Things I've Learned from my Alt Account

[Award]

It's a bit like Sonic in that it may or may not be entirely stable.

There I fixed that for you. :D

On a serious note was unaware of an "unstable" element of the Sonic fanbase. "Sonic" to me means through Sonic 3 & Knuckles, then a bunch of bad stuff, then Colors & Generations, then more bad stuff. Then the steaming pile that is Boom. I was aware of the large portion of the fanbase that is upset with the quality of Sonic for the past 15 years, and I'm aware of the small portion of apologists. But what "Brony-like" unstable fanbase is there for Sonic?

 

[BlackZero]

But what "Brony-like" unstable fanbase is there for Sonic?

There were people who were 50 shades of butthurt over SEGA changing Sonic's eye color. I wish I was joking. There were also people who threw a fit over Sonic's arms being blue in Sonic Boom instead of that off-yellowish tan they used to be. Chris-Chan actually got banned from Gamestop for vandalizing a Sonic Boom display because of this, though he is truly in a class all his own.

If you have time, you can always read up on a few. Sonmanic was one of the people throwing a fit over Sonic's eye color. There's another one that went berserk over it, but I can't think of his name atm. I think stuff like Sonic and MLP appeal to people who are just starting to transition into adults. Those who make that transition gracefully move on with their life. They may still be fans, but they don't take it very seriously. Those who don't make that transition well get caught between worlds where they are biologically adults, but mentally childish. They cling to stuff they enjoyed as kids and rabidly defend it because they simply aren't capable of living in an adult's world and their childhood is all they have.

 

[seakingtheonixpected]

I've made two alt accounts. One was to see how far I could get in ranked using only Brushes and the other was using only Chargers.

and I learned that smurfing C rank with a charger is a very cruel past-time >.< my games were in the 15-25 kill range with less than 5 deaths per match. Though I chalk that mostly up to the fact that my opponent seem to think the best way to deal with a charger is to walk slowly in a straight line towards them O.o

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

Weird, I never realized how much the map of Ancho-V looks like Walleye (*shudder*)

If I crack a thousand with a CHydra, I will be raging at my team and change lobbies. I'll generally ink key chokepoints with sprinklers, and/or wherever I can charge my bubbler, but mostly play "aggressive sniper" with it - holding a sniping position but being a lot more mobile off the perch and covering various territories than an eltier safely allows. I do play it as an ink achor, but that's just it, using my sprinklers more to ANCHOR a position than to constantly seek new turf. But your k/d is pretty much par with mine, despite all that ink, that's what's really amazing.

Though in the inker pool, your opponents may not all be ruthlessly trying to bread and fry you the whole match. ;) I spend half the match just evading and trying to fend off CQC attacks then re-claiming the turf I had to relinquish.

Oh, I get splat-oriented people too. They're just more commonly opponents. I actually spend about half of my matches with more splatteds than splats, though maybe 90% of the time in those cases, most of the times I get splatted are from one opponent. Part of me being a proficient inker is that I've learned how to defend myself, to seek territory, super-jump when necessary, and to scout areas in front of me. The Sprinkler, for instance, is great for inking passively while I'm somewhere else, but it's also a good sign if an opponent is just out of my line of sight: If I see the Sprinkler get shot at, I'll know there is an opponent in that direction. The Disruptor is good for making opponents retreat: Even if I can't splat them, that Disruptor has bought me time.

Still, getting a lot of pure inkers means I can't use Echolocator to my maximum potential. I'll usually have to be the one to go over and make the splats myself.

LOL, that's just about the last explanation I could have expected! That's pretty funny, actually. Perhaps I shouldn't have immediate fear of "clan tags" when I see them, after all! :p

LPS actually looks cute (just glancing at your recaps.) I'll take ANYTHING compared to My Little Pony

Did you know my avatar is of Sunset Shimmer from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls? (More specifically, from Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, as that's when she gets a wardrobe change to the military jacket with the blue dress underneath.)

Littlest Pet Shop (2012) was an attempt by Hasbro to capture the lightning in a bottle Friendship Is Magic got. It has the same animation team, the same voice actors, and shares some writers. Viewers quickly found parallels in characters too, as well as episodes (Blythe -> Rarity, Minka -> Pinkie Pie; "Alligators and Handbags" -> "Rarity Takes Manehattan," "Eight Arms to Hold You" -> "Castle-Mania") Didn't really work out as planned though.

First of all, I never said anything of the sort and I'll thank you to let me speak for myself. Second of all, I separate fans of the show from Bronies in the same way that I separate Christians from the Westboro Baptist Church. Bronies scare me for the same reason many Sonic fans scare me. They hijacked a fandom, claimed it as their own, and continually harass and bully other fans who aren't part of their radical sect. They did all of this while believing they were unfairly persecuted because they live in an echo chamber and truly don't understand why people consider them obnoxious or bullies. This wouldn't be as big a deal if it weren't for the fact that MLP appeals to a lot of kids who may join fan communities without the faintest idea of what they're in for should they cross one of these people.

