I'm uncertain, and all the matchmaking is bad, but one thing that might be skewing my perception even more is rank-up battles. I didn't realize it so much before, but it seems like rank-up battles may be the most broken of all in matchmaking, and whatever it's doing seems even more broken than the rest of the matchmaker. And when that happens, you're in a cycle of playing one regular series than 1-2 rank up series and the bulk of your games are the completely broken ones.
And, yes, "broken" to commoners means "doesn't work right" and not "super-amazing-awesome" as it does in VG comp lingo ;) Though the word doesn't TECHNICALLY get used differently in both cases it's not working the way it's meant to, whether it's malfunctioning or accidentally OP, it really is just the same old meaning of "broken" in the end :)
I talked about how the main account rank up for S+ was an endless loop of retrying it in horrible matches that can't be won, then a win streak back in, then the same thing (except for that one time I was 1 win away and then got 3 losses in a row in bad matches.)
Now the same exact thing is happening on the A- rank up on my other account, and started to happen with the B- rank up previously as well! Play the B's, get up relatively easily with up to 2 rank ups on the line.....then play the rank ups and wipe across the board in ridiculous matches. I've done 4 rank up series just to get out of B and lost all of them. "Win 3, lose 2" doesn't work when the matchmaker is broken, but works even less when they seem to break it even more for those matches. The scenario is identical to the S+ version. Whatever they're doing for the rank up battles is very very bad. Again I don't think it was nearly as bad before the last patch that "sped up matchmaking." It was still imbalanced, I think B to A on that one was a streak of easy wins with the strong team much easier than the normal games. But it's much worse now.
I'd say "they intentionally make the rank up battles hard" but this is something other than that, and it also can make it "super easy" depending on which team you're on. Most of the time the OP team is the other team, but sometimes it's my team. But in rank up it's almost always even more one sided than the normal ranked battles. They definitely match differently for rank up, and it's definitely not working. Out of the lost B+/A- rank-up series, there were some that had at least 1 win, some with 0. One time I had 2 wins, and the only way we won that was because I was put on a team that had a seriously high tier elite player at least in terms of shooting, maybe not in terms of map awareness, it was basically like having Salamander on my team for a B+/A- rank up battle......and even with that, we only BARELY eeked out a win both times. This was a player in CB that went 33/5, 31/3, and our opponents were NOT pushovers. I don't think I've seen a lobby cracking 30+ kills in a long, long time. Watched the replay, it was like watching Dude.... This guy was seriously high end....but even with that, it was a very difficult, very hard fought battle, we NEARLY lost to several pushes that started snowballing, our pro was the only way we salvaged it, even with him it took time and was close, and that guy's only real flaw was that he and the team were SO focused on trying to win by KO over in the enemy base (we didn't either time), that I was alone defending our base, so when the counter push started to come in, if I missed a shot, I had to spam the "this way" callouts because it was me, myself with at least 2 footballs incoming via 2 different routes, and their support along with them while our pro was somewhere else with the team in tow and had to make their way back usually at around the point I fell all the way back and the enemy scored at least 2 footballs with more individual clams incoming in waves.... But we won those two.
Unfortunately maps then changed before the third round, SZ, which SHOULD be my best mode was up, but unfortunately it was Mahi and Undertow which are probably my worst 2 SZ maps. I should have stopped when I saw that, but A) that sucks and B) saving a rank up last win for a cold start without a map warmup rarely ends well, so I did it...and lost 3 in what was the shoe on the other foot, the OTHER team was super extreme, and it played exactly as the S+ version does. I stepped away for 15 minutes or so, came back, same rotation and did another pending rank up battle, and suddenly the play wasn't super extreme anymore...but I still lost due to the usual B-tier woes and the fact that the map was Mahi.......
It shouldn't take days to try to get out of the B's, and a B/A rank-up battle should not be playing identically to the S+ battles on the same player's other account. I'd make a complaint about these all being alt accounts, but....so am I so....fair play? But the S+ rank up and the A- rank up should not play indistinguishably from each other! That makes no sense. But neither should they play indistinguishably from S+ one series, then feel like B with a team that can't push the next series in the same rotation so you're slamming hard between dealing with different sets of problems. It seriously makes me not want to play the game anymore...I'm not QUITE there, but it's getting close. Good, fair matches are so rare, and extreme frustration is so much the norm, I keep asking why I bother. I love the gameplay, but when you're spending your time in frustration on totally imbalanced team setups just for the digital crack of that one good match you get every 25-45 minutes, you start questioning why you're spending your time on it.
I finally watched the video. One good thing is most of what you said is stuff I've already been aware of, so there wasn't, tactically a lot of new info. Which is good. I didn't take notes so I'll have to watch again for details. I think the matchmaking being the crux of it was already a known quantity, but like I said above ,the problem is, when the matchmaking being bad is a foundation of the game, the game needs to be changed to accomodate the matchmaking, if they can't make the matchmaking fix the game. I.E. the things that make it most broken when team balance is bad, need to be changed to facilitate more back and forth play between badly mismatched teams. They can't seem to control whatever is wrong with matchmaking, so they need to change what they can control (gameplay) to accommodate the matchmaker fail. At least for solo.
