree with your assessment of Dynamo and Tacticooler. Cooler is the most supportive special we've ever gotten, but it actually favors higher aggression. Tacticooler works better if you throw it in front of your team before they push, so the best players will be playing on the front lines. This is why the Nzap is so good (barring the current meta, where using cooler just gets you sniped because the enemy can see the boost arrows floating next to you). Even if Dynamo couldn't push, Tacticooler gives your team a massive boost and strengthens their push. Also... Splatoon is a game where you can potentially sit back and exclusively support. The Ink Armor meta that was prominent thorough the latter half of Splat 2 was literally that, and so was the Tentamissile meta (which is potentially still ongoing, since people are running Reef-Lux to spam missiles all game).

Aerospray on the other hand... You can hard-counter an Aerospray by walking backwards and shooting. It paints like a god but you are never going to kill a good player with it. What's the point of painting well if you can can't even push? If you want a weapon that paints well, moves fast, and can do things other than that, you have many, much superior options. Splash, Sploosh, Nzap, etc. Even if you're using it for Reefslider, it's still outclassed by Tetra Dualies, which doesn't paint as well but just annihilate Aero in every other quality. Aerospray is just screwed conceptually.

Anyway, that's not what this thread is supposed to be about. I personally haven't found any major glitches, but it is unfortunate that this game is so bizarrely buggy. I get the impression that the dev team just kept adding new things and didn't have enough time to fully test all of it. The worst bug that I've heard of is the one where certain weapons can shoot through walls. Weapons that attack using AOE, like Sloshers, Blasters, and Rollers, can sometimes just shoot right through thin stage geometry. The comp scene is currently discussing banning certain weapons until this glitch gets patched.

The idea of keeping the noobs from having to deal with the pros moving up is an idea that sounds good. And should keep the Bs from being a mess like in 2. But, doing it this way means that ranked isn't actually ranked, the letter ranks are nothing but an illusion and distraction while your real rank isn't shown or earned through playing ranked series, it's assigned by the computer based on data it doesn't show you. Presumably the battles are assigned to move/keep you at the rank level it assigned. We speculated in s2 it was doing that anyway.... This system leans into confirming that.

One exception may be the actual rank up matches. Both in the c to B and now B to A, the actual rank up matches have been a breeze with a solid team that works as a unit, and we more or less stomp matches. This after the gruelling series leading to it. Maybe those are actual rank based matches. Although honestly my teams seemed above their rank for the rank up matches. It was almost ceremonial like I'd already won.

Interesting smoking gun, I think, it's I played few series into a-, and at first the team seemed good. Then the players changed out and they weren't awful but we were getting horribly stomped by seemingly superior opponents. Then my series ended. I joined back into a new lobby for a new series... And it put me back in the same room with my former opponents. But this time it slotted me into THEIR team! And one of my former teammates was back on the opposing team. And sure enough, two matches we curb stomped opponents..... And I barely even did that much, by the time my limbering dynamo took a swing the enemies were already all splatted by the others. Non stop wipe outs. This team was truly another level above myself and my former team. But after two matches our enemies suddenly were a higher level yet and even this super team couldn't keep up. By this point I became the weak link. It's not news but the matchmaking is so bad it really IS a glitch.

As far as glitches, also not news, but the lagging players, especially for non EU, non Asia that all plays as one big Earth, time zone induced lag when it's late and you're playing another hemisphere. I've noticed it before but I saw some of the worst examples today. One really really hard match I started to notice teleporting. At one point I snuck up behind two squids inking the zone and clubbed them over the head with dynamo. Nothing happens and they don't react. Then again, then again.... Nothing... Then one of them walks away and vanishes in smoke but doesn't DC, the other splats but I only get the assist credit. Then I splat without having been attacked. Along with delayed kills, getting killed by fried squids... At some point lag acting that way is the same as a glitch.

Lasers btw, you're right the charger user sees the line, but the other players don't, just a short direction marker line near the sniper. In S1 it has the long red laser across the whole map. It gave a sense of dread hiding from sniper lasers.

and cooler you're kind of right, had a zones match with 2 dynamos and it was just hyper squids all over with non stop coolers lol. But generallyI don't think the pure support role works with randos. Squads, absolutely, but random, you have to be dynamic. You don't know if your team will push our defend or not until you get there and the weapon needs to adapt. Though im the dynamo that tries to lead the charge, the hydra that gets #1 clam collector..... Not always to great results but someone's gotta do it :)

That slosher bug is no joke!

 

[The Salamander King]

Lasers btw, you're right the charger user sees the line, but the other players don't, just a short direction marker line near the sniper. In S1 it has the long red laser across the whole map. It gave a sense of dread hiding from sniper lasers.

and cooler you're kind of right, had a zones match with 2 dynamos and it was just hyper squids all over with non stop coolers lol. But generallyI don't think the pure support role works with randos. Squads, absolutely, but random, you have to be dynamic. You don't know if your team will push our defend or not until you get there and the weapon needs to adapt. Though im the dynamo that tries to lead the charge, the hydra that gets #1 clam collector..... Not always to great results but someone's gotta do it :)

That slosher bug is no joke!

