Splatoon 3 general issues

[Award]

If you guys are interested in the continuing misadventures of Award the Squid in the broken pseudo-game called Splatoon 3 Anarchy Battles for the last 50 games:

15 wins, 35 losses! 30% win rate. Always a 30% win rate! That was a number I floated with a smaller sample of battles way back at the start of the thread. Actually I was around 33% at the time so it's dropped slightly, but I was surprised to see the win rate has been pretty constant from the start. No matter the account, the rank, the mode, the weapon I use, whether I'm in the C's, B's, A's, S's......the win rate is just about always 30%. Does that strike anyone a little bit odd that the win rate would be a statically fixed number (or close to that number with some variability) and not terribly dynamic? Not changing with rank? It FEELS worse now, but the numbers say it hasn't changed, which is hard to believe. Now if you take one moment in time and a smaller sample you could find 100% win rates and 0% win rates, and that certainly contributes to how it feels, but the larger portion of 50 battles, keeps it right around 30% at all times. Such a static number regardless of mode, weapon, rank, how well I play, how many gold medals I get seems a little suspicious. Controlled? Planned? Maybe it's managing player population by intentionally slowing down how fast people escape a rank by intentionally under-powering their team? Conspiracy theory for sure, but.... If this were a casino, the gambling commissions would be rubbing their palms together with numbers like that.

Incidentally while not even trying that account got up to A from A- yesterday by a sheer lucky sequence of 8 wins over 2 series that even with a 70% overall loss rate (let that sink in, 70% of all gameplay is LOSING!!! And no matter if in the C's or S's it's always the same! Why do I play this? o_O) Those were good matches that reminds me of why the game is supposed to be fun. Good teams, worked together on TC, even mounting comebacks from behind. The standout to me is that on those good matches where we do win, there is no obvious hero or dead weight on the final tally screen. Ok, so I by technicality usually still had the medals for splatting or score pushing. But one or two of those 8 good games I didn't and we still won! Winning wasn't dependent on me having a perfect run and largely soloing the win. Normally it is. And most visibly, regardless of who's at the top of the standings, the k/d is pretty even across the team. There was no hero that went 18/3 while the rest of the team was 5/5, 2/10, 5/6. There was no dead weight where the team was 7/5, 6/6, 10/7, 1/12. Everyone performed roughly the same. That's HUGELY key. Even when I go sploosh kamikaze and SJ right into the firefight (with stealth jump) with super high risk on a round where it backfires my negative k/d is more like 2/6, 4/8...how do these kids go 1/12? Typically the winning and losing battles always have the hero that clearely outperformed the others (guess who) that carried. The GOOD matches, everyone is about the same give or take for role. Which.....is how it should be.

I've noticed a weird pattern that it seems like the last 2 or so rounds before I map rotation I always get a good team and we start winning, and then it's cut short by map rotation. I can play for hours of losing then finally get a good feeling win, then another, then a map rotation ends it. It seemed coincidental at first, but there's a pattern to it.

But the party was over into A proper, where the stupid matching started again, so I went back to playing unfamiliar weapons (which probably accounts for dropping from 33% to 30% overall wins.) I didn't stoop as low as tent which remains a guaranteed loss if I do it, but I went crazy with L3 (It actually got me a win or two near the end of zones....but....rotation ended that.), sploosh (really wasn't working yesterday, constant kills by nzaps that were behind me when they should have been in front of me.....went really crazy with carbon (figured if sploosh works, carbon works better, right? Not really, aggro rushdown is king, but the mini-range weapons are all dependent on lag, and neither sploosh nor carbon worked yesterday.) I got lv20 finally (slow going if you never win!) and bought my flingza, my usual zones main after dynamo fell short. Nope, not working yesterday. I played eliter for a good while. I played great! But....we still lost. I was consistently the top zone inker and defender so there's that. Did great in RM too but....still lost. Even though I had the best k/d I felt I was missing shots with it far too often in RM and it wasn't a good fit, which is what I remembered using it in S1 RM too, it just wasn't right for it.

I gave sheldon 3 tickets to just get the explosh already. It really didn't work in RM. I loved it when I first started using it, but the problem is in the current matching, no matter what I play I have to expect I'm going to be left 1v3 or 1v4, often. That's the usual pattern in these matches, everyone else is dead, often, and I'm left. With that weapon, like eliter or hydra, getting rushed down by 3 squids is certain doom. Unlike eliter, and more like hydra, escaping or going 1v1 with a rushdown wep is not likely to succeed. I love explosh but it specializes in zoning and if they're rushing you down you have no ability to zone, you can't ink your way out fast enough, and the slow 2hko is too slow, and you're likely to miss a shot that may or may not be expected to miss with a close range enemy as you dodge. Also, on wahoo, it's rough going with it in the rounded hallways.

I said 96 wasn't tenable due to slow speed, but I brought it anyway, and surprisingly, after a few misfires, it went really well. That may just be down to having had a good team though. I think I had more wins in RM with that than anything else, but, again, good team, too. I wasnt' getting rushed down by 3-4 on 1 repeatedly which is what happens in most matches. So right now I'm liking 96 for RM! Though that probably stops next bad team again. :)

Is 96 very different from S1? I remember 96 deco was a meme in S1, it was the instant win button that killed everyone and that's all you saw in every lobby was the gal's....mostly 96. Playing it now, it's actually a very hard weapon to play! I'm struggling to figure out how it was ever a meta weapon. The slow speed and questionable accuracy means it doesn't really play like a "shooter" at all....it's really tactical.

RE snowballing, feeding, resulting from matchmaking etc, I do keep seeing the same pattern unfold. The team gets splatted, I'm the last one left, then I get rushed down. Some weapons like charger I can do my escape artist thing and get away. Eliter, too, unless we were in the middle of a push of course. Some like explosh I really can't. Then usually one of 2 things happen. I'm getting rushed down now that it's 1v3 or more, and then when the team respawns they all SJ to me as I'm killed or playing escape artist, then they all die, again, and then we're defending a solid push with charged enemy specials that's almost impossible to turn around (one point where the SJ problem occurs.) Or, if I died in the rushdown before they could SJ to me, they swim out to mid when they respawn without the anchor, because i"m respawning, so they fight a 3v4 and die before I make it back to mid, so then I can't really do anything until they respawn, other that try to slow down mid if I have a charger or other ranged wep which is still dangerous as 1v4, but it's that or wait for team to respawn and have a terrible position. Bonus points if the team had a deadweight player because then they're playing 2v4 without their charger cover. We don't see the wipe icon most of these time because I'm still alive at least until they respawn so someone's "on the board" even if they're useless or at spawn. This is all a big part of why everything starts snowballing once I die. Things are ok-ish so long as I'm alive, but once I'm splatted once, everything falls apart, and that's a big part why, once I'm out, then they just keep dying repeatedly, and it's up to me to get a wipe or double or triple kill cleanup and retake control myself which.....there's a 30.....maybe 33% chance of that being successful..... ;)

Is there some sort of glitch I don't know about with QR? I'm seen a lot of squids, really good squids, usually the team "ace" carrying that gets tons of splats maining QR. Sometimes TWO mains of QR or a shiny QR garment. Which of course as far as I knew has absolutely no value at all if you're splatting, and they're the main team splatter. They're clearly not noobs that don't know better, these kids are GOOD. Is there some aspect of QR I don't know about, or is there a meme or something for elite players to run QR to demonstrate how 1337 they are or something? Although, now that I think about it my kamikaze stealth QSJ build should replace the inksaver with QR so my failed hot drops can run even faster! Maybe those players are doing hot drops too and they run that so they're never out for long. The super-hyper-aggro meta.

 

[Cephalobro]

So, I recently discovered that the Shell-Out Machine has a specific seed for each person. That doesn't sound random to me. I knew there was something off about taking 20 or more tries before getting a single banner out of it.

 

[Saber]

@Award
Quick respawn kits are basically for aggressive plays to skirmish and keep going in to force the enemy attention on you. If they get a splat and die they are even and if they die the impact is minimal cuz they got QR
Plus it is good for carrier cuz their goal is to push objective over getting kills so they will be the game longer with such a kit

Also Prochara does mention a few of our takes already namely map design changes and mentions the pacing of the game in this video

Mahi Is A GOOD MAP? Give E-LITER BURST BOMB?

If you enjoyed the video, please consider leaving a LIKE, and SUBSCRIBING.The continuation of the series where I read crazy opinions and even make my own and...

m.youtube.com

 

[Award]

@Award
Quick respawn kits are basically for aggressive plays to skirmish and keep going in to force the enemy attention on you. If they get a splat and die they are even and if they die the impact is minimal cuz they got QR
Plus it is good for carrier cuz their goal is to push objective over getting kills so they will be the game longer with such a kit

Also Prochara does mention a few of our takes already namely map design changes and mentions the pacing of the game in this video

Mahi Is A GOOD MAP? Give E-LITER BURST BOMB?

