Well, I leave for a few days to enjoy Thanksgiving, get slammed by work and all the trappings that go with that, and then come back to find that I have missed like four or five decent conversations! What the carp is that all about!? But none of that means I have no contributions to the discussions. It does mean that I have a long post coming up. Might wanna make a sammich or something.
First,
Splatfest. Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi. Frankly, I'm a fan of both. I love swords and sorcery, and I love robots and technology! How do I choose between the two? Well, in the end, I just had to take an honest evaluation of my hobbies. Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons (yes, I am that type of nerd :p), and a lot more time spent on Skyrim due to it's recent re-release on the Switch made me go with Fantasy. This means that I won! Hooray! Thank goodness Marina and I got to go home with the W! But that does not mean that I didn't have gripes with it.
First, and I know this is a hot button topic here right now, the
matchmaking. I don't normally complain about this too much, mostly because I have experiences with Splatoon 1's oh so immaculate machmaking system. Making it regional is a problem, yes, but so is match balancing. I've been in the same boat many of you have been in. Getting consistently grouped with lower level players and trying my best to fend of the impending massacre unfolding right before my eyes with my trust rifle/gatling gun/calligraphy brush. There is no two ways about it, this is a crappy position to be in. Being steamrolled isn't good for anyone's self-esteem. But it's not like this never happened in S1. In fact, with the Japanese players in the mix, it happened more often than not. What this does for me is make me savor the good matches that I got and made me feel great when I could stand toe to toe with the Japanese players! I felt like I was really improving by being placed in some bad situations. Now this, by no means, should say that I am happy with the state of things as they are now. It's as if Nintendo heard what we were saying about OG Splatoon's matchmaking processes and the frequent DCs and made some of the appropriate changes, but those changes brought a whole new box of spiders to deal with. What I would propose is simple. Let us choose how we form matches. Regional or international. Based on P2P or ping. Whatever. I may have those terms wrong, but you get the idea. Many of us would like to get back to playing with the Japanese region again, and it sounds like the EU region is suffering due to lackluster matchmaking, especially in League. Just making that one little fix would solve a lot of problems!
Second
Splatfest gripe, the
mirror matches. I went through a lot of mirror matches and it felt like it was an uphill struggle most of the way. I know that this is technically also a matchmaking thing, but I have to think that this is more so an issue with the idea that there are a lot of people playing, but many of them are going to be on the same team seeing as one team is more popular than the other. Solution? Get matches going even if they are mirror matches. At least it keeps the pace up. I don't necessarily like them, but I don't think there will ever be such a thing as a perfect 50/50 split on popularity. So for me, this is a wash.
But that isn't it. I guess I should address the
elephant in the room. His name is Wallace. Say hi when you have a moment. But also, that dastardly
Shifty Station! Full disclosure, I actually did rather well on this Shifty Station. It's like the stage was designed with long range weapons in mind or something. But it doesn't stop me from complaining about bad design, and boy howdy! That is some quality lack of effort you guys show in making these stages! With so few options for places to go during those matches, it all came down to a rather chaotic free-for-all in that little choke point. The Sponges helped and made things a bit easier for us long-range squids to deal with. But when I was playing something different, like the Krak-On for example, things got hectic and furious! I also hear that Japan got the previous US region Shifty Station for their most recent Splatfest. My heart goes out to all my squids from the Land of the Rising Sun. I feel your pain my tentacled brothers and sisters.
Those are all my Splatfest gripes, but there are plenty of other things to talk about.
To you who has been looking into better play with the
Rollers (I apologize, I forget your name), I actually wrote up a bit on effective roller use. It's in the thread titled "The Gold Dynamo Roller Could Be Broken."
It's just general advice, but I think it could help if you are still looking for pointers.