View attachment 7649

Here are 4 pictures of Charger lasers being unchanged. The first three are from my replay, the last one is from the most recent DUDE video.

Yeah when I talk about things being good or bad it's always in the context of high level comp, where people have good team coordination.

 

[Award]

View attachment 7649

Here are 4 pictures of Charger lasers being unchanged. The first three are from my replay, the last one is from the most recent DUDE video.

Yeah when I talk about things being good or bad it's always in the context of high level comp, where people have good team coordination.

Interesting! I'll have to look again, I really haven't seen the lasers since 1.... But there they are. Why haven't I seen them? I'm going to have to look again. DUDE is still around!? That's awesome!

Yeah organized play in league/squad/comp is a whole other thing entirely. When you have coordinated strategies etc it's a very different game and those edge case weapons with fixed roles that can't adapt to any role on the fly become valuable. (Although.... The bubble shield......). I tend to forget about that whole scene. Though I did play a squad battle against @Saber 's team once and that was quite interesting :) that was back in the s1 days though, I'm scared to think of what you guys can do now.... Though I'm at least better than I was then as well. :)

 

[The Salamander King]

Interesting! I'll have to look again, I really haven't seen the lasers since 1.... But there they are. Why haven't I seen them? I'm going to have to look again. DUDE is still around!? That's awesome!

Yeah organized play in league/squad/comp is a whole other thing entirely. When you have coordinated strategies etc it's a very different game and those edge case weapons with fixed roles that can't adapt to any role on the fly become valuable. (Although.... The bubble shield......). I tend to forget about that whole scene. Though I did play a squad battle against @Saber 's team once and that was quite interesting :) that was back in the s1 days though, I'm scared to think of what you guys can do now.... Though I'm at least better than I was then as well. :)

Maybe after a while your brain just gets so used to seeing the laser that it kind of blocks it out in a way? I tend to not even notice the crosshair in the middle of my screen because my brain has blocked it out in favor of taking in everything else around it, and my aiming has become closer to muscle memory.

Playing certain weapons in solo is definitely hard. I would know. Trying to play Jet Squelcher in Anarchy Series is tough because I don't have any communication with your team, so my long range location support is not even close to as useful as it would be on a team. That's the unfortunate reality of solo queue, you're going to have a much harder time winning with a weapon if it can't easily push. This is why Splattershot tends to be better in solo than something like L-3 Nozzlenose, for example.

 

[Saber]

So I will admit that most charger feel amazing right now, goo tuber feel good, basic charger feel amazing to have an aggressive control option for objectives
But squiffer doesn't feel the same to me maybe it is just I always have favored it new squiffer kit

But with such a huge meta focus on range blaster, sloshers or aggressive shooter using the inkdodge even with my love for them squiffer feel lacking in their kit right now

Also I will admit my biggest gripe right now with Splatoon 3 is honestly 1 key aspect of map design spawn
Simply put there some maps back in the day that had an issue with spawn camping but most times it took alot of effort to do so sucssfully with various paths to take.
But for some reason it feels like they leaned in to this concept it feels too easy, spawn is just so easy to inflitrate and for some reason most have a choke point that extremely difficult to defend

Eeltail alley, Hagglefish market and undertow spillway feel so momentum heavy, once one side gets a wipeout you are just walled in a a good portion of the match
Scorch grodge is similar unless you have someone defending your flank the whole match....thankfully it is a decent sniper spot so (shurgs)
Though of all somehow they took hammerhead bridge and made it impossible to not get spawn camped.

It is so weird cuz after how bad this was with urchin underpass (shuddders) and the new spawn feature for S3 this feels like a return to that same map design.

Also @Award yeah I still run into him ryanator and a few other OG S1 vets....also has it really been that long, welp it looks like it is high time for a rematch lol

 

[Award]

Is anyone hearing anything about exploits or hacks or anything of the sort being used in any way other than the sloshing machine/blaster glitches in general use?

The matchmaking......it's of course unimaginably broken, but I'm almost starting to wonder if there's something else going on in the ranked rooms beyond the abhorrently broken match making. If it's just the match making, it needs to be taken back to the drawing board ASAP because it couldn't be more broken if it tried, but....everything is feeling off.

I started a ranked run a few days ago, from A- to A, with nary a problem. In fact it was a straight run of pretty easy wins up to the rank-up match. The rank-up match was comically easy, with a solid team we ALMOST won 5/5, except 1 match we were overmatched by far and overrun/spawncamped/KO'd in under a minute. But that was the best, easiest run ever. Up to A 550 or whatever it starts you at. Then it started...