If you enjoyed the video, please consider leaving a LIKE, and SUBSCRIBING.The continuation of the series where I read crazy opinions and even make my own and...

m.youtube.com

That makes sense. And sounds like something I need to try on my Zergaloosh build, maybe instead of even gambit :D If you can't outfight the hyperaggression 1v4 meta, just be faster! :)

That was a good take on mahi, I meant to say the other day that Mahi clams actually isn't bad at all. It's too small, but it's not all that bad and borderline actually good. (Unelss you have a brush relentlessly taunting the charger.)

I still don't see the whole "eliter is dominant" thing I keep hearing about. I mean, sure, I play eliter. And sure, I may or may not have been the splat leader in those matches. And sure my opponents probably thought the eltier was dominant....but....I didn't really do all that differently than with any other weapon, and IMO I missed more shots than I would have with splacharger and had a worse splat count than I could have,, the only reason I changed is I was getting too easily rushed down in zones with splacharger over and over so I took eliter to stay back farther from the relentless rushdowns (and we still lost........ ) :) But I think that's still a case of "comp world problems" where the charger mains up in X/comp tier are SO accurate, that there's less room to fake them out and get over on them. Below that tier even for a good, experienced eliter main, it's still just super easy to jank away from a charger and fake them out, especially if there are two or more squids without pressure on them which.....is most matches where you play a charger below elite tiers. Both Salamander and Prochara talked about the snipe tent in Hagglefish. Personally I find I miss the majority of my shots when I'm up there, and then easily get bombarded from below. I hate it. Perch sniping never worked out well for me except for certain maps (works well in museum, mincemeat, skatepark.) Though worth mentioning I do not play scopes. I should spend more time with them, but I have never really responded well to scopes ,they just don't work for me, and I make very heavy use of charge holding and hopping. Some of these issues maybe apply more to scope players, which isn't me. I had a brief run with scopes in S1 for a while until I discovered I just did much better scopeless, and then adding charge holding in S2 clinched it.

At the same time I seldom have a problem with enemy chargers in matches, it's the darn rushdown weapons that give me problems. Though it could just be because as a charger main I just instantly know how to get around them without thinking about it :) Once in a blue moon there's that irritating eagle eye sniper, but usually they're also shooting through walls, so......


Actually the only real complaint I have about enemy chargers/eliter is *EVERY SINGLE TIME* I play eliter in ranked, the matchmaker just puts a scoped eliter on the other team to ensure I'm at the range disadvantage. It's not just my imagination, the matchmaker seriously just makes sure I'm always positioned at a disadvantage! One match yesterday it put me against both a scoped eliter and a trislinger. I think it was after that I switched to sploosh, lol

Burst bomb eliter would be darned fun to play, but I'm not sure I want it back. It won't be as bad without main DMG+++, but, I always have to clarify I was a CEliter main, not a burst bomb main eliter in S1 :) I refuse to be associated with that meta :p

If they bring it back eliter 2 will become OU meta and then I'll have to stop playing it :(

So, I recently discovered that the Shell-Out Machine has a specific seed for each person. That doesn't sound random to me. I knew there was something off about taking 20 or more tries before getting a single banner out of it.

Go figure, Splatoon systems really are tailored differently to different users. Sounds a lot like a certain matchmaking system....... ;)

 

[Award]

....and then yesterday, suddenly, the matchmaking was a lot more normal. I mean, still not good by any stretch with far too many unfun curbstomps still, but win rate was as high as 40-45% and more losing matches were at least fun to play and had back and forth rather than a unidirectional movement of fate. Teammates were actually.....compitent....even good sometimes. Opponents were never OP. Wow! A few matches I thought were comically bad and was even going to upload them, but then it turned out we had a disconnected teammate and I hadn't even noticed, so it didn't count. Though to be fair 2 of the wins had a disconnected opponent (or two...)

Account up to A+ in one night after like a week in A- all night every night. Can I get this account up to S+ in the next 2 weeks before reset? Who knows.... (who cares?). Probably not. Still recognizing too many names in lobbies, but it really does seem to relate to a player population problem maybe. If you play on the "right" days at the "right" times you get good matches and chances to win. If you play at the "wrong" days or "wrong" times, you get random mismatches of whoever happens to be online. If it's a team of 4 squidboards members against a team of Dude, Player, Dad, and p00py......"the team power is close enough and this is all that's online that the sum values add up within 1000 points, so good luck!"

I did have one match where ALL 3 teammates kept jumping to my sploosh just as I was dying, over and over. It was actually hilarious, like a trio of aligned tombstones over my splat stain on the ground every time. :) And I had one match where every time I was at spawn there was a splashwall up there....remember the S1 meme? :)

I have two UI issues with the game. The one is the countdown timers and we/they have control messages. For a sniper, it seriously messes up your ability to aim, you're trying to aim someone down, and then the text comes up and you lose the aim. The other is in CB the "ultra clam" carrier icons, while useful, can block important actions. Namely I was sniping at an ultra clam carrier from the ramp near basket on gorge, the icon hid his body, someone else put a bubbler up, making it harder to see, and he popped an inkzooka and blasted me. I couldn't see the inkzooka pop out because the icon blocked it, so I was just standing there aiming thinking I was well out of range.

@Saber I want to love explosher, and I adore it in TW, but, it's just soooo sllooooww in ranked when you're getting ganged up on. It's a really team dependent weapon I think. So is charger/eliter but those can at least try to go for the 2 shot or the panic 3 shot in a pinch, splacharger can do trick bomb drops, and eliter can bait into mines, and both can quickly make an escape attempt. explosher lumbers with that lag after an attack animation, and especially with close range enemies, and possible unexpected missed shots (not unlike dynamo) it seems like it's a 3-4 shot weapon up close more times than not with very slow shots a lot of the time. Rushdown is just too effective on it when you're often left with 1v2 or more. I thought it would be my RM main, but it's not working out well. It either works great if I have a solid team, or I become the weak link if I don't. I've kind of gone from "wow, this this is awesome, how did I not know about this?!" to "this thing sucks...." It's really really good if you can keep things zoned and have a team that can back it though. But it falls apart extremely badly once you're on your back foot and trying to push back, or just getting run down.

I'm starting to really get the swing of 96 in RM though. I still don't understand how it was ever a meta weapon. It's not an easy weapon to play at all despite being a "shooter". It's not L3-hard, but it's not easy. It's a "2-shot" but shots are slow, and accuracy is like a blaster mid-jump. I swore off shooters, but that one's really interesting. L3 I still can't get a solid feel for.

Sploosh....it's so lag dependent. I ran it for a while I think for RM in metalworks, when it was good it was REALLY (and depressingly) good. I changed my kit up from stealth jump to drop roller and wow that works well with it. But, the problem comes in with lag. All was good and it was an easy win button until the match I encountered a semi-invincible trislosher. I'd rush them, run circles around them shooting, and not all the damage ticks that should have happened happened, and they kept just wiping me. Multiple times. Same player was spared my ultrastamp at least once as well. That really allowed them to put the snowball into effect, and once it set in it was impossible to stop. I'ts an absolute monster in a normal match with how I'm playing it....but any lag and it's a "shoot me" sign. I was going to try the same build with carbon, thinking a hyper-aggressive carbon is basically a spoosh with a more guaranteed ohko. I tried carbon the other day and it didn't work out, but maybe playing it more like sploosh will do better. But the maps changed the moment I equipped it, and it was time for charger on TC :)

 

[Award]

....and then yesterday somehow the matchmaking decided to work almost ok and teams were a lot more balanced.... I got up to the S rank-up in a single rotation.... Aaaaaand then the curse of rank-up battles took over....2-wins, then 3 stupid curbstomps. Back into the A+ pool....... It's been a different game the past 2 days than the full week before. It's amazing how volatile it is, though I'm still becoming increasingly certain lack of players is the problem. So many names in the lobbies repeat. If we got every player I played with this past week to post on squidboards, it would still be kind of desolate here.... :)

CB has actually been one of my best modes all along despite popular opinion....but....yesterday it fell apart and every round was squids lightning fast getting to our basket and we couldn't really push into theirs. I'd splat the incoming, but almost always AFTER they tossed the clam. Not sure what the change is, but it went from "often balanced teams in CB and only CB" to that being the imbalanced mode now.

