Survey for my dissertation, please answer honestly :)

[Vidknight]

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?
Yes, while not to an extreme degree and not very frequently I do get tilted playing this game from time to time

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?
Performing worse than I usually do, now I know that even some of the best splatoon players make an idiotic play it happens to all of us, but it doesn't change the fact that when it does happen it just frustrates me because I know I'm doing bad so why am I'm not trying to do better. The worse is making a dumb play for example let say I'm playing Range blaster and there is a dualies player on left Range (techincally all blasters) struggles against dualies so I should know not to fight them alone. Then I instantly go on left and try to fight them and end up dying even though just 5 seconds ago I said that I shouldn't go over there. This leads to a snowball effect where I make a dumb play, tilt, make more dumb plays, and tilt more.

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?
The core gameplay is fun, more specifcally there isn't really anything that is so frustrating about the game that makes me want to quit, I can name others game I stopped playing because of one reasons or another. Brawlstars due to it slimy monetization, Paladins due to the amount of bugs in the game, Smash ultimate for its everything, etc. But there is nothing about splatoon core gameplay that make me want to stop playing. Like yea 52 gal, squeezer, and zooka is annoying, but annoying enough for me to drop the game? not really. There is also the fact that others had mention which is that I grew up with the game. I've been playing since I was 9 years old and this franchise is still one of my favorite (2nd favorite LBP comes out on top) so no amount of minor annoyance or tilting over my performance is going to make me quit.

 

[DVDo]

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?
Yeah for sure. I don't think I tilt very easily, I'm generally a laid back guy, but I have tilted on a few occasions. Frustration happens much more frequently though, but it's usually something I can manage quickly.

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?
I don't tilt from particular weapons or even squidbagging players. The main source is usually prolonged loss streaks, especially if I feel I can't do anything about it. Sometimes it's due to poor performance on my part, making me feel bad at the game no matter how I play. But more strongly what frustrates me are bad teammates, ranging from people I just think are playing bad (though the blame may sometimes be equally placed on myself) to people legitimately throwing/not contributing/giving up. Another occurrence is DCs from my team during a game we were clearly winning, leading to a loss that feels like my victory was stolen from me. I can usually handle a few instances of any of these cases, but many of them happening in a row can quickly build from annoyance to frustration.

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?
If "unfair" losses are what frustrate me, wins are what win me back. I know it's simple, but winning does feel good. And I know in the long run that I'm more likely to have a good time than a bad time. The possibilities any given match are:

• A normal win
• A very satisfying win or knockout
• A tough back-and-forth that was clutched in the last second
• A tough back-and-forth that was lost at the last second /
• A normal loss //
• A rough loss or enemy KO, but was still fair /
• A frustrating loss that feels due to bad teammates or DCs /
• A "stolen" game due to teammate DC /
• A DC on my team that we clutch up anyway +
• A DC on the other team that leads to my team's victory /
• A match that doesn't even play out thanks to an early DC

The majority of those cases are good or neutral experiences (for me at least). The negative experiences both vary in severity and are not nearly as common. So many interactions can happen in any given match of Splatoon, so even lost games usually have enjoyable moments. So from my perspective I'm a lot more likely to enjoy my time playing the game than not.

I am also often playing Splatoon with a goal in mind (get a certain X Power, 3-star this weapon, etc.) which both motivates me during games as well as gets me to come back to the game regularly.

(Editing to include that outside of just enjoying the gameplay, the level of effort put into the world-building of Splatoon and its vibe goes a long way as well. I feel pretty attached to the world and its characters.)

 

[Tinybitt]

Yeahhhhh!! Coming out of my splatoon slumber (or grave) for this. @Aiko.Octo linked me to the thread and I had to reply/read other responses.