Tower Control came up after Zones. 5 losses in a row, almost two full series, not a single win. I nearly vowed to never play ranked again. I did one "open" Anarchy (not series) CB by accident with the wrong wep (flingza). That was a win, only because I scored the only point in the match myself in the last 20s (football in the goal.) But a win. I went in the next day. CB was up for series. Took my trusty hydra which I've learned is good for CB with teams that never defend. Instead I get teams that ONLY defend and no one pushes. 3 losses. Ok, I switch weapons, win, then loss. Switch weapons, win then loss. Switch weapons, loss. Switch weapons, loss. If i take a defensive weapon I get teams that don't push, if I take offensive weapons I get teams that only push. Finally I get fed up playing ultra-super-tryhard #1 splatter, #1 target, #1 score pusher and losing every round and take meme weapons into ranked. Inkbrush. I love it to death. I decide not to even bother playing the objective, it doesn't even matter anyway, screw my rank, let me crash down to the C's again. Nobody even sees the ranks anymore, and you don't play your own rank anymore, what does it matter if I'm C- and playing S+ matches?

So I just troll and harass/distract enemies and basically play TW by myself in a ranked lobby. Which IS a valid strategy with a comp team, but not really with randos. I ignore the ball carriers, I ignore scoring clams, I just mess around screwing with people and throwing bombs everywhere. We win. I basically didn't play and left the others to the game and that's when we win. So then I go tryhard with the brush. I start getting 20+ splats and under 7 deaths, #1 clam stopper, pushing the goal. We lose 3.

RM comes up and I go back to tryhard. Win 2, lose 7. One of the wins involved opponents that were not very good, I was able to wipe out the whole team myself, break the shield myself, pick up the RM myself, and run it to the checkpoint myself. At least the opponents weren't OP!

All tolled across the two days my ranked experience in "A" left me with 21 losses and 7 wins. That's about a 66% loss rate. More disturbing, my ending points after that is 520. I thought for sure I was crashing back to the B's, but at a 66% loss rate, I'm more or less treading water, only down a little from where I started?! That alone is flat out broken. Losing 2/3 of your matches should not mean staying in place. But what makes it worse is, if it's the matchmaking, the fact that I seem set up to lose on purpose. It's always obvious that when we win we curbstomped noobs that barely know how to shoot. No challenge. When we lose, which is most of the time, though it's split two ways. The first is an overwhelming team my team can't face off against at all. It's a doomed match from the start with no hope of winning. Fast KO's spawncamps, non-stop wipeouts, and we simply have no ground from the start.

The second is what makes me wonder about hacks. There have been a number of matches among the losses where it felt like things were nicely balanced. We had the lead, by a solid margin. Play felt tight and competitive. A well balanced match. And then in EVERY single one of those cases, in the last minute it suddenly turns into the above. The other team suddenly becomes nigh-unstoppable like they're using aimbots. Wipeouts every spawn cycle, and no matter what you do, or where you are, even if you're moving with your team everyone is just splatted instantly and swarmed by opponents with really no hope to break out. Normally that's "the other team is vastly superior in an unbalanced match". But this suddenly starts near the end after we're ahead, after the opponents played in what seemed like a very good, balanced game, suddenly they become unstoppable X-ranked beasts and crush us with 30 seconds on the clock. Not once, not twice, but numerous times.

Something seems not right. Yeah the matchmaker is beyond broken, but...the sudden transformation that I keep seeing where normal games become a 1-sided massacre like a switch was flipped, average skill opponents suddenly kill instantly the moment anyone is in range, with perfect accuracy, like a bunch of B+'s just became X's in the final minute of an A match, I'm starting to wonder if matchmaking is not the only problem in play? I would say "it's my teams panicking when they start losing at the end and getting splatted" but I can see the difference in individual dogfights, suddenly I just can't hit anything, and I get killed entering the range of any squid almost instantly.

Maybe I really am getting matched in super-high-level games, obviously I sometimes definitely am, but other times.....why weren't the squids that good the first 4 minutes? How did they suddenly become that much better, and how does this same pattern keep repeating in different rooms?

Friends ghosts in my lobby where I can see the ranks, squids I know were in the S+# ranks in the previous game, and S+ in the first, I'm seeing are actually B+ or A- still, so I'm actually ahead of them in letter rank which is weird, they've always been ahead of me. I haven't talked to them. Maybe they're just as miserable in ranked and not playing much either, or maybe they're seeing the same pattern keeping them from advancing. Though i see them playing it a lot. ONE friend is already S+6, I have no idea how, but he's a pro squid, you guys probably play him, and you guys are a whole other tier, because you're *SO* good you really can solo carry most teams in lobbies below god-tier. Matchmaker wise, the fact that I'm often paired with pretty weak teams against solid enemies, I assume the matchamker somehow THINKS I'm as good as you guys, even though I'm definitely not, and matches me similarly. The "overwhelmed from the start" matches are that. But the last-minute turnaround thing is something else I think.....There's got to be some kind of hack/exploit in play.

What I do know is, hacks or not, it's simply not fun to play. Not slightly. Not at all. I'm honestly not sure if I'll bother playing any more ranked games, or just play TW until I hear they've made massive changes to the game. Losing 21/28 games while not being the team's weak link (and usually being the strong link) isn't an enjoyable use of time or energy. Something's definitely not right. Maybe there's something in the rumor mill about this already?