@Saber I take back what I said about .96. I like it...but it's kind of like explosher. It works really well when you have a solid team. But I was right the first time, when you don't, and have to carry, it just physically fires shots too slow to keep up with the barrage and the rate you have to shoot to take down multiple squids at once, it just takes too long aiming at one squid to kill it to go from one to the next to the next, unless you get in too close where travel time and spread are less of a problem, but that's too dangerous. It's also lag affected like Sploosh but more dangerous. You're less likely to die as a result since you're farther ranged, but you're more likely to let them slip past and score points if it misses a shot or two close up. With the lag and wide spread that happens more than is helpful. I know tent falls in that category too. The fast meta really prevents those slow weapons from performing as they should, eliter and hydra as the exceptions due to range. I daresay in CB it's inherently fast and really makes the slower weapons bad overall for the mode. RM and TC slow the objective to a crawl, and zones brings everyone to one spot, so CB is unique in having high speed squids divebombing the goal.

Lag.... is a problem. I miss hitscan chargers, the amount of times I bring eliter against another eliter and they kill me after I kill them is becoming very irritating.Not to mention them shooting through walls (can Murch give me that ability too?)

My new anti-lag sploosh build is run + swim + swim mains. From Zergaloosh to Sanicsploosh, Gotta' go fast! I did try carbon and it's a no-go. Worse than sploosh, solely because of range. Spoloosh has at least some, carbon has none. It's stuck sharking only, it can't do aggro really at all, it's outranged by everything, even other fast shooters and brushes. Maybe it's for the best, but, I don't see myself using it. IDK why it worked out better in S2, but it definitely did.

I'm struggling to find a really viable build with unusual weapons that really works around having to carry. All weapons are viable in balanced teams, but there's a limited pool that works for carrying. Most weapons I like other than chargers are just too slow for the 1v3 situations, L3 probably is good but I'm not great with it so far. The sploosh and charger combos work. I thought 96 and explosher would, but I don't think they really do. Tristringer does. I've played a lot of ballpoint and nautilus in TW....I've had mixed results with them, especially ballpoint. Sometimes it's amazing, other times it just seems to struggle. But I may try that again in ranked at some point....it's really versatile, at least, I liked it in S2 as well! I'm still sad that flingza is meta.....I liked when I was weird for playing it :)

 

[Saber]

@Award
Explosher is good but yeah it is team dependant and sometimes the struggle of solo queue, though again it is good on Towercontrol, Splatzones and can be decent in RM as well, (been running object shredder which does help some of the issues with the current meta), but yeah the main thing is its sub weapon, at least in S2 you had sprinkler for generating special and helping block a shot or two

So here is something that I learned from salmon run that kinda help, 1st both .96 and l-3 have the same dps (damage per second) just one is a bit slow and the other takes 2 burst to KO

For .96 gal keep in mind it is basically the shooter equivalent of a range blaster and basically can be played like one in many ways, yesterday I made use of it very well on wahoo world essentially I was running a mix of IA and ink saver with swim/ run speed using the squid rush to pop out and take out a target and then using the sprinkler to take point while I pushed

As for taking to long to kill, I never had that problem it is a two hit KO and I can easily take out 2-3 targetsbut to be honest I am used to shooters and keep then in my regualr rotation so maybe it just I am used to its rng moreso than anything(?).
But once you get used to its feel it is very solid dps,
Though as a fair heads up you it slows down runs speed exponentially while firing and its rng (or bloom as some call it) get worse the longer you hold it down, so you do want to stop firing every once in awhile.... honestly that is part of why I been running IA the squid roll and squid surge give perfect accuracy for the 1st few seconds making it easier to aim (I will see if I can post the clip cuz it was funny)

Also because it is a shooter you do not need to keep maximum distance like a charger, you can just rush them especially after you land the 1st hit
*which is why I also compare it to the range blaster you can just go in once you land a shot, you have a good range you want to stay at but nothing prevents you from going in, and plus like range you also put tons of pressure on any backline


As for L-3 it is a very solid weapon in Splatzone for its firerate, even if you just go full carry and paint you can turf so so quick that you can keep up with nzaps, and splash for map coverage, plus once you get a foothold you map coverage can make it really hard for an enemy team to reclaim map control, with crab tank even keeping them in spawn on some maps
But again it can only really wall out if you get those initial picks, but even without them you can easily hold a zone with your insane turfing power and firerate, I also know it can be good in RM as well

Carbon vertical flick is honestly very good still and while it may not kill nearly as quickly do not write it off it make a world of difference, but yeah the issue you are feeling with carbon mainly though is its bomb, it doesn't have burst bomb without it the carbon feels like it is missing an essential piece to its kit, it was the same with Splatoon 2 its just we got the carbon roller deco so soon after that we didn't notice.
But if you are missing old carbon days, pick up the Splatana Stamper and play it like a carbon roller you will be just as happy

 

[Award]

I remain so disheartened by this game. TW is fine, TW is great, TW is really the real Splatoon game anyway. Anarchy is a completely broken mess, is borderline abusive, and anybody who bought the game primarily for Anarchy should get their money back. I'd rather play Cyberpunk PS4 launch edition. It's just that bad.

I get that nobody plays it and that's half the problem, but they really have to do something to break it, or remove ranks, or something based on how it really works. I'm sure everything is fine and good in Japan, but outside Japan it's a disgrace of EA caliber. So I got he alt account up to S, but the level of intensity, hard carrying, extreme comp championship level of play required to win was beyond absurd. After multiple passes into the totally broken rank-up battles and basically wiping out completely due to terrible teams mostly, not so much OP opponents, I brought back the Sanic Zergaloosh build for SZ to get back up to the rank-up. The goal of the play is simply to solo deny the other team from ever even playing, just take them out before they hit mid, so they never get to the zone, keep them distracted chasing me, re-inking, basically anything, repeatedly throwing myself into trades to just non-stop pressure them and ink their base to keep them busy. It works. Unless my team was really bad or the other team was OP it would guarantee a win by making sure my team only had one or two enemies to deal with at once and could just sit on the zone (and sit on the zone they did indeed!) So into the rank up battle, 2 wins due to this, 2 losses....if the other team is on to me and can shut me down before I get them trapped, it's over, I die, they play normal, and we lose. The final round was nasty, the other team controlled the zone much of the match despite that...somehow I got a lucky triple kill with ultrastamp on the zone, and we somehow rebounded, and I got them boxed in again just outside the zone long enough to win and get it up to S.

That was not fun, not pleasant, and needing to basically dominate the enemy team solo is NOT what should be required for S, not even S+, not S+10...just S.... It was actually physically stressing on the hands to play it that hard, for that long.

The next day, by pure luck, SZ was up again. I played a series on the alt....5 wins, 1 loss, Sanic Zergaloosh strategy but a little more relaxed. The outlook was good so I decided now might be the time to get my main account to S+ with the pending rank up I had waiting forever after being wiped out about 15 times now in total BS matches. So I start....with "a player has disconnected" after 30s. Then, "communication error" on next lobby. Then another communication error. Then into a match.... "a player has disconnected"..... not a good start. So into it I have 2 wins 2 losses. Twice the other team stopped my zergaloosh at the start and we never recovered. Finally the last match we were winning by a landslide, only 4 seconds to go! Other team and 60+15. Then in the last 30, probably LDE-driven, they take the zone, and we never again can get past their unstoppable wall of suppression fire..... At all, we just die and wipe over and over and over, and any approach to attack any enemy yields instant death. So back to the pool. that was probably my one and only real shot before reset at getting that account up to S+. Gone.

In all THREE games where won or nearly won, I left my team no more than 3v2 battles. In one of them I scored a near-wipe in enemy base and the team finished off the straggler and we got a true wipe at the start of the match. And yet, in all THREE, my team refused to ink the zone!!! I got a wipe deep up at spawn, and then noticed that the zone was not in our control. I had to run back down myself and see a zone with splashes of enemy ink through it and no teammates around! THIS IS S PLUS!!! And these kids don't know to ink the zone?!?! In that last round the 4 seconds the team didn't ink the zone until I came back and did it is the very 4 seconds we lost by!! That cost me finally escaping the nightmare!

And that's my biggest problem I think with the system: It's designed to consume as much of your real world time as possible, just like every other GaaS that tries to maximize "engagement numbers" by holding players hostage. Every time you play a rank-up with broken matches, you then have to spend 40-60 minutes playing another series to try again assuming 5 wins. 80min to 2 hours if you have to play two of them, just to try again. So if they give you bad rank-ups 6 times, you lose 4-6 real world hours being forced to play to try again. That's not fun, nobody should ever really even do that. Which probably explains why noobs and pros are the only 2 groups left playing. You stop playing because it's fun, you play because it's required to do the thing you actually want to do.