There's also the whole drama about them making porn of a character dedicated to some kid with a terminal illness and telling his mother the kid should be flattered that Bronies are using his Make-A-Wish character to "clop." I don't know about you, but that's firmly in "eyebrow raising" territory for me. I really couldn't care less if people want to play dress-up. The other stuff is what bugs me about Bronies, and, right or wrong, having the show associated with nutters casts a shadow on the whole thing. I keep a safe distance from Naruto for similar reasons.

I've found a lot of parallels between the bronies and the Sonic fans, and I suspect that's the reason why the two fandoms are always at each other's throats with an intensity like I had never seen before.

When kids dress up as these characters on Oct 31, that's cute.
When teen-20-somethings dress up as that at a national convention for film, comics, games, genres, etc, it's a fun fandom going nuts.

Please tell me you have not seen any of the above on any other occasion. o_O

(Also, dressing up as a boy who can use magic or a man in a super suit who solves crimes and saves the day is one thing. Dressing up as a semi-anthropomorphic rainbow colored pony is a little less...rational? ;))

If you go to Anime Expo, or any other major anime convention, you will seea lot of cosplayers for pretty much anything that has fan crossover with anime. There is a LOT of Adventure Time cosplay, for instance, and beginning 2014, Steven Universe wasrapidly on the rise too.

Most cosplayers of Friendship Is Magic I've seen at Anime Expo are female though, and they don't wear masks or anything. It's limited to hair dye, color-matching clothing, sometimes pony-ear headbands, and, where necessary, wings and/or a horn.

Oh, very true, and I've always liked that Lewis quote. It's not a matter of childishness being the problem with dressing up as a rainbow colored pony. It's that that particular dress-up is just so awful for any age or event. I don't know, everything about My Little Pony is just very disturbing. It's not the just the Flower Children motif. There's just something horrifically, fundamentally wrong about My Little Pony. Always has been. It was warped in the '80's and it's still warped today.;) LPS is fine. That seems like standard cartoon world, that's fine. MLP is just....maybe it is because it's steeped so much in the essence of "Flower Power" that I feel like I should be taking a lot of psychotropic drugs just to make it not feel warped. :D

Using my colossal knowledge of Littlest Pet Shop, I bring you "Humanarian."

(I see that the related videos are clips from the musical sequences "The Sweet Shop Song," "The Lost and Found Box," and "Wolf-ified," which are all also quite surreal, but it was never quite as weird as "Humanarian." LPS musical sequences tend to be on the WEIRD side.)

All in all though, Friendship Is Magic is starkly different than other My Little Pony shows and most other shows aimed at little girls. It's actually closer to a sitcom. Actually, I WOULD define it as a sitcom.

There I fixed that for you. :D

On a serious note was unaware of an "unstable" element of the Sonic fanbase. "Sonic" to me means through Sonic 3 & Knuckles, then a bunch of bad stuff, then Colors & Generations, then more bad stuff. Then the steaming pile that is Boom. I was aware of the large portion of the fanbase that is upset with the quality of Sonic for the past 15 years, and I'm aware of the small portion of apologists. But what "Brony-like" unstable fanbase is there for Sonic?

There is a LOT. More below.

There were people who were 50 shades of butthurt over SEGA changing Sonic's eye color. I wish I was joking. There were also people who threw a fit over Sonic's arms being blue in Sonic Boom instead of that off-yellowish tan they used to be. Chris-Chan actually got banned from Gamestop for vandalizing a Sonic Boom display because of this, though he is truly in a class all his own.

If you have time, you can always read up on a few. Sonmanic was one of the people throwing a fit over Sonic's eye color. There's another one that went berserk over it, but I can't think of his name atm. I think stuff like Sonic and MLP appeal to people who are just starting to transition into adults. Those who make that transition gracefully move on with their life. They may still be fans, but they don't take it very seriously. Those who don't make that transition well get caught between worlds where they are biologically adults, but mentally childish. They cling to stuff they enjoyed as kids and rabidly defend it because they simply aren't capable of living in an adult's world and their childhood is all they have.

Observing both fanbases (but not getting too caught up among them), both are also really into writing dark fics far out of character, seem quite intent on making pornographic fanart, tend to not like anything that isn't Sonic/FiM, are incredibly myopic about the merits of Sonic/FiM, are incredibly intrusive to the creators, and are incredibly defensive about what they're fans of but oddly critical and nitpicky about it. As for the franchises themselves, both have very open and vague canon, both have highly interchangeable character design that promotes fan characters, both were meant to appeal to kids but have plenty of nods to older viewers, both were made to try to relieve a medium of a stigma (Friendship Is Magic for the Girl Show Ghetto; Sonic the Hedgehog for video games being for uncool nerds), both are highly colorful with surreal settings, and both have a blue character with an attitude whose superpower is moving very quickly. The last point there is what caused the fandom rivalry in the first place: There was proliferation of fanart of Sonic and Rainbow Dash. The Sonic fans shot first though.