Also, the patch definitely didn't do anything to fix the communication problem errors, I'm still seeing that constantly, both ranked and TW.

Maybe after a while your brain just gets so used to seeing the laser that it kind of blocks it out in a way? I tend to not even notice the crosshair in the middle of my screen because my brain has blocked it out in favor of taking in everything else around it, and my aiming has become closer to muscle memory.

Playing certain weapons in solo is definitely hard. I would know. Trying to play Jet Squelcher in Anarchy Series is tough because I don't have any communication with your team, so my long range location support is not even close to as useful as it would be on a team. That's the unfortunate reality of solo queue, you're going to have a much harder time winning with a weapon if it can't easily push. This is why Splattershot tends to be better in solo than something like L-3 Nozzlenose, for example.

I'm comparing my gameplay to those screens and I'm wondering if the replays paint the full lines in while the live play doesn't. In live play the lasers don't fully extend across the map, when you see 3 charges charged, there's not 3 lines streaking across the map covering the range of the charger, and it only seems to show it when you're looking at the charger from the player perspective. yet in the replay/screens, there they are. In the first game you'd see all the lines streaking across, but they were kinda broken and bouncing around in real time, and with Japan lag it was a funny mess. I need to compare it directly sometime.

So I will admit that most charger feel amazing right now, goo tuber feel good, basic charger feel amazing to have an aggressive control option for objectives
But squiffer doesn't feel the same to me maybe it is just I always have favored it new squiffer kit

But with such a huge meta focus on range blaster, sloshers or aggressive shooter using the inkdodge even with my love for them squiffer feel lacking in their kit right now

Also I will admit my biggest gripe right now with Splatoon 3 is honestly 1 key aspect of map design spawn
Simply put there some maps back in the day that had an issue with spawn camping but most times it took alot of effort to do so sucssfully with various paths to take.
But for some reason it feels like they leaned in to this concept it feels too easy, spawn is just so easy to inflitrate and for some reason most have a choke point that extremely difficult to defend

Eeltail alley, Hagglefish market and undertow spillway feel so momentum heavy, once one side gets a wipeout you are just walled in a a good portion of the match
Scorch grodge is similar unless you have someone defending your flank the whole match....thankfully it is a decent sniper spot so (shurgs)
Though of all somehow they took hammerhead bridge and made it impossible to not get spawn camped.

It is so weird cuz after how bad this was with urchin underpass (shuddders) and the new spawn feature for S3 this feels like a return to that same map design.

Also @Award yeah I still run into him ryanator and a few other OG S1 vets....also has it really been that long, welp it looks like it is high time for a rematch lol

Goo tuber is inkredible with the kit now. It's still my favorite wep, but I still cant trust it for solo queue ranked. I did yesterday and did as ok as with anything in it, but it can't play with the wild abandon needed (even if you lose anyway :) ), I never loved squiffer. I've seem some great squiffer uses, but somehow, it just never worked out well for me. Tuber is the squiffer I always thought squiffer should be.

You may be right about maps. I've been thinking the specials charge up too fast, but maybe the map design is really the key issue. I loved Urchin Underpass but hated the spawn camps. When I think of camps though I usually think of the docks. Hammerhead is definitely a problem. Too much focus on the maps is narrow paths to a small center to contest. Great charger play now, unlike 2, but the whole map is just one big choke point now. With the new spawn you'd think that was a priority to avoid!

Haha yeah, that would be a blast to play again. I won't kid myself to think I could keep up, or that I would even have a chance taking a charger against you, but that would be fun! :)

 

[gelatinoushare]

Is anyone hearing anything about exploits or hacks or anything of the sort being used in any way other than the sloshing machine/blaster glitches in general use?

The matchmaking......it's of course unimaginably broken, but I'm almost starting to wonder if there's something else going on in the ranked rooms beyond the abhorrently broken match making. If it's just the match making, it needs to be taken back to the drawing board ASAP because it couldn't be more broken if it tried, but....everything is feeling off.

I started a ranked run a few days ago, from A- to A, with nary a problem. In fact it was a straight run of pretty easy wins up to the rank-up match. The rank-up match was comically easy, with a solid team we ALMOST won 5/5, except 1 match we were overmatched by far and overrun/spawncamped/KO'd in under a minute. But that was the best, easiest run ever. Up to A 550 or whatever it starts you at. Then it started...

Tower Control came up after Zones. 5 losses in a row, almost two full series, not a single win. I nearly vowed to never play ranked again. I did one "open" Anarchy (not series) CB by accident with the wrong wep (flingza). That was a win, only because I scored the only point in the match myself in the last 20s (football in the goal.) But a win. I went in the next day. CB was up for series. Took my trusty hydra which I've learned is good for CB with teams that never defend. Instead I get teams that ONLY defend and no one pushes. 3 losses. Ok, I switch weapons, win, then loss. Switch weapons, win then loss. Switch weapons, loss. Switch weapons, loss. If i take a defensive weapon I get teams that don't push, if I take offensive weapons I get teams that only push. Finally I get fed up playing ultra-super-tryhard #1 splatter, #1 target, #1 score pusher and losing every round and take meme weapons into ranked. Inkbrush. I love it to death. I decide not to even bother playing the objective, it doesn't even matter anyway, screw my rank, let me crash down to the C's again. Nobody even sees the ranks anymore, and you don't play your own rank anymore, what does it matter if I'm C- and playing S+ matches?