But that's not the worst. After that I continued zergaloosh with another series on that account, so I'd get it back to the S+ rank up. 4 wins 3 losses, not the best, but it barely by like 3 points got me into the rank up again where I left it sitting once again for the millionth time. Then I went back to the alt to just play some regular non-rank-up Anarchy to get it ahead toward its own rank up. Map change to CB. Now for weeks CB was one of my winningest modes. Now? Loss, after loss, after loss. I tried different weps, different strategies, it does not matter. Most rounds played my team scores not one point. Toward the end I start taking my charger and just running solo hail mary dives into enemy base with a clam. Almost made it twice but the throw fell short. Bad strategy, but better than waiting for someone else to not do it. One match it puts me against a team with TWO inkbrushes...at leas one of which doesn't even fight or attack, purely a QR clam carrier. I get out of that lobby, wait a minute, then enter a lobby again. It puts me up against the SAME EXACT TEAM, with one player change! I'm recognizing names. A lot of names. Wait, these are the people that were just in my bad S+ rank-up matches...even from the winning team....they're back in S! They lost their rank-ups too!! WTF most of the people in the rank up battles never actually rank up no matter which team they're on, winning or losing!!! We're all still trapped here! Literally nobody playing is the core problem but I am now starting to think that it's not an accident, these bad matches in rank ups, the system really might be manipulating things to keep player population managed where it needs them to "fill out" ranks rather than let everyone advance. Relentless losses. Finally map change (at last!) RM is up. But it gets no better. Loss after loss after loss. Opposing teams that push hard and steadily forward. Not super OP players, but relentless, vs my team that never really gets the RM more than 3 feet. I started running it myself.....and quickly learned becoming "#1 score pusher" in these matches requires no more than picking up the RM once, walking it near the first checkpoint and dying. That's it. I'm the #1 score pusher all the time!

The imbalance is one thing, but why is it the other team is ALWAYS the coordinated one that knows how to play, and my team is ALWAYS the one that doesn't know what they're doing? That's not random, that's not chance....that's INTENTIONAL. They system does that to me on purpose. But it has never ever been THIS bad....this is the worst yet. I think I played something like 18 games and had 2 wins. That account is almost down to negative, for the first time I've ever been negative, and the only reason it isn't is because I just stopped playing and played TW, where, amazingly, 80% of rounds were a win and I wasn't even playing mains. And there were no shortage of S and S+ rank badges on players there, either.....hmmmmmm?


I think there's a few key problems with Anarchy at this point:

• The matchmaker is broken, maybe by incompitence, maybe by intent to manipulate player pools and maximize engagement like most GaaS services. But it's broken in devious sadistic ways at this point. But if it were incompitence, wouldn't the good/bad average 50/50 by chance? This seems less and less like an accident.
• Nobody plays. Nobody ranks up. It's a handful of players forever stuck in their rank to the point that you keep encountering the same players every time you play, and the same players across the same rotation. Even a good matchmaker would be stuck with bad options.
• The already thin player population is being split between Anarchy, open anarchy, salmon run, making it even slimmer population.
• Open anarchy re-introduced a Splatoon 1 problem of bad players being carried by good friends through C and B. Probably not A and very unlikely S/S+ because the amount of points required are too much to chip away at it at 8p a pop, but the A's are flooded with bad C- players carried in Open, that then create bad matches and start polluting the higher ranks (If the A's have Cs in there, then some low skill squid get dragged to S by chance making S broken which ends up keeping some S+ players stuck in S, etc, etc.
• The raking is a MASSIVE step back from S2. The single rank for 3 modes was broken in S1. S2 fixed it by having 4 separate ranks for 4 separate modes which simply makes sense! Someone good at RM isn't automatically the same skill level in CB. And even S2 fell short, someone good at octoshot in RM isn't automatically the same skill with eliter in RM, but the game acts like they are. S3 going back to a single rank for all modes makes for a miserable experience of, say, S+ players that do not know to ink the zone when the enemy is wiped.... Or to not actually leave the zone let alone when it's not under your control! It needs separate ranks.
• The concept of ranking a solo player on TEAM wins is broken from the start. Players contribute to their team, but do not control their team's actions or the other team's actions. Especially with a broken matchmaker/low population. It contributes to OP players being stuck in a rank and ruining games for others, and contributes to lousy players escaping lower ranks because they happened to have good teams. If they're going to letter rank you it really should be based on solo metrics, or at least heavily influenced by solo metrics, where a loss where a player is the top splatter, highest k/d, score pusher, record setter etc does not negatively impact them as much as a loss where they had no commendations. This would filter quality players higher. "It's all about the team" may be very Japanese, but if they assign your player value for assigning team matches.....you player value should be based on your actual player value, not the value of past team's results. Not doing that is a part of why 8 squids in a lobby are horribly mismatched! instead of matching 8 similarly skilled squids, you get 8 squids who's past teams happened to have similar win records when combined.
• They removed KO meaning anything as it does not affect rank points at all. Granted with how lopsided matches are, that may be a good thing, but there's no value in a KO other than ending matches early now. Moreover, there's no difference in losing by 1p or losing by KO, so at a certain point, it doesn't actually matter if you're not ahead.
• The rank up concept is just bad. 3 wins, 2 losses allowed. Around a 66% win rate across 5 matches. When the current matchmaking average is 33% win rates as average through 50 matches, and that advances through the ranks. Let alone that the matchmaking is especially bad for those series, docking you advancement because you can't win 3/5 matches when winning 3/5 is exceedingly rare in the game overall, is a completely bad idea, and, again, it's not evaluating the PLAYER'S rank, it's evaluating the TEAM'S rank, and the idea that the player is the difference that makes the team win is nonsensical when the player is only 25% of the team's ability. Insinuating the player must be MORE than that is effectively stating that ranks are a measure of one's ability to CARRY...which goes against the idea that it's about playing as a team to begin with. And even if it were true, it appears rank up battles consist of teams of 2 (or more) of the target rank and 2 (or less) of the departing rank (I.E. an S+ rank up battle has two teams each with 2-3 S+ players, and 1-2 S players each) (of course those S+ players may well be S+9....) So expecting you to be the difference on the team means it actually expects you to carry the players that are supposed to be a rank above you before you can be one of them? Sadly I've played battles there were I did do better than them....and we still lost. The whole design makes no sense. It was broken before it launched.
• Humorously those rank up battles also mean that some of the non-rank up battles that feel like you're playing lesser battes are because you've been dropped into to someone's rank up battle.

 

[Cephalobro]

I really don't like how the peer-to-peer connection stayed, especially since the host Switch isn't exactly the best one with connections, leading to the laggy mess of ink shots not rendering immediately. It's seriously mind-boggling how Nintendo focused way too much on the cosmetic side of things and little to nothing about the actual network side of things, which is a lot more important than any cosmetics in my honest opinion.

Oh yeah, whoever thought adding gacha to a first-party game wasn't thinking at all, this is why I absolutely despise mobile games in general. At least Splatoon 3's gacha only use fictional currency and not real money.

Oh yeah, they still haven't fixed the Salmon Run error, and no, I'm never going to let that go until they fix it.

 

[Saber]

So I will admit the my games last night did frustrate me, namely cuz it was hammerhead bridge Tower control, this map is just so one sided it is ridiculous

@Award
Though again I am seeing it as odd, I am not running into the same players, maybe they a all trapped in squidgatory or maybe it just the time when you are on there are so few playing the game that it is matching you up with the same bad batch of players, maybe it is the dead zone, I mean I remeber back in S2 there was a dead zone time as well and I hated it so much

As for the matchmaking I am gonna be straight, I do not believe Nintendo has the intent nor the competence to force players to be stuck at __ rank rather an unintended consequence of the matchmaking system a dip in interest due to no major update
- However I do agree the independent ranks would solve the skill issues, players who are the best or have the most experience in __ rank will be matched with similar players....,BUT this will only cause a greater issue overall
How so?
Well because players will be time locked, if they want to achieve x rank in every mode they will have to wait for that rotation, and then grind it out until they reach that rank. On top of that it will dissuade players from going into mode where they do get x rank out of fear they will lose it. Lastly it will end up become the very time sink you fear the game already is. A player will have to dedicate the next 2 hours to that game mode.