Christian Weston Chandler (Chris-chan) happens to be a brony too, by the way. He was one since Generation I.

 

[Award]

Oh, I get splat-oriented people too. They're just more commonly opponents. I actually spend about half of my matches with more splatteds than splats, though maybe 90% of the time in those cases, most of the times I get splatted are from one opponent. Part of me being a proficient inker is that I've learned how to defend myself, to seek territory, super-jump when necessary, and to scout areas in front of me. The Sprinkler, for instance, is great for inking passively while I'm somewhere else, but it's also a good sign if an opponent is just out of my line of sight: If I see the Sprinkler get shot at, I'll know there is an opponent in that direction. The Disruptor is good for making opponents retreat: Even if I can't splat them, that Disruptor has bought me time.

LOL, I guess that's the difference between a splatter an an inker. You think of disruptors as a way to make opponents retreat. I think of disruptors as a way to slow them down so I can aim easier. Conversely, I wouldn't mind if they ran away when hit with a disruptor, but usually they will hold their ground and fire back. A disrupted opponent is still a very dangerous opponent.

And, yeah, the enemy team is ALWAYS a splatter. It's just that the enemy team seems GOOD at splatting while my splatter team is better at getting splatted :p

Did you know my avatar is of Sunset Shimmer from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls? (More specifically, from Equestria Girls: Friendship Games, as that's when she gets a wardrobe change to the military jacket with the blue dress underneath.)

Littlest Pet Shop (2012) was an attempt by Hasbro to capture the lightning in a bottle Friendship Is Magic got. It has the same animation team, the same voice actors, and shares some writers. Viewers quickly found parallels in characters too, as well as episodes (Blythe -> Rarity, Minka -> Pinkie Pie; "Alligators and Handbags" -> "Rarity Takes Manehattan," "Eight Arms to Hold You" -> "Castle-Mania") Didn't really work out as planned though.

Ahh, I was going to ask what your avatars were from. Is that what your previous avatar was as well?

If you go to Anime Expo, or any other major anime convention, you will seea lot of cosplayers for pretty much anything that has fan crossover with anime. There is a LOT of Adventure Time cosplay, for instance, and beginning 2014, Steven Universe wasrapidly on the rise too.

Most cosplayers of Friendship Is Magic I've seen at Anime Expo are female though, and they don't wear masks or anything. It's limited to hair dye, color-matching clothing, sometimes pony-ear headbands, and, where necessary, wings and/or a horn.

I've always thought it was weird that people cosplay as unrelated things. It kind of breaks the mood of any given event. It kid of shifts from "getting in the spirit of things" to "ooohkaay...sitting on THAT side of the table." Just because they're fan crossover, if you're going to cosplay at an anime event, why would you not cosplay as an anime character? Keep the Klingon outfit at home. :D

Yeah hair dye, clothing, and a headband isn't so weird. Dressing as a pony is kind of weird. ;)

Using my colossal knowledge of Littlest Pet Shop, I bring you "Humanarian."

Make it stop!!! ;)

Observing both fanbases (but not getting too caught up among them), both are also really into writing dark fics far out of character, seem quite intent on making pornographic fanart, tend to not like anything that isn't Sonic/FiM, are incredibly myopic about the merits of Sonic/FiM, are incredibly intrusive to the creators, and are incredibly defensive about what they're fans of but oddly critical and nitpicky about it. As for the franchises themselves, both have very open and vague canon, both have highly interchangeable character design that promotes fan characters, both were meant to appeal to kids but have plenty of nods to older viewers, both were made to try to relieve a medium of a stigma (Friendship Is Magic for the Girl Show Ghetto; Sonic the Hedgehog for video games being for uncool nerds), both are highly colorful with surreal settings, and both have a blue character with an attitude whose superpower is moving very quickly. The last point there is what caused the fandom rivalry in the first place: There was proliferation of fanart of Sonic and Rainbow Dash. The Sonic fans shot first though.

Uhm...Sonic porn fanart?? I dont even....what...how....I mean....who....

I don't know....I guess I've missed "modern sonic" fandom. In my world, Sonic 2 the good one, Knuckles is controversial as a new character, Spinball was a weird spinoff that isn't REAL Sonic, and Sonic CD is that newfangled thing I missed out on. I played the steaming pile that was Unleashed, and was definitely not Sonic, I love Generations, Lost World was ALMOST great but felt low budget somehow, and Boom was....ouch, yet I'm looking forward to Fire & Ice (Preordered!) since they keep saying they're taking it back to the roots of Sonic 2. That's what I know of "Sonic fandom" It's not so different from Mario fandom except Mario never went through a period of being trash (because the same duo of designers are behind it still rather than the real people leaving when the Dreamcast went down.)