So I just troll and harass/distract enemies and basically play TW by myself in a ranked lobby. Which IS a valid strategy with a comp team, but not really with randos. I ignore the ball carriers, I ignore scoring clams, I just mess around screwing with people and throwing bombs everywhere. We win. I basically didn't play and left the others to the game and that's when we win. So then I go tryhard with the brush. I start getting 20+ splats and under 7 deaths, #1 clam stopper, pushing the goal. We lose 3.

RM comes up and I go back to tryhard. Win 2, lose 7. One of the wins involved opponents that were not very good, I was able to wipe out the whole team myself, break the shield myself, pick up the RM myself, and run it to the checkpoint myself. At least the opponents weren't OP!

All tolled across the two days my ranked experience in "A" left me with 21 losses and 7 wins. That's about a 66% loss rate. More disturbing, my ending points after that is 520. I thought for sure I was crashing back to the B's, but at a 66% loss rate, I'm more or less treading water, only down a little from where I started?! That alone is flat out broken. Losing 2/3 of your matches should not mean staying in place. But what makes it worse is, if it's the matchmaking, the fact that I seem set up to lose on purpose. It's always obvious that when we win we curbstomped noobs that barely know how to shoot. No challenge. When we lose, which is most of the time, though it's split two ways. The first is an overwhelming team my team can't face off against at all. It's a doomed match from the start with no hope of winning. Fast KO's spawncamps, non-stop wipeouts, and we simply have no ground from the start.

The second is what makes me wonder about hacks. There have been a number of matches among the losses where it felt like things were nicely balanced. We had the lead, by a solid margin. Play felt tight and competitive. A well balanced match. And then in EVERY single one of those cases, in the last minute it suddenly turns into the above. The other team suddenly becomes nigh-unstoppable like they're using aimbots. Wipeouts every spawn cycle, and no matter what you do, or where you are, even if you're moving with your team everyone is just splatted instantly and swarmed by opponents with really no hope to break out. Normally that's "the other team is vastly superior in an unbalanced match". But this suddenly starts near the end after we're ahead, after the opponents played in what seemed like a very good, balanced game, suddenly they become unstoppable X-ranked beasts and crush us with 30 seconds on the clock. Not once, not twice, but numerous times.

Something seems not right. Yeah the matchmaker is beyond broken, but...the sudden transformation that I keep seeing where normal games become a 1-sided massacre like a switch was flipped, average skill opponents suddenly kill instantly the moment anyone is in range, with perfect accuracy, like a bunch of B+'s just became X's in the final minute of an A match, I'm starting to wonder if matchmaking is not the only problem in play? I would say "it's my teams panicking when they start losing at the end and getting splatted" but I can see the difference in individual dogfights, suddenly I just can't hit anything, and I get killed entering the range of any squid almost instantly.

Maybe I really am getting matched in super-high-level games, obviously I sometimes definitely am, but other times.....why weren't the squids that good the first 4 minutes? How did they suddenly become that much better, and how does this same pattern keep repeating in different rooms?

Friends ghosts in my lobby where I can see the ranks, squids I know were in the S+# ranks in the previous game, and S+ in the first, I'm seeing are actually B+ or A- still, so I'm actually ahead of them in letter rank which is weird, they've always been ahead of me. I haven't talked to them. Maybe they're just as miserable in ranked and not playing much either, or maybe they're seeing the same pattern keeping them from advancing. Though i see them playing it a lot. ONE friend is already S+6, I have no idea how, but he's a pro squid, you guys probably play him, and you guys are a whole other tier, because you're *SO* good you really can solo carry most teams in lobbies below god-tier. Matchmaker wise, the fact that I'm often paired with pretty weak teams against solid enemies, I assume the matchamker somehow THINKS I'm as good as you guys, even though I'm definitely not, and matches me similarly. The "overwhelmed from the start" matches are that. But the last-minute turnaround thing is something else I think.....There's got to be some kind of hack/exploit in play.

What I do know is, hacks or not, it's simply not fun to play. Not slightly. Not at all. I'm honestly not sure if I'll bother playing any more ranked games, or just play TW until I hear they've made massive changes to the game. Losing 21/28 games while not being the team's weak link (and usually being the strong link) isn't an enjoyable use of time or energy. Something's definitely not right. Maybe there's something in the rumor mill about this already?

Also, the patch definitely didn't do anything to fix the communication problem errors, I'm still seeing that constantly, both ranked and TW.




I'm comparing my gameplay to those screens and I'm wondering if the replays paint the full lines in while the live play doesn't. In live play the lasers don't fully extend across the map, when you see 3 charges charged, there's not 3 lines streaking across the map covering the range of the charger, and it only seems to show it when you're looking at the charger from the player perspective. yet in the replay/screens, there they are. In the first game you'd see all the lines streaking across, but they were kinda broken and bouncing around in real time, and with Japan lag it was a funny mess. I need to compare it directly sometime.