So what can be done
1st off we wait, a balance patch is coming with the new season, this will draw people back into the game

2nd we need to be the carrier I been running into the same issue, honestly I have switch all my attention nowadays to solely focus objective, cuz I right now there aren't dependable players taking on objective.
I picked up the tenta once more for Tower control and honestly it works, I didn't hit alot of shots mind you but I was able to wall out a hyrda, 2 inkzookas, and a booyah bomb between tenta shield and ink vac all while pushing objective and giving my allies places to jump back in.
I am even running mobility on my charger kits so that when RM comes around I can push the objective...cuz if I run into another squid just swim the oposite direction to 1v4 with rainmaker I am gonna snap.

So I became the person who take the objective and the one trying to stay alive cuz the main issue and the easiest way to prevent zerg rush is not to be down 2 players, and if are up then you only need to count on 2 others to stay alive
Again it isn't perfect but right now I know I have been trying to 1v4 carry a team to try and make it so they have every advantage on objective, but right now that isn't what neccesary, so I am just work on being dependable on objective and force my team to play around me and in turn the objective, whether they want to push is aggressively or hold back.

 

[Award]

I really don't like how the peer-to-peer connection stayed, especially since the host Switch isn't exactly the best one with connections, leading to the laggy mess of ink shots not rendering immediately. It's seriously mind-boggling how Nintendo focused way too much on the cosmetic side of things and little to nothing about the actual network side of things, which is a lot more important than any cosmetics in my honest opinion.

Oh yeah, whoever thought adding gacha to a first-party game wasn't thinking at all, this is why I absolutely despise mobile games in general. At least Splatoon 3's gacha only use fictional currency and not real money.

Oh yeah, they still haven't fixed the Salmon Run error, and no, I'm never going to let that go until they fix it.

A few thoughts on that:
Nintendo, of course, knows next to nothing about this "internet thingy", and it's not surprising at all that their idea of online gaming is reminiscent of mid-90's dialup gaming. Wii used Gamespy, literally until it died, for crying out loud. Second, while the game sells ok outside Japan, the majority of customers outside Japan are not competitive hardcore players, it's kids playing TW until they get bored and move on. "hardcore" gamers in the west are too "srs" to bother with a cute weeb game, they're busy with their military shooters with their "mature" friends. And most hardcore online players in the West wouldn't bother playing an online competitive shooter on a Switch to begin with. So it's a game that basically exists only for Japan, and Nintendo's surely not unaware of that. And the networking....surely doesn't suck with the way Japan's internet is. So this is a problem where a game made for Japan works fine as-is for Japan, and the rest of the world doesn't really have enough people that cares to affect profits....so....it'll stay like this forever because there's no money in fixing it. It's fine for the target market. At the end of the day it's just about money. It makes money now. Fixing it and redoing it to the core won't make any more money. So there's no justification to do it.

Third, remember that the Splatoon team is largely the same team as the Animal Crossing team. Which....is a problem. The new AC game is kinda terrible regardless of how well it sold due to being a casual social phenomenon, and basically replaced the life simulator AC always was with a glorified gatcha game designed identically to every single mobile game keeping you tied up in grind loops except without asking you to keep adding real money. They know what the casual social trend is, they know gatcha is big in Japan, they know it's big in mobile, and they know mobile is the biggest thing in the world. Sadly the lesson is working for AC, and then they brought it into Splatoon. Expect much more of that across the board from Nintendo. Be terrified of the day they discover microtransactions for real. Imagine paying real money for shellout and rank-ups and the manipulation baked in to make sure you pay up, often. The Badge Arcade bunny can come back to help make the sale.

Forth, Nogomi is kind of arrogant and unbending. I remember with complaints about ranking in S1, I think he said something on the lines of basically "trust us, it puts you where you're supposed to be," not even considering there's problems. Hand-waiving the legitimate complaints about the system, including friends carrying, (a system they half-fixed in 2 and then totally broke again in 3, because he was right the first time and no one can tell him no, darnit!) His systems are genius, and anyone that says otherwise is just wrong, Nintendo knows best!

"Please understand..."

@Award
Explosher is good but yeah it is team dependent and sometimes the struggle of solo queue, though again it is good on Towercontrol, Splatzones and can be decent in RM as well, (been running object shredder which does help some of the issues with the current meta), but yeah the main thing is its sub weapon, at least in S2 you had sprinkler for generating special and helping block a shot or two

So here is something that I learned from salmon run that kinda help, 1st both .96 and l-3 have the same dps (damage per second) just one is a bit slow and the other takes 2 burst to KO

For .96 gal keep in mind it is basically the shooter equivalent of a range blaster and basically can be played like one in many ways, yesterday I made use of it very well on wahoo world essentially I was running a mix of IA and ink saver with swim/ run speed using the squid rush to pop out and take out a target and then using the sprinkler to take point while I pushed

As for taking to long to kill, I never had that problem it is a two hit KO and I can easily take out 2-3 targetsbut to be honest I am used to shooters and keep then in my regualr rotation so maybe it just I am used to its rng moreso than anything(?).
But once you get used to its feel it is very solid dps,
Though as a fair heads up you it slows down runs speed exponentially while firing and its rng (or bloom as some call it) get worse the longer you hold it down, so you do want to stop firing every once in awhile.... honestly that is part of why I been running IA the squid roll and squid surge give perfect accuracy for the 1st few seconds making it easier to aim (I will see if I can post the clip cuz it was funny)

Also because it is a shooter you do not need to keep maximum distance like a charger, you can just rush them especially after you land the 1st hit
*which is why I also compare it to the range blaster you can just go in once you land a shot, you have a good range you want to stay at but nothing prevents you from going in, and plus like range you also put tons of pressure on any backline


As for L-3 it is a very solid weapon in Splatzone for its firerate, even if you just go full carry and paint you can turf so so quick that you can keep up with nzaps, and splash for map coverage, plus once you get a foothold you map coverage can make it really hard for an enemy team to reclaim map control, with crab tank even keeping them in spawn on some maps
But again it can only really wall out if you get those initial picks, but even without them you can easily hold a zone with your insane turfing power and firerate, I also know it can be good in RM as well

Carbon vertical flick is honestly very good still and while it may not kill nearly as quickly do not write it off it make a world of difference, but yeah the issue you are feeling with carbon mainly though is its bomb, it doesn't have burst bomb without it the carbon feels like it is missing an essential piece to its kit, it was the same with Splatoon 2 its just we got the carbon roller deco so soon after that we didn't notice.
But if you are missing old carbon days, pick up the Splatana Stamper and play it like a carbon roller you will be just as happy

I'll have to break this into 2 posts because there's so much! I'll start with weapons, then add a post with the ranked:

Now onto the weapons :) I seriously may not ever touch ranked again after the reset. I'll miss TC and SZ, but it's so broken, I can't imagine why I'd ever subject myself to it, TW may be "Splatoon" from then on. So the weapon choice may not matter much for the other modes after this....but!

Explosher, yeah, as it is, I think any very team dependent weapon isn't viable in solo. I loved explosher in TW though! point sensor actually seems more useful in TW than the ranked modes. Most of the ranked modes you know where the enemy is most of the time, maybe not so much in SZ, but the others. I find I use it in TW a lot, but almost never in ranked.

96....interesting about the dps, but I wonder if the dps is the same in "real world" including missed shots, lag, moving squids, etc. I actually find 96 easier to get the hits in a shorter time than l3. And you're right, it's a fast kill on the dummies, but in real play, shots miss moving squids....a lot.. That's really the detriment. It's a fast kill in theory on still targets. But in practice when you factor in shots that don't connect, it's 3, 4, 5 shots to kill often enough . L3 isn't so different though. But it does get a lot more chances to hit with the burst. I'm still worse with it though :)

It's not bad, I took it into (losing) RM several more times and did pretty ok with it actually. That info about the longer you shoot the worse the spread is helpful, I didn't know about that! I was definitely doing ok, or at least as ok as with other weps. Not enough to carry though.

One weapon I tried yesterday for the losing RM stream that I'm really liking is the standard blaster, actually. Nobody plays the standard blaster, but it's actually really good. It has a good kit, it's not as risky as RnB but still has decent range. I was doing really well with it, except that at the end of one match someone ran the RM past me and I was the only one there at the checkpoint and I just couldn't get them, too slow, too short range, I couldn't stop them. That made me think it's not really ideal, and yet, it was doing really well, and it's hard to tell how good or bad a wep is if you have only bad lobbies to try it in. I THINK it does great. Didn't win, but nothing made us win :)

I've also been playing Clash in bad RM modes, which is kinda meta, but it's kind of OP. But....still can't win :p I might like regular blaster more, even if clash is more viable?