You guys really need to find new fan groups or something :p

 

[Breademic]

I made a new NNID because I didn't like my old one, so I had to restart Splatoon.
And wow... the skill differences between Rank Cs, Bs, and As.
Through C, I was frustrated with my team for making stupid decisions but then I remembered that they're still baby squids. I had to carry my team most of the time.
Bs, a little more experienced, but they still don't make smart choices.
And I'm still stuck in the A limbo. The highest I've reached on my old account was S, and it's a struggle trying to reach it again.

 

[jsilva]

I made a new NNID because I didn't like my old one, so I had to restart Splatoon.
And wow... the skill differences between Rank Cs, Bs, and As.
Through C, I was frustrated with my team for making stupid decisions but then I remembered that they're still baby squids. I had to carry my team most of the time.
Bs, a little more experienced, but they still don't make smart choices.
And I'm still stuck in the A limbo. The highest I've reached on my old account was S, and it's a struggle trying to reach it again.

That's funny because that's sort of what I did :)

The main thing I've learned from creating two new accounts is looking for the reasons my team isn't winning and trying to remedy them. Interestingly, even the act of me taking that initiative (regardless of my success) sometimes results in my teammates stepping up and making a good push. Of course other times there's no making up for a weak team, or for a freakishly good opposing team.

So if you're having trouble getting past the A range that's what I'd suggest you do. If there's a chance your team can win (i.e. not disgustingly dominated) there's often a very clear reason they aren't winning—excellent sniper, superman Tentatek, etc. See if you can fix it long enough to give your team a chance. Hope that helps.

 

[Breademic]

So if you're having trouble getting past the A range that's what I'd suggest you do. If there's a chance your team can win (i.e. not disgustingly dominated) there's often a very clear reason they aren't winning—excellent sniper, superman Tentatek, etc. See if you can fix it long enough to give your team a chance. Hope that helps.

I find that most of the reasons we lose is because we're not paying attention to the task at hand.
We don't pay attention to the rainmaker and they sneak up behind us or our team is just scattered and then we're just easy to pick off. Or they have good map coverage so they're able to swim circles around us.

That's a good thought though. If I notice they have great defense, then I try to flank them from behind.
There's just a lot to look out for.
Also, a bad habit I have is that I keep inking turf continuously. I don't mean to say that inking turf is bad, but it's knowing when to ink turf. Inking turf can easily reveal your location if the whole enemy team is still alive. I need to be more patient.

 

[Award]

I find that most of the reasons we lose is because we're not paying attention to the task at hand.
We don't pay attention to the rainmaker and they sneak up behind us or our team is just scattered and then we're just easy to pick off. Or they have good map coverage so they're able to swim circles around us.

That's a good thought though. If I notice they have great defense, then I try to flank them from behind.
There's just a lot to look out for.
Also, a bad habit I have is that I keep inking turf continuously. I don't mean to say that inking turf is bad, but it's knowing when to ink turf. Inking turf can easily reveal your location if the whole enemy team is still alive. I need to be more patient.

What you said about inking turf is a HUUUGE one! People sometimes berate snipers who don't also turf with the weapon and just sit and wait for kills, but I've made a habit of specifically NOT turfing especially at the beginning of the map, specifically because it gives away my position and angle as well as an echolocator. I've adopted the same pattern with most weapons including carbon as well. Obviously claiming turf is a key part of a roller, but when I know I'm going to have to take on an ambush soon, I'll lie low and lurk and make sure to not reveal my presence or focuses too much.

Similarly, when sniping, watching where turf is getting covered on the map is a very good way to tell what direction I need to face and when to charge up. Somehow people don't seem to think much about how much info turfing provides the opponent.

 

[Breademic]

What you said about inking turf is a HUUUGE one! People sometimes berate snipers who don't also turf with the weapon and just sit and wait for kills, but I've made a habit of specifically NOT turfing especially at the beginning of the map, specifically because it gives away my position and angle as well as an echolocator. I've adopted the same pattern with most weapons including carbon as well. Obviously claiming turf is a key part of a roller, but when I know I'm going to have to take on an ambush soon, I'll lie low and lurk and make sure to not reveal my presence or focuses too much.

Similarly, when sniping, watching where turf is getting covered on the map is a very good way to tell what direction I need to face and when to charge up. Somehow people don't seem to think much about how much info turfing provides the opponent.

Oh definitely.
I agree that the beginning of each game is crucial. Since the ground is still fresh, it's the easiest time to tell which way they're coming from. And if you're able to splat the entire team in the first 30 seconds, then that will give you a huge lead. From then on your defenses will be tested to see if you can hold control.

 

[jsilva]

I find that most of the reasons we lose is because we're not paying attention to the task at hand.
We don't pay attention to the rainmaker and they sneak up behind us or our team is just scattered and then we're just easy to pick off. Or they have good map coverage so they're able to swim circles around us.