Goo tuber is inkredible with the kit now. It's still my favorite wep, but I still cant trust it for solo queue ranked. I did yesterday and did as ok as with anything in it, but it can't play with the wild abandon needed (even if you lose anyway :) ), I never loved squiffer. I've seem some great squiffer uses, but somehow, it just never worked out well for me. Tuber is the squiffer I always thought squiffer should be.

You may be right about maps. I've been thinking the specials charge up too fast, but maybe the map design is really the key issue. I loved Urchin Underpass but hated the spawn camps. When I think of camps though I usually think of the docks. Hammerhead is definitely a problem. Too much focus on the maps is narrow paths to a small center to contest. Great charger play now, unlike 2, but the whole map is just one big choke point now. With the new spawn you'd think that was a priority to avoid!

Haha yeah, that would be a blast to play again. I won't kid myself to think I could keep up, or that I would even have a chance taking a charger against you, but that would be fun! :)

I'm not too sure on what hacks are available at the moment, but I have experienced matches where I play against a hacker. Both of them used a hack that would instantly charge their special, one used reefslider 2 times in under 10 seconds where as the other started to spam killerwail back-to-back once he realised his team was losing, this was to the point where the game was starting to lag... we still won though lol.

 

[Award]

I'm not too sure on what hacks are available at the moment, but I have experienced matches where I play against a hacker. Both of them used a hack that would instantly charge their special, one used reefslider 2 times in under 10 seconds where as the other started to spam killerwail back-to-back once he realised his team was losing, this was to the point where the game was starting to lag... we still won though lol.

Aha, so something sketchy definitely is going on! Maybe I'll dare to enter the misery of ranked one more time and see if I can find closer details like that with the specials. I wasn't observing it at quite so meta a level since I was so obsessed with going super tryhard....but if I just troll with an inkbrush again it should give me a chance to just observe, and sacrifice my rank points for science.

 

[Cephalobro]

Despite the update, there are still frequent connection issues, not as frequent as before, but still common enough to be noticeable. I only had a few today, but I'm going to say I was just lucky.

Oh and the Salmon Run crash still happens, so there's that.

 

[Award]

I played a bunch of ranked matches to see what I saw yesterday, I didn't see any matches that had that same cheat feel as I did the day before. The results were no better, 6w, 19l, the interesting pattern is holding of winning only about 30% of matches at any time. IDK what significance the 30% pattern has, but there's a pattern to it.

The matches didn't feel hacked, this time, but something still feels off. I'm wondering if it's related to what @Saber said about the maps and momentum. Specifically I'm starting to wonder if a combination of the map design, momentum, and special charge rate essentially means that whatever team makes a strong push early is guaranteed to lose. There's the handful of easy wins. There's the larger handful of insta-losses where one team is clearly massively overmatched and not even close. But the "good" matches all follow a pattern where we have a team that feels really good, works together, seems to know what they're doing, we make a good strong solid push early on, sometimes even close to KO.....then after we're splatted the other team starts pushing, which is normal. As we respawn they all have specials loaded, which easily takes us out again, and then after that, they have the ink control of the map, often another round of specials charged, then somehow are basically working as one totally coordinated, unstoppable aimbot squad after that. Maybe there still is some kind of hack involved, but I'm wondering how much is the map design/special charge rates that effectively make a comeback after an initial strong failed push next to impossible? It seems very much like unless it's a total shutout, however takes a strong lead early is going to lose the match.

Maybe the next strategy is actively work AGAINST my team and paint corners until 3:00, splatting no one unless they're near KO and then suddenly join the game in the last 2:00 and overwhelm them with the sudden entrance of a heavy splatter and throw them off balance, turning momentum? Maybe that's what others are doing and it's working? Might try it. Though I foresee it resulting in early KO losses easily.

Something still feels off in general though. These problems didn't start until this weekend, after that patch, now that I think about it...

I blame the matchmaking for the curbstomp KO matches, but I don't think matchmaking can be blamed for what's happening when I seem to have a strong enough team that can push yet still usually lose. And I'm pretty sure it's not that I'm just playing poorly, considering I'm the overwhelming k/d leader in probably 80% of matches, and either the objective stopper or score pusher in a significant amount....I don't think there's anything more I can really do. If going 15-25/4-10 or (15/15 but being the tower rider getting splatted over and over) isn't good enough to win more than 30% of matches, IDK what it takes. In fact it's been going so bad I've really just started treating ranked as more TW, and changing to random weapons. I'd go tryhard with my various mains, and when that doesn't work take just about anything. Some yielded matches were I still was dominant in splatting (Even took .52 gal...I NEVER play shooters...figured maybe meta demands it. 21/7 TC....still lost...) Took RB since it's apparently meta. Did well...still lost. Octobrush I mained in RM in S1.....did super well....still lost. Took clash blaster, carbon, slosher, played kinda poorly on those....still lost...but the pattern was the same as when I do well as though it doesn't matter much what I do. Took various chargers (which is just a bad idea in solo q, they just don't kill fast enough and reliably enough to be be the splat leader which is guaranteed doom.)