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?
Yes, absolutely. Although not in the way one would expect. What I’ve noticed is that the tilt aspect had been increasing since a specific time, or in other words, my desire to play the game and it’s game modes have been decreasing at a scarily proportional pace. I’ve been going from playing all day, to playing every evening, to playing every other evening, to playing only one game of ranked for the daily win, to playing only 1 salmon run on +2 just to get an easy win, to not playing at all. It is very similar to burn out which I guess is a kind of tilt, however I still like the game and everything surrounding it. The setting, music, the gameplay design is freaking magical and that’s not even counting how many wonderful people I’ve met through this game: be it on a forum, an IRL event or even writing my discord with a charger in a private battle. However, as soon as I enter the game even for a minute, it’s tilt-town. Honestly, it got so bad that I feel the same tilt emotion when I spectate someone playing. ITS NOT EVEN ME PLAYING.

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?
Oh man. It’s kinda funny that I actually was very critical of the whole “Charger players are the saltiest” claim when I started actively playing and at the end of the day I became one lol. However, I won’t say anything that hasn’t been said before and try to be objective (at least for now). Yeah, the netcode is abysmal especially for chargers, both on my and the opponents end. Matchmaking sucks and letter ranks mean squat especially in splat 3. Honestly, the whole “Anarchy points” system is kind of raw, although I can appreciate it for at least trying something new. Teammates sometimes are very… unique but that could be said about any multiplayer game. .52 gal is annoying to play against, but to be honest I haven’t had too many difficulties dealing with them. Tacticooler meta is stupid, but all metas change and it’s just part of the game.
Alright now for the questionably fun part!
I will be dead in the ground before I admit that brushes, specifically the octobrush and inkbrush, are balanced, not overpowered and not an example of bad game design. I won’t go too in depth since it will turn into a 3 hour rant, but still. If dualies, a highly mobile class, is punished with movement restrictions and other things, why do brushes get all the movement, good ink capacity and also not requiring to aim? Especially in a game without no voice chat and without basically any ability to warn your teammates about the flanking brush.

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?
Well, at the current moment I have decided to put it down for an undetermined amount of time. The tilt and burnout are major factors but also simply because at the current moment I don’t really have a lot of time to improve at splatoon somehow. Between working two jobs and still managing college+copious amount of homework and studying it barely leaves time for anything to be honest. Plus my recent injury of me amputating a part of my right hand thumb definitely doesn’t help things. but even with that, I still believe that I can do better. Every time I stop, I get thoughts like “But if I do this differently, maybe I’ll be better” or “If I employ this strategy, I will secure the win” or other thoughts among these lines. Honestly, Splatoon is probably the only game I’m this stubborn about. I feel like other competitive games that I’ve played I just kind of stopped playing on a natural stopping point and forgot about them. But not with this one. I still believe that I can come back and be better than ever.

 

[WIP Riley]

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?

Yes I have, sometimes I am able to stop playing once I realize I am tilting sometimes I start focusing on other things so I don't realize at first.

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?
What mainly frustrates is me my inability to play at the same level as those around me
I often get stuck in losing streaks, that don't go away even after long breaks and absolutely destroy my rank placements, this especially frustrates me because in the previous game I felt as I had a something linear progression at my skill level which not only platowed but also got worse at times

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?

The game is just charming, and playing and seeing myself win matches and have fun brings me certain joy I can't get anywhere else

Hope this helped

 

[Aiko.Octo]

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?

Who hasn't?

I say that, but then I remember it actually took me several months of playing to learn to recognize my own tilt when it was happening. I'm a sad/inward tilter rather than the angry/yell-y sort and for a long time I didn't know I was tilting at all because I didn't recognize the sad/helpless feelings that I was having still fell under that definition and were having the same detrimental effects on my gameplay even if I expressed them differently/didn't express them at all. These days I'd find it a little suspicious if someone says that they don't tilt because I think it's more than they just don't know/acknowledge/admit when they're tilting and that can be much more difficult to work with. With so much of this game (and competitive games in general) being mental, having a deep understanding of your own emotions and not being afraid to investigate, acknowledge, and talk about them is really important (if you're taking improvement seriously, anyway).