That's a good thought though. If I notice they have great defense, then I try to flank them from behind.
There's just a lot to look out for.
Also, a bad habit I have is that I keep inking turf continuously. I don't mean to say that inking turf is bad, but it's knowing when to ink turf. Inking turf can easily reveal your location if the whole enemy team is still alive. I need to be more patient.

Yes, you have to be on the lookout and try and determine what is causing the deficiencies you think are causing your defeat and take them into your own hands if possible. You must rely on your teammates but you should make up for them when you're able.

For instance if your team isn't paying attention to the objective that means you have to be the initiator—but not just that, anticipate when your lazy team is in a position to help out when you initiate. It bothers me when I'm on a team of tower cowards, or players who are so afraid of superjumping they don't superjump to the tower to get a few more points and possibly the win. So I try to keep that in mind when I'm anticipating a push, and sometimes you just need to do it all yourself and hope it works :)

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

LOL, I guess that's the difference between a splatter an an inker. You think of disruptors as a way to make opponents retreat. I think of disruptors as a way to slow them down so I can aim easier. Conversely, I wouldn't mind if they ran away when hit with a disruptor, but usually they will hold their ground and fire back. A disrupted opponent is still a very dangerous opponent.

And, yeah, the enemy team is ALWAYS a splatter. It's just that the enemy team seems GOOD at splatting while my splatter team is better at getting splatted :p

Yep, if there's a teammate who's great at splatting but not as good at inking, we tend to win. I actually didn't develop splatting skills until about two months into playing the game, and I still can't really do much with chargers. I've been told it's because I focus TOO much on inking with them. I just can't stand seeing large amounts of ground left uninked, at least in Turf War.

Ahh, I was going to ask what your avatars were from. Is that what your previous avatar was as well?

Any girl with red-and-yellow or red-and-white hair who's the subject of my avatar will be Sunset Shimmer.

I've always thought it was weird that people cosplay as unrelated things. It kind of breaks the mood of any given event. It kid of shifts from "getting in the spirit of things" to "ooohkaay...sitting on THAT side of the table." Just because they're fan crossover, if you're going to cosplay at an anime event, why would you not cosplay as an anime character? Keep the Klingon outfit at home. :D

Yeah hair dye, clothing, and a headband isn't so weird. Dressing as a pony is kind of weird. ;)

Don't worry, I have never seen any of those two-person horse mascot suit type things.

In any case, the western anime fandom crosses over with a lot of things. There is a large overlap between it and Steven Universe, for instance, so I see a TON of Garnets and Amethysts (not quite as much of the other characters though). They'll cosplay as whatever they'rea fan of or if a character looks interesting. (Or if the cosplay is easy, like Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece, whose getup is a straw hat with a red band, open red vest, yellow scarf tied around the waist, denim shorts, and sandals). I don't mind much, and most people at Anime Expo don't mind much, but it did feel a bit worrying in 2013 when the western media cosplayers (Friendship Is Magic, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gravity Falls, Wreck-It Ralph, Transformers Prime, Star Wars, DC and Marvel, Doctor Who, The Venture Bros., Minecraft, Assassin's Creed, Homestuck, RWBY, Avatar/Korra, with a bit of the then-upcoming Frozen) substantially outnumbered cosplayers from Japanese media, that anime was losing popularity. It bounced back in 2014 though. Homestuck cosplayers will forever be a mainstay at Anime Expo though, I predict, because the creator of Homestuck blocks any conventions focused around his series, so the fans go to other conventions.

If it's any solace, by the looks of Anime L.A., which was this past weekend, Splatoon is going to have a TON of cosplayers at upcoming anime conventions.

Uhm...Sonic porn fanart?? I dont even....what...how....I mean....who....

I don't know....I guess I've missed "modern sonic" fandom. In my world, Sonic 2 the good one, Knuckles is controversial as a new character, Spinball was a weird spinoff that isn't REAL Sonic, and Sonic CD is that newfangled thing I missed out on. I played the steaming pile that was Unleashed, and was definitely not Sonic, I love Generations, Lost World was ALMOST great but felt low budget somehow, and Boom was....ouch, yet I'm looking forward to Fire & Ice (Preordered!) since they keep saying they're taking it back to the roots of Sonic 2. That's what I know of "Sonic fandom" It's not so different from Mario fandom except Mario never went through a period of being trash (because the same duo of designers are behind it still rather than the real people leaving when the Dreamcast went down.)

You guys really need to find new fan groups or something :p

There is plenty of Sonic porn. It's that sort of thing people don't really understand how it can exist until they see some. There is some level of crossover, but not much, with larger furry porn circles, but there will often be Sonic-inspired designs in the latter.

Day stages in Sonic Unleashed I really liked. I've been following Sonic since the series got started though, so transitions aren't really that jarring to me. Well, except Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Lost World. They tried though.