I've tried splatana stamper a few times and can't get a good handle on it. I had a few rounds that played great and then a bunch that really didn't (TW.) It's not quite carbon..... I'll have to try carbon again sometime, but that lack of range against almost any other weapon really is trouble if you don't have much ink to move in. It really did need burst bombs. Maybe I'l try stamper again but I found it kind of frustrating compared to old carbon. I didn't really get on with it that much. I see how it can be good, but I'm not good at using it, I think. I used to be pretty good with carbon deco, but this carbon, if you can't sneak up behind someone, It's just so hard not to die first. Especially with the lag. I often find the old S1 "3hko" splattershot is back, where you just suddenly get 3 ticks all at once and die even as you just approach enemies. The 'faster data rate" patch made this a LOT worse actually. that's a common theme when "the other team" has an unstoppable push that we just keep dying on approach. They seem invincible and unapproachable, you just explode randomly without even directly engaging anyone as you approach them, like you're playing 2 seconds behind. And I suspect in a lot of cases it's becase you ARE playing 2 seconds behind. When it's REALLY fast, it's hard to see, but there's a lot of teleporting and "wait, where'd he go??" moments...sometimes they're good and ninja squidding....sometimes, I think it's lag teleports, and the more frantic it gets at the end of a big push, the more the lag starts acting up. I'll have to mess with carbon some more. It's hard to compare TW to ranked, but there's no way I'm taking weapons THAT experimental back into ranked as I'm mid-losing spree!

But that's not all! This is for TW, not ranked, I haven't tried it ranked, and maybe I won't, not sure, but I took squiffer out again yesterday in TW, and honestly it was really really good! Last time I tried it it was not working out, but after playing with eliter a bit in TW to brush up, and find it just so hard to hit so many fast shooters with it fast enough (or at all), I do much better with splacharger like that, I did realize that even with eliter, so many of my kills are within squiffer range, not eliter range. So I decided it's worth giving it another try. And darnit if I wasn't really hitting hard with it for a change! It's still high risk. I'm either missing multiple shots as they bum rush me and it's a liability, or I'm on fire and just popping squids left and right. I'm not sure if that's a good or bad pattern, but when it works it works well.... The sub is a big liability, point sensor again, kinda good in TW but kinda useless in most ranked modes. And a throwable would really help it out. But I didn't think it felt right earlier on, but I'm really warming up to it. I've always "liked" it, but never realy played much because I always seemed to mess up with it. But it fits my aggro-charger style well, minus lacking a throwable. For now splacharger is probably still more offensive overall, but squiffer's right behind. Eliter I'm actually losing patience with again. I'm ok with it, and supposedly the maps are good for it, but with the fast rush meta, it's really hard to get shots on moving squids that know to miss you, and even as splacharger, I find I can neutralize enmy eliters fairly easy. I end up playing eliter mostly at squiffer range. Sometimes I do appreciate its range, but not overwhelmingly often.

 

[Award]

So I will admit the my games last night did frustrate me, namely cuz it was hammerhead bridge Tower control, this map is just so one sided it is ridiculous

@Award
Though again I am seeing it as odd, I am not running into the same players, maybe they a all trapped in squidgatory or maybe it just the time when you are on there are so few playing the game that it is matching you up with the same bad batch of players, maybe it is the dead zone, I mean I remeber back in S2 there was a dead zone time as well and I hated it so much

As for the matchmaking I am gonna be straight, I do not believe Nintendo has the intent nor the competence to force players to be stuck at __ rank rather an unintended consequence of the matchmaking system a dip in interest due to no major update
- However I do agree the independent ranks would solve the skill issues, players who are the best or have the most experience in __ rank will be matched with similar players....,BUT this will only cause a greater issue overall
How so?
Well because players will be time locked, if they want to achieve x rank in every mode they will have to wait for that rotation, and then grind it out until they reach that rank. On top of that it will dissuade players from going into mode where they do get x rank out of fear they will lose it. Lastly it will end up become the very time sink you fear the game already is. A player will have to dedicate the next 2 hours to that game mode.

So what can be done
1st off we wait, a balance patch is coming with the new season, this will draw people back into the game

2nd we need to be the carrier I been running into the same issue, honestly I have switch all my attention nowadays to solely focus objective, cuz I right now there aren't dependable players taking on objective.
I picked up the tenta once more for Tower control and honestly it works, I didn't hit alot of shots mind you but I was able to wall out a hyrda, 2 inkzookas, and a booyah bomb between tenta shield and ink vac all while pushing objective and giving my allies places to jump back in.
I am even running mobility on my charger kits so that when RM comes around I can push the objective...cuz if I run into another squid just swim the oposite direction to 1v4 with rainmaker I am gonna snap.

So I became the person who take the objective and the one trying to stay alive cuz the main issue and the easiest way to prevent zerg rush is not to be down 2 players, and if are up then you only need to count on 2 others to stay alive
Again it isn't perfect but right now I know I have been trying to 1v4 carry a team to try and make it so they have every advantage on objective, but right now that isn't what neccesary, so I am just work on being dependable on objective and force my team to play around me and in turn the objective, whether they want to push is aggressively or hold back.

I WISH I could have played TC last night. CB and RM were what was up, and I just went to TW rather than risk descending more after TC came up. TC favors my aggro splacharger bomb main well, so I tend to do tentatively better there. I should post the code for that match last week that was probably my best splacharger match ever. The 3v4 (disconnect) - we lost, but it didn't count, but between bombs and snipes I went like 23/7 or something crazy like that in 3v4. It was a proud moment :) If it were RM or CB I think we could have won the 3v4!

I can't figure out when the dead zone is, but I do get the impression most of the player base is west coast and other hemispheres, and here on the east the player base is low, which probably explains the dead times and the permalag. But the nightmare started late afteroon, and my usual time is night time, so the dead time can't be THAT long. But that definitely has to be some of it. I do think "squidgatory" is real too though. It's too late for the season now, but I wish you guys could have had an alt in the past month to try to work up and see the nightmare. It's a completely different game now than when you worked up through the ranks months ago. I think if you got up int S+ early, you missed out on when things really degrated and the ranks became super polluted. Even vs a month ago on my main account it's just so much worse now. I have honestly never experienced anything as bad as yesterday. It's been bad before but never THAT overwhelmingly bad with no redemption at all. Usually "bad" means "rank ups suck, then you win 4 or 5 and go back" ....it's never been hours and rotations of nothing but losses non-stop. And it wasn't even spawncamping superteams (a few, but not mostly.) It was teammates that could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Or teams that were "ok" but couldn't score a point, so the whole match was just defending. But there's definitely squidgatory. I see the same players all the time, but once I started seeing players from rank-up battles from the OTHER winning team in rank-up battles now back in the same rank..... If my side didn't rank up, and their side didn't rank up..........does anyone ever rank up? And jumping into a lobby against the same team even after a wait is telling. That's happened a few times, but I was furious with that one because that was one of the OP super teams....and it just put me right back against them after I tried to get away. I had a different team, they had the same team minus one player. It went just as badly. They were landing clams every 20 seconds, and we couldn't even block it let alone score, both times, two teams.

That's hilarious about Nintendo's competence, I LOLed, but, they're clever....I think they're incompetent about a lot, but gambling-like systems I think they're very clever with, and I do think they're more than capable of a "simple" solution "that works' to populate the player pools as needed by simply preventing player movement by heavily misalignment teams. And I honestly don't believe that's new for S3. But I do think rather than "clever" solutions to have fake ranks, they would do better to just stop pretending they have ranks and lay out the game mode differently. If they're matching on MMR anyway, the ranks don't actually serve a real purpose, and especially so, since two different A players are playing 2 different skill levels to get out of "A" - it's not even the same skill rank, it's a meaningless show.

I disagree to an extent on the individual ranks. Each mode is basically four separate games. Letting someone who is X play X level in a mode they don't play does nothing but ruin the game for their team. It mandates imbalance and total chaos (They did say chaos is the theme for this game, though ,and boy did they deliver!) Yes, you have to grind the modes...but...isn't that a good thing? If you didn't reach X rank in Rainmaker, you are not X rank when playing rainmaker, plain and simple. This is evidenced when you're playing high ranks, in say, SZ, with teams that don't even know to ink the zone. They are not that rank in that mode, nothing good comes from putting people in a mode that aren't that ranks' experience level in that mode. Right now people wait for a particular mode, grind that up to a rank, then play other modes.

One possible fix to have one rank and all modes is, instead of rotations, actually force ALL modes randomly, so everyone ranking up can play any mode at any time, like with tricolor defending, so you can't skim only one mode, and if you suck at one, too bad for your rank. I prefer 4 different ranks, personally so if you just like TC, you can play just TC, and be the greatest that ever was. At TC. Right now, if your'e really good at ANYTHING you can skim up to ranks. Instead, making it random would mean you have to be good at EVERYTHING to go up the ranks. That would at least be more fair if you're going to be represented by a single rank.