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?

Mostly I get frustrated with myself-- most often when I see myself making mistakes that I 'know better' than to make. Sometimes it feels like my hands have a mind of their own and I do things that I know are poor decisions as if I have no control over them. Sometimes it's just that I feel like I'm losing focus or autopiloting without realizing it (you know that feeling when you're driving somewhere that you drive all the time and then suddenly you realize you have no memory of the last several minutes and it's kind of scary because you were driving what if something had happened?? were you even paying attention?? sometimes I have that feeling mid-game and then I tend to get really upset at myself for losing focus that badly).

Sometimes the really tough one-sided games will frustrate me-- especially it feels like I'm getting spawn-locked with no way out, that will sometimes literally activate my fight-or-flight response (and my fitness tracker thinks I am exercising because my heartrate spikes, lol) and it feels like my head is underwater; I feel like I can't see, that there's no way out, that there are no good decisions and it can be very crushing. Thankfully due to the nature of how ranked matches play out, at least that situation usually doesn't last for very long before the enemy team KOs and it's over.

I think what both of these things have in common is the feeling of helplessness, that whatever I am trying to do isn't working and I don't know how to make it work or what I should be doing to make it work. As long as I can still see an opening, something, anything I can try, I can usually keep my head above the emotional waters, but as soon as it feels like I have no way of controlling what is going on, that very quickly becomes self-fulfilling.

The one other thing is that I can sometimes be really sensitive to the emotions of others and the 'vibe in the room'; I can get thrown off my game really quickly by others being upset even if they aren't upset at me specifically. Though I've noticed that the higher the stakes are, the less I am vulnerable to this. I think maybe going into really intense games I develop some kind of expectation that people are going to have emotions and going to want to express them and I feel prepared for/armored against it to some extent. Or maybe it's just that during high-stakes games I'm so laser-focused on the games that all the emotions just kind of bounce off of me until after the fact, hah.

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?

Aaaaaaa it's just fun!!!!1 lol but really it's so fast-paced and action-y and feels really good when things are going well (and especially playing in a team setting is probably one of the best feelings I've ever experienced; I'm a little mad I was too terrified of competition most of my life to try anything like this until now). And even when it's not going well, on the other hand, it only means I still have so much to learn and I think at this point I am probably a little addicted to the feeling of getting better at things. I think as long as there's something that I can get better at I'm not going to be able to resist trying to get better at it. Even though it's the slowest and most difficult to measure process sometimes, even seeing the smallest bits of improvement just gives me the most accomplished feeling and I just live for it.

I also I kind of need to prove a point to myself because a lot of stuff happened in my life shortly before I picked up this game and it's sort of unintentionally become the medium through which I figure out how to be a human person with basic personal agency instead of just kind of being a terrified anxious blob who can't bring herself to do anything even slightly challenging without crying. I kind of can't give up on this without it throwing other things in my life into question. It's a load-bearing video game, lol.

 

[RetroShark]

Have you ever been frustrated or tilted while playing Splatoon?

Yes… I think everyone has been frustrated playing splatoon… in fact with any game really

What, if anything, frustrates/tilts you?

It’s mostly me getting angry at myself not being able to do something… wether it’s kill a certain type of weapon user… capturing a almost impossible objective or my teammates not doing what I want them to… lack of communication is a blessing and a curse in this game… for one, I can’t tell my teammates that I’m pushing here, or there’s a enemy there… but on the other hand, I don’t get toxic uponed by my teammates… because… we ALL get angry

Why do you come back to Splatoon even after all the frustration?

Because you can’t get this kind of gameplay anywhere else! The mechanics have been recreated in other games (looking at you… foamstars) and they have similar modes, but nothing compares to Splatoon’s weapon handling, style and the utter joy of… well… everything… (that and no other game has the Bloblobber… my beloved)

hope my answers help :D