I've been watching replays trying to find what's significant, but not seeing anything stand out. I know something is wrong, but can't place what. Though it's unsettling watching through enemy cameras and seeing myself splat me over and over :P

One big problem with the scoring system is that your W/L ratio isn't the only thing that affects rank, but in what sequence you win or lose affects your rank, and IMO that's a big problem with the 5/3 scoring design. I.E. with the same W/L ratio as the past 2 days my rank points are starting to plummet very close back to B. I think I have A230 or so, so 3 more lost series and I'm back in the Bs now, so maybe today or tomorrow. Not because I won less or lost more, as a percentage, these 25 matches have the same W/L ratio as the 28 matches prior where my score didn't much change, but because the point gain with 3 W 3L is so much greater than the point loss of 0-1W, 3L across more series, so that if you W3 L3 in one series and then lose 2 whole series with no wins, you actually do BETTER in points than if you W1 L3 for 4 series in a row. The "series" concept breaks the scoring, because average w/l doesn't actually matter, wins spread across series negatively affect you while wins clustered in a series positively affect you very differently even if your total w/l count is the same across 20 games. It should be based on 5/5. Doing 5/3 means win streaks count for more than average wins which actaully weights the advantage of having a lucky team matchup.

OTOH unhappy as I am likely dropping back to B's based on pretty much assigned fate alone, it's pretty amazing that I've won 13 games and lost 40 games since hitting A, about a 32.5% win rate, and......I'm still in A, 53 games later, for now..... :P

Even if the matches weren't somehow broken due to some reason I can't identify still, the ranking system itself is very clearly broken no matter how you look at it. Either it's scoring me badly and keeping me back where it shouldn't be, or I'm really a C+ at heart and the game shouldn't be letting me play so many A matches at all but is. Yeah, I know they're probably not ACTUALLY "A" matches in the sense that the old ranking system would have been, so I'm assuming I'm mostly playing S/S+# games, but no matter what the gameplay is still feeling off, no matter the "real" rank at play, and the scoring is nonsensical with how the series works. I liked the idea at first, but not so much anymore now that I see how the math doesn't work out at all.

Aside, @Ansible I know you're lurking there like a forum carbon roller main :P How on earth did you hit S through this?! And BCL hit S+! I didn't think you guys were playing ranked at all, your cards didn't show any rank like others in my lobby, and suddenly yesterday your cards started showing ranks. And why are your S/S+ TW lobbies less brutal than "A" ranked lobbies?! :P

 

[banyochan]

I can consistently crash the game by going into grizzco, queuing up, and then going to the home screen to time out (because I want to cancel). Instead of getting a communication error like normal, I just get a game crash and have to start it up again. Is there any place where Nintendo takes bug reports?

 

[The Salamander King]

I don't think your experience has anything to do with hacking at all. I follow this scene very closely and I haven't heard a peep about hacking from the casual or competitive sides. I think your experience is due to how the special design changed between S2 and S3. This game is definitely more snowball-y than the last one. With fewer strong defensive specials (aka no Stingray and Missiles only being on 3 weak weapons) and no Ink Armor to help keep you alive after you break formation, your team is more likely to be punished harder for smaller mistakes. You talk about pushing up, dying on the push, and then losing to a counter push and this is why. Successful defense in this game requires multiple people on your team to stay alive and pop specials in order to stop a push, not just one guy with a Stingray from spawn. This is also why Booyah Bomb is considered one of, if not the best special in the game, as it's the best way to quickly stop TC/RM pushes.

Let's look at the weapons and maps now. Most of the maps in this game are flatter than they were in the previous games. This favors long range weapons over short range. These long range weapons are much better at staying alive on the defense, and in return, making a quick and effective counter-push when the pushing team feeds in. Let's now look at the kits these weapons have:
Splat Charger--Splat Bomb and Ink Vac
Eliter--Ink Mine and Wave Breaker
Heavy Splatling--Sprinker and Wave Breaker
Hydra Splatling--Autobomb and Booyah Bomb
Jet Squelcher--Line Marker and Ink Vac
Rapid Blaster Pro--Toxic Mist and Ink Vac
Notice something? Nintendo gave half of the long range weapons in this game Ink Vac. Not only will these long range weapons still be alive when your team dies on a push, but they'll also have Ink Vac to use to shield the objective carrier as they make their counter-push.

And what is currently in favor to deal with these long range weapons? Ninja Squid. Fun fact; Ninja Squid gets more effective the closer you are to winning. Here's how:
One of the most effective ways to maintain a push is to utilize a tactic known as "sharking", which is basically staying submerged in your ink and waiting for enemies to walk past you so you can kill them. Instead of suicide pushing the objective forward as fast as possible, resulting in a team wipe, it's usually a better idea to start to play more passively and sneakily once you've got the lead, killing off enemy players as they try to get back into the map to defend. Sharking extends the effective duration of your team's push. This is why good players shark under the tall ledges that drop off of the spawn plat on most maps, and why Ninja Squid is so good on the push. On the other hand, Ninja Squid is not good if you're in your own base because you aren't getting any positive value out of it, only the negative Swim Speed reduction. Because it is so effective during a push, and because just about every short range weapon right now is running it, Ninja Squid is another contributing factor as to why the game snowballs more than the last one.