Now, about the new
music. Yes, it is a jarring change from the music that we have been listening to. It certainly does get your attention when the One Minute Left jingle starts up. It's like letting ADHD Squids play with musical instruments for an hour and a half and seeing what they can come up with. But I would be lying if I said that I didn't like it. First of all, it is a welcome change to getting the same three songs over and over again. Just the variety in and of itself breaths just a bit of new life into the game and it makes the old songs hold just a bit of a mystique. They became just a little special just by still being there among the crazy trumpets and the Irish shanty. Now, I don't know the names of the new bands, but the one that does that crazy Irish sounding shanty needs to be commended! It reminds me of real world bands like Flogging Molly or the Dropkick Murphys and I love every moment of it! I lovingly refer to that song as 'Irish Folk-Punk' for that very reason. Secondly, I am pretty sure that Nintendo is using Splat2n as a platform for some experimental ideas, and it feels like the new music is just a part of that. I would even go so far as to say that they may even add a few more songs to the game, or even bring back the old music! What I would do if I were in Nintendo's shoes, is just open up the library of music in the Splatoon world for us to choose what songs we want to hear during battles. All the songs from S1, all the songs from S2, and then keep releasing new music as time goes on. The game is heavily influenced by music in the first place, so the release of a new track should be met with announcements of their own during the news clips. Don't just say that the game has been updated, make a big deal about new singles! Let us look up lore and history of the in-game bands, let us follow them as if they were real bands. Music is a prominent thing in the Splatoon world, right down to the news of the world being delivered by pop stars, singers, and rappers! Let the game's music industry shine and we will love every minute of it!
Last thing I want to say about the music is that I called from moment one that this was coming. As soon as people started to complain about the lack of musical variety to accompany the fun and frenetic nature of the ink battles,
BAM! New music! This is not the only time this has happened though. This came about in S1 as well, with about the same timing from launch as well. This is Nintendo trying to keep the game fresh and relevant. They want people to keep playing the game, and not necessarily because it will offer a steady stream of revenue.
EA. The game itself is what draws people in. The world, the lore, the colorful nature of it. That's why they want to keep us invested with Splatfests, new game modes, new weapons, and of course new music. I called that this was coming because of my time with vanilla Splatoon. And I am willing to bet that version 2.0 won't be the last big update. I think we have more to look forward to!
On that note, what I want to say to
@ThatOneGuy is that I don't think Nintendo is going to
ignore complaints. I think that they tried to address complaints and issues from the first game and accidentally created new problems. Keep talking and make sure that you have a voice! If they only cared about the JP region then we wouldn't get this game at all. Make sure you are addressing your concerns and they will have to do something about it if they want to keep you as a customer and ensure that, if and when they release Splatoon 3, we will all want to go out and buy that as well. It's good business for them to address concerns that affect the game. Just keep talking! Keep complaining! I am pretty sure that some Nintendo rep or another checks these and other forums to see what the fans are saying. Just keep doing what you're doing!
Lastly, I want to address the
negativity surrounding the conversation. Look, I get it. I have many of the same complaints. I have vocalized a good few of them myself. I even just said that we should keep complaining until Nintendo listens to us! But we should all examine why we are complaining. Why we have issues that we feel should be addressed. It doesn't come from a place of hatred, I'll tell you that much. We are here because this is important to us. It isn't just the shooty shooty bang bang gameplay we like. It's the world that was built around that. It's the music. It's the culture that has been developed. Our complaints aren't about hatred, but rather love. We love this game, we love this world, we love the Inklings and the Octolings alike! In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a Splatoon spin-off game exploring the the Octoling nation and why it seems to be in such unrest. They are obviously having an energy crisis, hence why they keep going after the Great Zapfish (speaking of which, where did he go in version 2.0?). But is that energy crisis born out of decadence? Are they struggling economically? Is it the result of a natural disaster? Is any of this related to Marina and her love of technology and machinery? We wouldn't be asking questions like this if the world didn't mean something to us. We all love this experience and the community that has sprung up around it. The complaints and negative commentary are there because we want to see Splatoon do better. Because it can be better. I love this game and I think so do the rest of us. So, whereas I think it is good to continue complaining about things that we find irksome, we should also strive to remember the experiences that we love about the game as well! This may not be the thread for it, but there should be a thread dedicated to sharing stories of
positivity about the game as well as this one. If it doesn't exist, we should make it! I don't want to see the community become mired in negative attitudes that make us all want to stop playing. I hope I am not the only one thinking this.
Thank you for reading my latest wall of text, assuming you made it this far. I appreciate your time. I do these semi-regularly so do keep in touch! :D