Right now you can't even lose ranks, so that wouldn't lead to people fearing losing rank, which would actually make the no-rank-down a good thing. But it would mean you have to actually be good at the thing your'e playing to play games at that level. And right now you have to dedicate hours of grind to NOT advance in part because of so many players that are below par for a given mode at a given rank, instead of spending hours just proving your own skill among equals. Right now it leads to squidgatory, being walled off from advancing based on pot luck teams that may not be good at the mode. At least that setup would put the time toward grinding progress rather than stagnation and falling backward as much (hopefully :) )



Carrying/staying alive:
Carrying is a fairly good call, unfortunately. You know what's really really weird? I found in the Cs and B's, even As, players played the objective MORE than in S and S+!!! I don't even comprehend why, but the S/S+ players seem to actually be some of the worst players in the game! I honestly don't know how they made it through the ranks! And how they're playing WORSE than the C,s B,s and some A's! I never (ever!) had team problems with pushing, or covering objective in low ranks! Only when we had OP curbstomps was it a problem where nobody could make it out. The matches were *BETTER* there! The higher in ranks I go the worse it seems to get, with players that seem to understand the objective LESS than the low rank players! I'm not sure how that is happening but it absolutely is! Sure, the S/S+ squids may be better CoD players that are more adept and insanely fast shooting skills and accuracy, but they don't actually know how to play Splatoon, like, at ALL! I don't even know what to make of it. I never had a problem with "bad teammates" in low ranks. Op enemies, yes, bad teams, not really. In S/S+ it's non-stop teams that just leave the RM sitting unguarded, popped, while they go shoot stuff elsewhere. Teams that won't ink ground, and therefore, have no movement with clams at all. (but the other team never seems to have this problem.) My low rank CB teams were awesome, they'd get the clams, they'd have good strategy AND communication with this way/booyah, and could really work as teams. High rank? Nope. Get the clam and go skirmish.....or go try to get clams and leave the base TOTALLY open so 4 clams come in before poor Award can figure out how to stop them all by himself going 1v3 in at least 2 directions with a charger or 96...... I'm gonna' start "Booyah" ing whenver the enemy scores. :p

I can't believe you're even dealing with that in X/S+xx, whatever the current season has.

I've been trying to focus on carry to an extent. Never a problem in SZ, I'm almost always the zone inker & defender no matter the wep I play. I'm getting better at it with TC and my bomb main charger, plus vac. It's kinda trouble in RM and especially CB though. In CB, there's a problem that my team never has any turf control, so even if I get the clam, I basically always have to try to bum rush the enemy base, alone, through their total turf control, and hope to make it. Rarely do I ever make it. A few times I ALMOST make it but throw just short as 3 squids rush me down. My own team seldom organizes a push with their clams, I can stand by with ink vac or bubbler, but they just hang back and don't advance till they die so I can't pop the invincibility special on them. Then we all die. Bum rushing the enemy base solo with a clam is not a fun game. Especially since whenever I do it, I hear the enemy break our barrier first while I'm there, and then I can't even hit a target. Then they splat me. RM.....In S1 I was great at diving through enemy ink, I had some epic RM carries. But...in this game, while I have been the RM checkpoint scorer often enough, it's not so simple. Again, we never have turf control, so it's about stopping to charge RM to carve a trail, while my own team is curiously way back behind me and not carving a path (or dead), or...my fave, not even anywhere near the RM and skirmishing elsewhere, so I'm trying to stealth run carving an RM path, alone....and of course get cornered 1v3. Usually that leaves me as the high score setter.....but.....it doesn't help us win.... :) I'm VERY close to saying RM and CB are truly unplayable in high ranks (but hilariously very fun in low ranks.) I do seem to do better if I wait for TC or SZ. Which really sucks, and is another reason separate ranks would be nice. Right now it's best to AVOID rotations to not tank your rank. These are S/S+ players and they don't even seem to know where the RM pedistals are. Even though they glow and have a big beacon on them.


As for staying alive, as a charger, staying alive is pretty much the default, but it doesn't really help much. In fact my best-chance-at-winning Zergaloosh strategy involves the opposite. Not caring at all about staying alive, going deep negative on k/d. Win rate is actually HIGHER playing full throttle aggresively reckless, and dying more than I kill. The relentless offense keeps enemies tied up behind lines more, keeps them busy inking, or looking over their shoulder, and opens them up to my team more, as well as seconds away from the zone. We can get wipe after wipe, and still keep pushing the line. When it gets bad is when my team just follows me into the enemy base to die instead of controlling the zone. But if i go charger and basically never die and cover the zone, I'm basically alone 1v4, except on the wrong side of the zone to keep them from controlling it. I'm starting to think staying alive is the worst thing you can do in these lobbies. Relentlessly aggressively superjump pushing seems to go better in terms of results, even if you go 5/10.

 

[The Salamander King]

@Award
Can you go to the internet settings menu in the switch settings and take a connection test? Tell me what you get for download speed, upload speed, and NAT type. What you get here could be influencing the matchmaking.

 

[Award]

@Award
Can you go to the internet settings menu in the switch settings and take a connection test? Tell me what you get for download speed, upload speed, and NAT type. What you get here could be influencing the matchmaking.

55.5 down, 27.5 up, (that's with the game running, so it's probably even better without it - PS5 is like 850 down ) Nat type B (which should be good enough under normal circumstances. I have double Nat for business reasons.) FWIW my ping to Google on a PC is 13-15ms.

 

[Award]

So yesterday, the matchmaker flipped the other way. It started with TC. It was still pretty bad. I was winning some games here and there unlike the day before, but there were still at least twice as many losses. Some of the losses would have been "fun" losses if it hadn't been in the middle of a losing sweep, but, still...it still was kinda bad and lopsided.

Then just as I was one loss away from going negative for the first time ever, maps changed to SZ, I did the zergaloosh thing.....and.....suddenly it was putting me in easy lobbies, where I was on the OP team..... Repeatedly. 11 KO wins. 6 non-KO wins. Still like 12 losses, but that's over 50% win rate, which never, EVER happens in this game. ELEVEN KO wins? Half of those were under 2 minute curb stomps the enemy never got the zone. Most of them easy matches, on the obviously OP dominant team, or rather, the enemies were kinda clueless. Despite having S badges on their tags. I know those teams. I'm usually ON those teams. I had several where I easily soloed the lobby, sitll having to zergaloosh, but not having to play so hard my hands hurt like the other night. A few of them, I WAS the OP team, and the other three were there to paint the zone. A few of them were tighter wins with some back and forth with me kinda carrying but backed by decent teams, especially the eliter and splash, a few of them I did virtually nothing and someone else was carrying hard, zerg rushing ahead of me before I even got there and I picked off a straggler or two. One match I got no kills. I went 1/3, and my "1" was an assist I died on, my zergalooshing didn't work at all, but the team held the zone the entire match without me. I don't think the enemy ever even got it and I was basically AWOL (though I was #1 zone inker, so I didn't do nothing apparrently, but I don't even think I inked it a lot.......I don't get that one at all...)

One match I zergalooshed and didn't die once...13/0 or something...with a sploosh....in S rank....in the enemy base.... One I died once but only right as the tape was coming up and we won by KO.. With a sploosh....in S rank... In a rotation that featured Mahi and Hammerhead.... ?????????

I'm grateful, because half the damage of Sun and even TC last night, that brought me to like 20p and a loss away from negative was reversed all the way up to 550 or so (maybe 450 with spending on a new series, one win recorded before maps changed and I stopped.) But tell me that's a matchmaking coincidence. That it keeps giving me garbage matches for rank up, then just assigns disastrously unbalanced losing teams for series after series until I'm one loss from negative, then it just gives me a sweep of easy lobbies back to mid-rank. That can't be purely random. It has to be managing rank position by assigning favorable or unfavorable matches to move you where it wants you to be. Or it "knows" when it assigns garbage when there's low player population then tries to "correct" the damage with unbalanced easy wins or something. I'm not unhappy that some of the damage was reversed, but nothing about this is right.

The final match I played, was a total curb stomp in a flat 100 seconds. One where I never even got as far as my zergaloosh because we had an RnB that beat me up the Hammerhead ramp to zerg rush ahead of me. He went 10/0. I went like 3/1 (the one being that a splatling took out my ultrastamp though it was on a trade with another enemy. When I SJ'd back, the match was done. They never got out of their base. I ran down one hiding in a corner, on uninked ground....with an echolocator on them.... I noticed in that match, one enemy had an A badge. Either they just never updated their badge, or I'd stumbled into someone's rank up battle...where it assigned them, clearly, to lose against us. Badly. I know the feeling. Well. I'm usually on that team...