The main thing I've learned from creating two new accounts is looking for the reasons my team isn't winning and trying to remedy them. Interestingly, even the act of me taking that initiative (regardless of my success) sometimes results in my teammates stepping up and making a good push. Of course other times there's no making up for a weak team, or for a freakishly good opposing team.

That's interesting. Some people just need that push to succeed, do they? I'm guessing in the lower ranks, there are some players who don't really know what to do or are too afraid to head out without assistance.

Oh definitely.
I agree that the beginning of each game is crucial. Since the ground is still fresh, it's the easiest time to tell which way they're coming from. And if you're able to splat the entire team in the first 30 seconds, then that will give you a huge lead. From then on your defenses will be tested to see if you can hold control.

Wow, I don't think I'd be good enough for that.

So, what happens if you're sniping but none of your teammates care about the objective? Oftentimes, I see opponents with E-liters or Splatterscopes on the Tower or carrying the Rainmaker; no doubt they got fed up with their teammates ignoring what they're supposed to do.

 

[Breademic]

Yes, you have to be on the lookout and try and determine what is causing the deficiencies you think are causing your defeat and take them into your own hands if possible. You must rely on your teammates but you should make up for them when you're able.

For instance if your team isn't paying attention to the objective that means you have to be the initiator—but not just that, anticipate when your lazy team is in a position to help out when you initiate. It bothers me when I'm on a team of tower cowards, or players who are so afraid of superjumping they don't superjump to the tower to get a few more points and possibly the win. So I try to keep that in mind when I'm anticipating a push, and sometimes you just need to do it all yourself and hope it works :)

Just earlier I reached A and I was playing against some difficult teams. For most of those games I was sure I was going to lose, but my teams and I held our ground. It was great. I hope I can keep playing like that.

Wow, I don't think I'd be good enough for that.

So, what happens if you're sniping but none of your teammates care about the objective? Oftentimes, I see opponents with E-liters or Splatterscopes on the Tower or carrying the Rainmaker; no doubt they got fed up with their teammates ignoring what they're supposed to do.

Haha, I see that sometimes too. Like jsilva just said, people tend to be afraid of standing on the tower.

 

[jsilva]

That's interesting. Some people just need that push to succeed, do they? I'm guessing in the lower ranks, there are some players who don't really know what to do or are too afraid to head out without assistance.

Some players are very defensive in their approach and they respond to others taking intiative, no matter their rank. I've played plenty of S games where my team needed that initiative.

 

[Ansible]

Thanks for this thread everyone! Been trying to figure out what's been going on, at least in Turf Wars, after recently hitting level 20.

Splattershots, Aerosprays, and E-Liters everywhere! Madcap dashes to the enemy base. Drunken brawls in the middle thirty seconds into the match. Snail trails of ink across the map. So much empty space.

Wish I had a capture card for a recent match in Bluefin Depot:
Ol' Hydy and I decided to roast marshmallows on a perch as we saw my team off down one wing of the map towards the enemy base. Meanwhile the other team comes tearing down the other wing of the map towards our base. A one-sided 1v4 with my trusty Hydra Splatling. Suddenly someone on either side realizes the base is under attack. So both teams start tearing down the other wing to rescue their respective base, making a full circuit around the map. @_@

But eventually things get properly sorted in the last minute or so of the match. Close call. Lost. Outright bonkers. Entirely funny. Deserves the Benny Hill theme.

 

[Award]

Yep, if there's a teammate who's great at splatting but not as good at inking, we tend to win. I actually didn't develop splatting skills until about two months into playing the game, and I still can't really do much with chargers. I've been told it's because I focus TOO much on inking with them. I just can't stand seeing large amounts of ground left uninked, at least in Turf War.

LOL, yeah, I've found that there's this inclination to turf with eliter that I've had to ween myself out of, and had to get used to accepting being last on my ink status, and not always even hitting 400p. In addition to giving away your position and angle mentioned above, the other problem is chargers in general but especially eliters aren't very ink and time efficient. They can ink - but while you're busy inking and training 1/3 of your tank at a shot, that's some SERIOUS distraction you really don't need. Many times trying to turf is what will cause me to miss an enemy approach forming way off in the distance to prepare for them. Instead of knowing they're coming and predicting them, I let them either sneak too close, or get into a good hiding spot so I don't know where they're coming from. That makes it easy for them to get close or whiz by where I'll miss my shots, and once they get by me the defense is broken. As a result I've become one of those chargers that zooms to position, sits in in, and waits, observing, not turfing. My kraken will charge over the course of splatting squids, or during long lulls where I know they're out battling elsewhere later in the match (or if my useless team refused to ink anything so I spend the last :45 turfing with uncharged shots like I'm an inkbrush while getting overrun.) You get used to 250-350p scores when you're going 5/0 or better more often than not and know nobody used your entire section of the map the whole game - somebody somewhere else dropped the ball badly if they couldn't when when 1/4-1/2 of the map was guaranteed in their hands.