Speaking of gear, the ability Last Ditch Effort (LDE) plays a major role in defending and counter-pushing as well. LDE takes effect whenever the enemy's counter reaches 50, and its stat buffs only get larger as they push closer. This allows weapons to throw more bombs and, as a result, pushing becomes much more difficult. Imagine sitting on the tower as your counter reaches 50, only to get multiple lethal bombs thrown at you every second. LDE's buffs are also active for the entirety of overtime, so if you've been noticing that you tend to lose in OT, that could be a major reason why.

There are more things, like lack of strong initiation specials, that further contribute to the overall volatility of the current game, but you get my point. Splat 3 is a completely different game than Splat 2 was and it's going to take some adjusting to get used to it. Personally I am in favor of most of these changes. Regardless, I'm sure a lot of what I have typed up here will no longer be accurate when the first balance patch/weapon update releases. The biggest thing they could do to "fix" these gameplay changes is to rework some of these maps to be less favorable to long range weapons.

I'm not too sure on what hacks are available at the moment, but I have experienced matches where I play against a hacker. Both of them used a hack that would instantly charge their special, one used reefslider 2 times in under 10 seconds where as the other started to spam killerwail back-to-back once he realised his team was losing, this was to the point where the game was starting to lag... we still won though lol.

Were you playing Rainmaker by chance? I know it is very possible in RM to use your special, pop the RM shield, and the paint from that explosion completely fills your meter up again. I know for a fact that it's a thing for Reefslider. Maybe that is what you're experiencing? Otherwise It's probably internet lag making the specials teleport and appear to be multiple used at once.

I'm gonna look at the chargers laser thing more tonight, so stay posted for that!

 

[banyochan]

From my experience, the netcode is MUCH worse than it was in Splatoon 2, which is an accomplishment, although not a good one. Here are some clips of the game going beyond super laggy trades, to the point of being incomprehensible gibberish:

https://twitter.com/banyochan1/status/1576361085602787329

https://twitter.com/banyochan1/status/1577780924657577984

https://twitter.com/banyochan1/status/1577779322982891520

Not to mention, I don't get why matchmaking insists so much on shoving me into lobbies with Japanese players, when I'm in EU. The way it works makes it feel like this game has a very low player population. There's no notion of picking people I have good connections to (close to me, low ping and so on). The idea of shoving NA and EU players into X rank together sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Not to mention, there should be some system where the game tries to create sane teams, as there are times when you can predict an outcome of a match based on team compositions. What sense does it make to split a lobby into a team of short range kits pitted against long range ones? How are you supposed to make it work when you're in solo queue, meaning that it's effectively random as to whether your kit makes any sense in a team you're on? They could either have matchmaking pick teams based on weapon classes (for example, guarantee at least one long-range weapon in every team, limit how many short range slayer weapons can be on it and so on), or some kind of pre-lobby where you decide what kit to go with (of course, people could become as toxic as they are in Paladins when someone picks the wrong class), or maybe even being able to set multiple outfit/kit combos, and having the game pick the best one based on other players on the team. Having multiple people with the same kit on the same team makes very little sense, and splitting them apart would make more sense in a ranked mode.

Also, I don't get the design decision of letting two of the worst (most broken) specials stay in the game. Having both tenta (encourages spamming and focusin g on charging the special) and booyah (panic special due to how much shield you get when charging it up, the only one I see in the game) come back, as bad as they always have been makes other removals feel like something random.

Rotations need to go too. With unified anarchy ranking, I have 0 incentive to play modes I despise (rainmaker and clam blitz), and whenever I feel like playing this game, they're in anarchy series. I'm not kidding when I say that I end up playing series maybe once every two weeks, because it never aligns with when I feel like playing this game, and I tend to start off with Salmon Run, which is nearly flawless due to PvE nature (besides broken egg netcode and your ranking depending almost entirely on wins and losses, meaning that solo queue can be unbearable when you get thrown with bad people you have to babysit). Most of the time, I end up playing other games which are nowhere as bad when it comes to inherent design flaws.

I wish this game was a proper live service, where Nintendo could remove broken specials without forcing people to wait for the next game, and that they'd consider removing weapon classes that are inconsistent with everything else in the game (I'm mostly talking about dualies, and their dodge roll ability that makes me charge into danger on accident when I'm forced to use them in SR, no other weapon affects what jumping while holding the shoot button does, it only affects the weapon itself).

Imagine a world where Nintendo gets live services, and how they enable making more rapid changes to the game, keeping the game more fresh with an ever evolving meta, forcing people to adapt, and maybe have a non-Japanese team develop (client-server) netcode that actually works rather than decaying with every release.