Also, when it comes to weapons, I play tons, of course, and rollers and brushes have been my ranked mains most of the time, even a lot in S1. Maining charger in ranked is a new one since S1 for me. Part of that is, I'm a decent sniper. Even a good sniper. In S3 I've elevated to a new level with it that I might even say I'm a very good sniper. But I'm not a GREAT sniper, pro level with godly aim. Shots will be missed. And missed shots, especially with eliter are very very dangerous when defending and holding back snowballs. I think eliter takes on a different presence up in that comp world where anyone wielding a charger has godly aim and essentially doesn't miss. They miss, but they're less likely to take 2-3 shots that miss and allow 2+ squids to advance on them, so the idea of "nobody should get past this spot with a sniper up there" doesn't apply so much outside that comp tier of crack-shots. For a "normal, very good but not necessarily top tier" charger player, you're going to get that push where you miss 2 shots, or 3 shots ,and from there HAVE to give up your position. But that's why there's layers of S+ and (at least used to be) X and comp tiers separated...or should be if matchmaking weren't broken. In an ideal matchmaker game I'd have mixed feelings about consistency with chargers or if I'd be better off with rollers, brushes, hydra, explosh, etc. With current matchmaking, I think my adeptness with charger for different situations and trying to observe everyone's status outweighs the potential inconsistency of missed shots, but that's just it, if youre not an x-rank/pro you can't be good at EVERYTHING all the time, so you have to weigh what tradeoffs you have to take.
All that having been said, I had a few zones matches where I kinda wish I had eliter instead of charger, especially in etail where every shot was JUST out of range. That account still hasn't unlocked eliter at the 1 ticket price yet... :)
Also RE feeding, in solo you do run into situations where you do have to feed. I'm probably channeling more of my roller/brush play into that topic than the charger topic, however, it's not exclusive. This probably applies MUCH more....I'd say "lower ranks" but it's not, sadly it's high rank 2, so I'll say "games where the matchmaker assigns you noobs", whether it's a B- match with actual noobs, or an S+ match where you have legit S+ players that are SJ-ing to the sharking ninja roller inside the zone 10 times in one match (true story...) In those matches where you have a team that is just not moving the objective. I don't mean trying and failing, I mean they simply are terrified of picking the objective up and moving it - the teammate with a football you're lining up to inkvac at the ramp and they won't go.... the team that leaves the popped RM sitting there uncontested with no enemies in sight. The team that leaves the zone in enemy control without an enemy in sight, the team that won't move the tower past mid and lets it reset. At some point you really have to just do it yourself. If they're not going aggro on the objective (or stopping the incoming objective) you get two options, do it yourself and probably feed, but maybe get the hail mary run, or sit back and watch the timer countdown to losing.
I think where the real problem is is the bipolar matchmaker (of course.) After you spend 2 hours playing matches where you HAVE to feed, and HAVE to do dumb things to have any chance, you adapt and get used to playing like that. Then it throws you a normal match and the result is you're just playing stupidly and dying taking a match or 3 before you catch yourself. Or the flip side after you play 2 hours where you're just getting one sided curb stomped you get used to just having to hold back and entrench and wait for the onslaught to grow closer and you don't realize you're now NOT in a lobby like that and you mess up for a few games before catching yourself again. But the game shouldn't be swinging like that.
RE: zerg rush, the zerg rush is real. I'm sure it doent hold in comps with proper weapon mix predetermined and god-aim snipers. But again, 90% of splatoon isn't that. Right now, in the real world, the zerg rush is king. Get a fast weapon take down the anchors before they set up, boom, the map is yours, objective is yours, there's no match, really.
@Saber demonstrated it well, though I'd say even Saber's run isn't a truly clean version of it because he didn't stick around sharking after that and really keep them locked in base longer, and no teammates really joined in. Most of the time I see it the team is tied up even longer than that before flushing it out (and/or one teammate goes out to mid to push objective alone and keeps getting splatted (and 30% of the time they set it up again right after it's flushed out ,so you never really get control again. It's bad in tower, it's even worse in zones because once that much time ticks away on the zone, getting it back is so unlikely even with amazing recovery.
Zones: I agree. It's technically my best mode, or used to be, but I'm winning more in CB than in Zones recently and that's just WRONG. That's 100% on the maps. IDK that any of them are GOOD. Combined with the zerg rush it can be really bad. I'd say there's 10-15% of matches that my team doesn't take control of the zone ONCE, we get locked up and maybe make some pushes at the zone, maybe even halt their control, but never enough to take it. Right now weapon mix more than anything is probably determining who wins zones. It's sad, because it was my best mode, I saved rank ups for zones to be on, but right now, I'm doing worst when that's up. I find I only win it when I do the ninja roller routine. Preventing the team from ever getting to the zone....which....comes back to the whole sharking + zerg rush thing being the win button especially in zones.
I had a few more points I now forget!
Well it's splatfest this weekend, so I suppose I won't be experimenting with the alt for a few days...... kinda sad, kinda relieved. I haven't even picked a team.... :)
My bigger question is if I should screw over a team from getting their snails and spend the fest experimenting with tentabrella? :)
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