But it depends on map. Piranha I won't have time to ink - I'll be fending off endless invasion attempts all match. Hammerhead, eiter is just worthless for turfing. It can ink the long paths, but so can every other weapon - and they will. Warehouse I often WILL ink the side path myself since I use my "turfing" ability to box in containment areas or act as trip alarms - if I ink the side, and I see enemy ink there suddenly, I know the enemy's there. Underpass....I might as well turf since there' no chance of splatting anything there. That map is SO awful for eliters. Mackerel's much the same - I just keep firing in the same halls to cover enemy paths, but not much else can be done.

In any case, the western anime fandom crosses over with a lot of things. There is a large overlap between it and Steven Universe, for instance, so I see a TON of Garnets and Amethysts (not quite as much of the other characters though). They'll cosplay as whatever they'rea fan of or if a character looks interesting. (Or if the cosplay is easy, like Monkey D. Luffy in One Piece, whose getup is a straw hat with a red band, open red vest, yellow scarf tied around the waist, denim shorts, and sandals). I don't mind much, and most people at Anime Expo don't mind much, but it did feel a bit worrying in 2013 when the western media cosplayers (Friendship Is Magic, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gravity Falls, Wreck-It Ralph, Transformers Prime, Star Wars, DC and Marvel, Doctor Who, The Venture Bros., Minecraft, Assassin's Creed, Homestuck, RWBY, Avatar/Korra, with a bit of the then-upcoming Frozen) substantially outnumbered cosplayers from Japanese media, that anime was losing popularity. It bounced back in 2014 though. Homestuck cosplayers will forever be a mainstay at Anime Expo though, I predict, because the creator of Homestuck blocks any conventions focused around his series, so the fans go to other conventions.

I'm not the sort of person who would ever cosplay, but I can accept it if it's themed on-topic and I presume a lot of people that do it have an interest in performance arts in general so it makes sense. The ones who go off topic and dress as something entirely unrelated just because it's something else they like....those are a little...questionable.

If it's any solace, by the looks of Anime L.A., which was this past weekend, Splatoon is going to have a TON of cosplayers at upcoming anime conventions.

WOOMY/NGYES! :D It's cool that Splatoon caught so well so as to create cosplayers at anime conventions. People dressing up as inklings would be interesting. Homemade Squidforce T's would be fantastic. But why do I fear it's going to be everyone dressing as Callie & Marie?

There is plenty of Sonic porn. It's that sort of thing people don't really understand how it can exist until they see some. There is some level of crossover, but not much, with larger furry porn circles, but there will often be Sonic-inspired designs in the latter.

Everything about this entire paragraph is just wrong in just about every way imaginable. I truly don't understand how that can exist. Nor why it would. I mean, just WHY? I mean, things with human characters you kind of expect it, because it's the internet. Even "mostly human" characters....but...Sonic? How is that at all possible? WHO would even do that? Those are some EXTREMELY disturbed people.

Day stages in Sonic Unleashed I really liked. I've been following Sonic since the series got started though, so transitions aren't really that jarring to me. Well, except Sonic and the Secret Rings and Sonic Lost World. They tried though.

Yeah, the day stages were fun and they were over in like 1:30 while the bad stages lasted 20 minutes of sheer awfulness. People give Unleashed a pass, and I can't understand at all why. It was a bad, bad game with a handful of really fun moments. I jumped from classic Sonic (1, 2, 3/3K) to Unleashed, so it really was pretty jarring. IMO, Lost World was substantially better than Unleashed. It had some very serious problems and the controls felt very wrong, but it was still a better overall game despite that they aped Mario Galaxy a little too much (But they co-developed with EAD, so the Galaxy elements may be contributed from the Galaxy team.) IMO Lost World would have been better had it not been rushed to get the Wii U exclusive out on a poorly selling Wii U. '06 was horrifically bad. I mean worse than Unleashed kind of bad. Not just a bad Sonic, but a bad video game. Colors got the whole "endless runner autopilot" style down right, as did Generations' rehash of it. And we wont' talk about Boom. Even Sega's more or less admitted it was horrible (and deflected blame to their subcontractor they rushed simply to get game out for the platform they'd committed it to that wasn't going to be profitable.)

I'm still (probably too much) looking forward to Fire & Ice (if they don't scrap it for something else for anniversary year) - they've said a lot of things about going back to the classics in style, and from some of the brief videos they seem to be staying true to it so far. Fingers crossed!

Wow, I don't think I'd be good enough for that.

So, what happens if you're sniping but none of your teammates care about the objective? Oftentimes, I see opponents with E-liters or Splatterscopes on the Tower or carrying the Rainmaker; no doubt they got fed up with their teammates ignoring what they're supposed to do.

Basically that. Granted, on a good team it can come down to the tower riders were splatted so the sniper has to get on just to buy enough time for a respawn/jump back by the riders, but usually it's "no one else is doing it so I have to." Well specifically for TC. No reason a sniper can't grab the RM - the RM itself is basically an amped up unscoped eliter anyway, so snipers are good RM carriers. But TC it's purely desperation.