My problem now is I'm afraid to actually risk those gains by playing again. I may ONLY play ranked now if it's SZ again since the zergaloosh seems more reliable than any other mode. But the odds of getting enough SZ time to rank up accounts is questionable (and the odds of good rank ups, more questionable.) And it not being on a Sunday when apparently lobbies are BAAADDD is even more questionable. I may be done RM/TC/CB either till next season or forever. Which is sad, I especially like TC, it's where Splacharger shines. I stopped when SZ ended. I didn't want to push my luck.

Funny thing is I started the night resigned to just play to negative and beyond, giving up on the rank up before season end. It's probably not still attainable given how it goes, and only a week to do it, but....I didn't expect to make up so much ground so fast. Though it could as easily be lost next SZ rotation, assuming I just wait for SZ now.

@Saber since I'm now a dedicated TW specialist, apparently :p I played some more squiffer after that. And I remembered it's limitation. Especially on spillway. It was a good test for ranked because my team was terrible and we never won, but I sucked anyway. :p One player was a decent .52, and I'd die 80% of times I challenged her. 52 outranges and outspeeds squiffer (if you have to charge and don't use it like a tuber), and can move forward faster while shooting.... When playing squiffer against midrange weapons, without a throwable, it's basically screwed from the front, it can only play from off-angles, which is not reliable and very map dependent. And that's why no one will really ever play it. It's really fun when it works, I kinda want to like it.....but it's sooo map dependent, it only works on maps where it doesn't have to press from in front, and some maps, that won't happen often. It needs cover and off angles to work at all.

That inspired me to pick up bambi again though. I've always kind of liked bamboozler, it's always been in my sig, but I haven't really played it much. IDK if I'd ever trust it for ranked, but it's really an amazingly solid weapon never given enough credit. Amazing inker, very good range without a speed trade-off, a faster 2hko potential than 96 with more range and better inking, a throwable bomb, and a wail..... What's not to like? My accuracy with it....that's what....but....really, it's not bad at all! Sure you need godly aim on moving targets, twice, but you get 4x more tries at it than eliter, and not THAT much less range.... and a throwable bomb......and wail.... :)

 

[banyochan]

Having played multiple S → S+ rank-up battles (like 3 or 4 of them, there goes my chance of getting to S+ in season 1), I think matchmaking is intentionally broken in these. It feels like I'm put on a much worse team (so much worse that it might be a whole different rank entirely) against a team of sweats. It's not uncommon to be on a team of negative k/d ratios, and having people who score exactly 0 kills during a match.

I wonder what's the chance of ending up in such lobbies from normal anarchy series, since I don't think there will be enough people attempting rank-up at the same time, considering Nintendo treats this game like hardly anyone plays it.

Also, the pain of bad team compositions is real, at least the netcode is a little bit better, but I've noticed that snipers don't update their aim often, and I couldn't read if they're trying to kill me from their laser's movement. In fact, there are lots of cases where it seems like your enemy isn't aiming at you at all.

 

[Award]

Having played multiple S → S+ rank-up battles (like 3 or 4 of them, there goes my chance of getting to S+ in season 1), I think matchmaking is intentionally broken in these. It feels like I'm put on a much worse team (so much worse that it might be a whole different rank entirely) against a team of sweats. It's not uncommon to be on a team of negative k/d ratios, and having people who score exactly 0 kills during a match.

I wonder what's the chance of ending up in such lobbies from normal anarchy series, since I don't think there will be enough people attempting rank-up at the same time, considering Nintendo treats this game like hardly anyone plays it.

Also, the pain of bad team compositions is real, at least the netcode is a little bit better, but I've noticed that snipers don't update their aim often, and I couldn't read if they're trying to kill me from their laser's movement. In fact, there are lots of cases where it seems like your enemy isn't aiming at you at all.

Only 3 or 4? Tch. Wake me when you're up to 15+ of them, the fun hasn't even started yet! :p It definitely sounds like you're having the exact same experience I've been seeing. And exactly the same experience that poor A player on the other bad team in my last match yesterday had that surely was there for a A->S rank up battle before we ended that dream.

I suspect ALL rank-up matches are matches from normal anarchy. They seem to try to include 2 players of your rank and 2 players of the next rank up on each team (so 2 S's and 2 S+'s each team in an S+ rank up.) So the only way to get 4 S+'s into an S+ rank up match with 4 S's is if it's part of S+ player's normal Anarchy. But it's not always 2, in what was probably that A-S rank up there were minimum 3 S's on my team (4th unknown. Only one known on their team, 2 unknown.) But it was my normal S anarchy match. And...it was clearly designed for them to fail. Not only did it put them against me, but it put on my team someone even much better than me (where are those better players in my own rank ups? On the other team of course.... )

I've also seen the deaths from enemies not aiming at all. Deaths by roller BEFORE the flick, etc. Snipers, I notice when they shoot me through walls, same thing, but I don't put too much into if their laser is aiming at me or not. Unlike other weapons, decent snipers are much more likely to flick-shot and hide their laser until the instant of the shot, so if you're in range of a laser, you're in danger regardless of where they appear to be aiming. I do it myself, aim at a wall, or elsewhere, but your screen is really tracking your target, and then you just snap to the side and pop them in an instant. Or miss. Usually miss :) But any OTHER weapon, yep, I've seen that, and that's netcode. And chargers shooting through walls is netcode.

Also with specials, reef sliders that are invincible BEFORE they start moving (charger hit before they move which they should be vulnerable to, not killing them). It makes the direct hit sound, but they don't die.

 

[banyochan]

The idea of being aware what doesn't work and isn't accurate because of awful netcode isn't fun, it's cryptic, and just ends up being a great way to show how poorly implemented the whole game is.

Also, I have my doubts about the teams being an equal splits of lower and higher rank, considering how most matches are one sided. It feels like winning a rank-up is ALL down to luck, you have to end up being on the team that claps the other one.

 

[Award]

The idea of being aware what doesn't work and isn't accurate because of awful netcode isn't fun, it's cryptic, and just ends up being a great way to show how poorly implemented the whole game is.

Also, I have my doubts about the teams being an equal splits of lower and higher rank, considering how most matches are one sided. It feels like winning a rank-up is ALL down to luck, you have to end up being on the team that claps the other one.

Agreed. Charger lasers are unique in that players may actually be shooting without appearing to be aiming as an actual technique, but yeah that ONLY applies to chargers and only with players skilled enough to do that so it's certainly not always the case and may be lag.

The game concept is technically faulty, as it's too fast for the Internet. The whole design needed to be slower if it was designed as an internet game. They're stuck with it now, but it speaks to their inexperience with online gaming when they made an ultra fast shooter and thought it would be fine online.

The rank ups really do mostly seem to keep to even ranks, if you look at the badges of the players that have rank badges. But that's misleading because they also match on MMR and a given rank seems to include everyone from those that don't know how to carry objective or even know the map/mode to likely comp players. They have 2 S and S+ players but it's also obvious it's very deliberately not equal in any way. If it were broken it would be random, you'd be 50/50 on the good or bad team. But it's pretty constantly lopsided against the favor of the rank up player. I don't see how it can simply be accidentally broken and always favor the same result. That sounds more like it's doing what it's intended to do. Although it got much worse after the patch that made ranked match making "faster" even though it's actually slower. You know, the patch after the one that fixed communication errors but actually didn't...

 

[Saber]

So honestly I think I am starting to understand why this has been bugging me so much

Splatoon 3 has only had 1 patch so far and no major changes yet.
Why is this bothersome?
Cuz both Spaltoon 1 and 2 had frequent updates almost weekly a new weapon or update with 2 or 3 updates a month and with each weapon addition which shifted the meta slightly other weapons were balanced.
However all the weapons are here from S2, so as a plus weapon updates are less frequent with more time going to redesign for alt and new weapons being added.

The downside to all this though is balance updates are less frequent as well being almost 3 months and only 1 patch so far.
I do feel that with all the data complied patches will be more effective so far we are gonna see nerfs across the board

I definitely see nerfs coming to booyah bomb, tenta spam, probably inkshield special charge rates, and definately a nerf to Last ditch effort

The delay though has made it a little bit harder cuz I think most of us are used to dynamic shifts in the meta (heck in S2 trislosher and aerospray were consider OP in the 1st 2 or 3 patches). Right now meta is eliter/hydra get 2 picks and then you can wall out a zone or wait to 50 or 30 and then you get to win.

So here's to the major December update fizes things, and that updates are underway for matchmaking and maps as well (plz nintendo)