This game needs matches to be hosted on servers and not P2P. The way it is now is similar to Mario Kart, asynchronous communication, where the game 'checks in' with all the other players rapidly, rather than a constant accurate connection. This causes lag kills, and why chargers are basically unstoppable with lag.
However, constant connections aren't the answer either with P2P, this is evident in Smash, where the game is slowed to the player with the highest latency's speed, and causes awful input lag.
On a server proper, the laggy players would experience poor response times and their game would be delayed as to what is accurately happening on the server. In this circumstance the laggy players can't perform as well, and it's their responsibility to improve their connection. Snipers are usually a very high skill cap weapon when the server is hosting the game in real-time and your aim has to be precise.
However, because we're on asynchronous P2P right now, having lag means you have a major advantage due to experiencing the game through your Wii U's lag. Players with lag will see other players moving inaccurately/slowly/exposed, which they can kill far easier, and then when the game runs the sync they get those kills. It's a backwards situation where having a good connection can actually work against you.
This is why the meta is packed with chargers, because all they have to do is hit you on their screen, no matter where you are on your own Wii U, when the game syncs again, you die. Behind walls, out of nowhere, absurd accuracy. It's all side effects of the asynchronous communication and unfortunately not something that can be fixed while Nintendo insists on using P2P.
The benefits of using asynchronous communication is that a much lower internet speed is required to play smoothly, and the game doesn't stutter very often, but it's at the cost of accurate gameplay unfortunately and means the meta gets bogged down.
That's my problem with Splatoon. Not that it deters me from playing, I love the hell out of this game. But everytime I die to a laggy player I can't help but shake my head.
The thing is that Nintendo is and has always been a company that runs on populism. Whenever someone at Nintendo has to choose between pleasing a large amount of passingly-interested people or pleasig a smaller amount of more dedicated people, they'll always pick the former. One of Nintendo's core design philosophies is to have their barriers of entry as low as possible. Based on what you say about server-based online play ans P2P-based online play, P2P allows more people to play at all, and hence that is their reason for it, and probably their sole reason for it.
If someone is laggy, they might not be able to help their situation, as ISPs in the United States are allowed to choke your Internet speed whenever they want, either because you've used too much of an unlimited plan or because they want to dedicate more of their power to something else. There's legislation underway to require ISPs to either advertise
minimum data speeds instead of maximum or to prohibit this sort of throttling. I hope it passes, because I live in a household affected by such a thing. You see, I have a fiber optic connection with an unlimited plan. Problem is that there is someone in my household who has five mobile devices and is always using at least two of them at a time, and at least one thing will be streaming 24/7 (literally--she does not turn it off, ever, and it became her white noise to the point that she gets cranky and irritable if she's at home and 3 minutes go by without it working). She is eating up most of our data, and communicating with her is impossible because she's narcissistic and refuses to understand anything besides what she already believes, and it only means she'll try to hide it. (There are a mountain of other bad habits she has, like a total disregard for food safety and constantly trying to use our new electronics, but this is the one that affects
Splatoon: The evening is when our Internet becomes the least stable because that's primetime, the time she'll have the most devices on at once.)
ZA and jsilva, you guys make a good point.
There's one big unfortunate exception to that reward-based system, and that's the Ranked games.
Ranked game modes are unique and not found in regular battles, giving them more incentive beyond to just playing them for actually changing your rank. On top of that, ranked games award a lot more money/exp than regular battles, and even taking in mind the occassional loss if you manage to balance your rank you'll still get more money from it than from regular battles over time.
But the ranked battles are definitely not an everybody wins situation as you'll gain no exp/money and drop in rank if you lose, you can get losing streaks where the only thing that really happened in the time you played is that you dropped rank leaving players frustrated and salty.
I'm guessing that quite a few players had no intention of upping their rank level but choose to play Ranked anyway just because they don't like turf war/want extra cash/unlock slots.Then they get frustrated when they hit a losing streak and can't win and see their rank plummet, when in reality all they wanted was a few more extra credits for their efforts. It's a bit annoying that those game modes aren't available unless you are willing to put your rank at risk, or at the very least have ranked give something for the losing team.
And no worry, i'm already convinced the losing streak multiplier idea isn't a good idea.
There are certainly losing streaks unrelated to a lack of preformance (repeated d/c's, teammates on losing streaks), but those shouldn't last too long. If i hit 10 losses in a row without d/c's, that's a good sign i'm doing something wrong.
And believe me, i'm well aware the matchmaking needs a lot more work, in both standard and ranked modes. If i lose i want it to be partially be my fault aswell, i don't want to win with a 0-6 K/D ratio, nor should i win by constantly scoring doubles/triples against the enemy team and the moment i get shot by Inkzooka the enemy team goes for the quad and takes complete control over the map. Nothing is more frustrating knowing exactly how to deal with a situation, but you end up losing anyway because the rest of the team doesn't.
INdeed, I had once fallen from B to B- due to a series of disconnects during the evening. It's then that I learned not to play Ranked in the evening.
I would definitely appreciate having Splat Zones, Tower Control, and Rainmaker in unranked though. They're even more teamwork-dependent than Turf War, so it'd be nice to play those without worrying that your rank will go down. It'd make for good practice too. As it stands, currently, it's a trial by fire. Beginners will be paired up with other beginners though, but then everyone's fumbling together.
As for winning with a 0-6 K/D record, if I inked a lot, I wouldn't mind. Splats are not the only thing that matters. Heck, in no mode is it the one thing that matters. It helps, but if I was playing Turf War and I inked, say, 1200p on my own without splatting anyone, I consider that a good game.
