Splatoon 3's Unkept Promises

[OnePotWonder]

If I had a nickel for every time Nintendo released a new weapon in Splatoon 3 lacking an important feature it was supposed to have, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot of money but it's weird that it happened twice.

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The first of these two cases is Angle Shooter, the weakest sub weapon in the game. According to this post made by the Splatoon NA Twitter account before the release of Splatoon 3, it says specifically, "If they touch the line, they take damage..."

So, Angle Shooter's trail was originally planned to deal damage. In fact, the sub weapon has a parameter in place specifically for the damage dealt by the trail, according to data mines. So, why doesn't it do that now? My best guess is that they went back on this because a virtually instant activation trail dealing damage that could potentially finish off a weakened player could be seen as annoying.
The main problem with this is that the sub was originally designed around the trail dealing damage, hence the sub's placement on Splattershot Pro and Jet Squelcher; two shooters whose required shots to splat can be decreased by any amount of damage from other weapons. Simply put, Nintendo gutted Angle Shooter before it was even put into the game, hence why it was even worse that it is now when it first released, putting down no paint and dealing 30 damage on a direct hit.

If Angle Shooter did get its trail damage now, it could definitely be annoying, but it would make the sub far better on almost all of the weapons that are stuck with it; the only exception I can think of being Slosher Deco, assuming the trail only deals 20 damage.

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The second of these two cases is Splattershot Nova, the weakest shooter weapon in the game. According to this other post made by the Splatoon NA Twitter account shortly before the release of Chill Season 2022, it says specifically, "you can fire all day long without affecting your aim." This is not the only instance of a trait like this being mentioned.

Splattershot Nova is supposed to have no accuracy falloff. Unlike Angle Shooter, I'm completely certain that the weapon not working as described is not intentional. The Splattershot Nova's initial chance for a shot to fly wide is 10%, and its maximum chance (which it reaches after a meagre five shots) is 25%, which just so happens to be the same number as the default maximum chance to miss for shooters, shared with Splattershot, N-ZAP, .52 Gal, Splattershot Pro, and Jet Squelcher. Nintendo messed up while designing Nova, forgetting to specify its maximum chance to miss being the same as its minimum, and they somehow still haven't noticed.
Before you bother asking, yes, I do believe that Nintendo could allow a mistake as basic as this to slip through. Nintendo has yet to touch Nova's accuracy numbers beyond its angle of spread, and the main weapon is literally never seen in official competitive play. It's entirely possible that they still have yet to notice this mistake, and yet to hear any complaints from the few players who have noticed it.

If Nova did get this parameter fixed, it still wouldn't be strong competitively. Inkjet has, for lack of a better term, fallen off, and Ink Mine isn't exactly a sub weapon in high demand. The vanilla kit with Killer Wail 5.1 has to compete with .52 Gal (and we know it's never winning). What this change would fix is the main weapon, transforming it from a long-range spray shooter into a unique mid-range support shooter, with overall decent but not perfect accuracy that can switch straight from painting to fighting with no consequence; a much needed ability considering its firepower would still be weak. I do hope this fix / buff eventually becomes reality.

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Thanks for reading this post. Feel free to discuss what you will in the comments. Do you think Angle Shooter should deal damage with its trail, or would a change like reducing its ink cost to 30% of a tank be healthier? I want to know what you think.
Even today, have a wonderful day.

 

[Algae]

Personally, I'd prefer if Angle Shooter has 30 indirect damage (though only once per shot per player), so bouncing the line around is more consequential. And I'd love if rebounds could land direct hits more easily, so the sub would have a hint of synergy with long-range shooters.

Reducing the sub's cost to reward impeccable aim with splats is far less interesting to me.

Do you think a Nova that increases it accuracy (instead of decreasing) as it fires would be healthy? I imagine it attaining excellent precision and N-ZAP fire rate at most.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Do you think a Nova that increases it accuracy (instead of decreasing) as it fires would be healthy? I imagine it attaining excellent precision and N-ZAP fire rate at most.

I frankly do not. While a shooter with accuracy startup sounds interesting on paper, it goes against the core of shooters' hit-and-run tactics. It also only encourages holding forward.

 

[solz]

I would like to see angle sheet or do damage, even if it's just like one every 5 frames or somthing but I feel like it could be a lot better than it is currently

 

[isaac4]

Do you think Angle Shooter should deal damage with its trail, or would a change like reducing its ink cost to 30% of a tank be healthier? I want to know what you think.
Even today, have a wonderful day.

The entire sub should just be reworked but since that's outside the scope of simple balance changes, I'd prefer for the trail to deal damage over just making it cheaper again.
I'm not particularly a fan of making weak subs and specials cheaper in general since they rarely end up mattering (shout-out to 170p Chumps on Zap).
I'm still not sure on the damage but 20 sounds good to me.
30 damage would obviously be better but I could see it making the sub more annoying than it has to be and might incentivize players to only focus on the trail instead of hitting directs.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

I think a better change would be for the trail to locate people who swim under it (and to last for longer than two entire seconds) so that it actually functions as a tripwire and can be used as such. The only way to get around it would be to jump, which makes them more vulnerable and reveals their position, as opposed to swimming... which is what they would rather be doing anyway.

Also, a bigger hitbox would be nice. I'm not opposed to hitting precise shots, but if it's gonna take over a third of my ink tank at least give me a little wiggle room.

The trail doing damage could be very annoying, especially with multiple. I can see why they removed it. It feels like the short duration was meant to counter this, but it was never increased again after it was removed.

The entire sub should just be reworked but since that's outside the scope of simple balance changes, I'd prefer for the trail to deal damage over just making it cheaper again.
I'm not particularly a fan of making weak subs and specials cheaper in general since they rarely end up mattering (shout-out to 170p Chumps on Zap).

I think 35% would be really good for it. Small changes to points for special generally don't matter that much, but small changes to sub weapon ink cost very much do, because that ink is shared with your main. The idea with dart (as I see it) is to have a sub that is on its own weaker, but can be used more often. It's an interesting idea that I really like, but it's just not cheap enough for that to work in practice, especially for how little it does. If there was a delay between when you could throw two of them, 30% or even 25% would be amazing. (The delay would be so you can't use them to constantly hit people from a distance with several of them, making you use them in conjunction with your main. It could also be something along the lines of you're only allowed to have two tripwires out at a time.)

 

[Smash Arena]

I think a way to improve the Angle Shooter would be to give it a similar mechanic to Green Shells in Mario Kart. I don't actually know if this is true, but when you shoot a Green Shell and it hits a wall, its rebound seems to target the nearest player. Could certainly see this for the Angle Shooter, where it would veer towards the nearest enemy when rebounding off walls.

As for trail damage, while this would be cool, I could see it becoming a real nuisance in certain situations. It's not impossible that the developers could make it fair, but I have my doubts.

Also, something to note with Nintendo of America's translations of posts and other information for Splatoon is that they don't always get it right. The NOA accounts have posted incorrect information for Splatoon quite a few times, with posts sometimes being deleted and reposted with the correct information and an apology. So take anything NOA posts with a grain of salt. Don't get me started on NOA's localization of Splatoon 2 and 3, that's worth an entire essay with the number of times the localization veered into de facto fanfiction.