Some players are very defensive in their approach and they respond to others taking intiative, no matter their rank. I've played plenty of S games where my team needed that initiative.

Then there's the players on Saltspray TW yesterday that didn't even APPROACH the "throne room" until halfway through the match. I had carbon and kept inking around the area, waiting for the team to arrive to attack as a group (since one squid alone isn't going to get it done.) and I'd just wait, wait, be discovered, get splatted, go back wait...then finally we'd attack (and of course get splatted.)

 

[Award]

Thanks for this thread everyone! Been trying to figure out what's been going on, at least in Turf Wars, after recently hitting level 20.

Splattershots, Aerosprays, and E-Liters everywhere! Madcap dashes to the enemy base. Drunken brawls in the middle thirty seconds into the match. Snail trails of ink across the map. So much empty space.

Wish I had a capture card for a recent match in Bluefin Depot:
Ol' Hydy and I decided to roast marshmallows on a perch as we saw my team off down one wing of the map towards the enemy base. Meanwhile the other team comes tearing down the other wing of the map towards our base. A one-sided 1v4 with my trusty Hydra Splatling. Suddenly someone on either side realizes the base is under attack. So both teams start tearing down the other wing to rescue their respective base, making a full circuit around the map. @_@

But eventually things get properly sorted in the last minute or so of the match. Close call. Lost. Outright bonkers. Entirely funny. Deserves the Benny Hill theme.

That sounds excactly like so many of my rounds. What happened on Depot I call "The Triggerfish Effect" a map that goes in the round and both teams will run clockwise and your team is their color, their base is your color and nobody gets anywhere. Triggerfish is kind of designed to do that if nobody's holding defense, but Depot's a big culprit of it too. That always happens, except my team NEVER realizes their base is under attack and keeps SJ'ing right to the enemy base endlessly!

Bonus points for remembering Benny Hill :D Then again from your use of "bonkers" I'm guessing you're in the UK, so maybe Benny's not so forgotten on that side of the pond :)

 

[Ansible]

USian actually. Yet a number of people in my life are tied to the military in some fashion. Also when you work around children long enough your vocabulary becomes a little more... eclectic or inventive.

Warms my heart when those darlings pick up my turn of phrases.

Anyway, I got caught up in that "Triggerfish Effect" last night myself. Took my Squiffer and followed a Heavy Splatling. (please support your splatlings people!) Back to back covering one another. Together we circumnavigated the map almost twice. All we did was ink while the other pair played 2v4 deathmatch the entire time. All six of them had splattershots and aerospray types.

Maybe I should invest in a capture card.

 

[Award]

USian actually. Yet a number of people in my life are tied to the military in some fashion. Also when you work around children long enough your vocabulary becomes a little more... eclectic or inventive.

Warms my heart when those darlings pick up my turn of phrases.

LOL!

Took my Squiffer and followed a Heavy Splatling. (please support your splatlings people!)

As a hydra (and e-liter & carbon roller) main, I approve! ;)

Back to back covering one another. Together we circumnavigated the map almost twice. All we did was ink while the other pair played 2v4 deathmatch the entire time. All six of them had splattershots and aerospray types.

Maybe I should invest in a capture card.

The worst on that map, and it happens to me all the time is, if I have eliter and lock down the left side I have to assume my team has the right side covered. No. They instead rush up to the enemy base and play deathmatch. And while I'm playing whack-a-mole with an antagonist popping in and out from around the cross-wall in the bottom, I get jumped from behind from the side the other 3 members of my team were theoretically watching... It happens all the time to the point that I no longer watch one side anymore, I stand in the middle and watch BOTH sides because I can not count on 3 other people watching either side So I just load up on swim speed and glide between the two doorways, pop an enemy my team wasn't getting, paint the wall, zoom back to the other side, get the one coming up the wall there, race back to the other side...

 

[Zombie Aladdin]

LOL, yeah, I've found that there's this inclination to turf with eliter that I've had to ween myself out of, and had to get used to accepting being last on my ink status, and not always even hitting 400p. In addition to giving away your position and angle mentioned above, the other problem is chargers in general but especially eliters aren't very ink and time efficient. They can ink - but while you're busy inking and training 1/3 of your tank at a shot, that's some SERIOUS distraction you really don't need. Many times trying to turf is what will cause me to miss an enemy approach forming way off in the distance to prepare for them. Instead of knowing they're coming and predicting them, I let them either sneak too close, or get into a good hiding spot so I don't know where they're coming from. That makes it easy for them to get close or whiz by where I'll miss my shots, and once they get by me the defense is broken. As a result I've become one of those chargers that zooms to position, sits in in, and waits, observing, not turfing. My kraken will charge over the course of splatting squids, or during long lulls where I know they're out battling elsewhere later in the match (or if my useless team refused to ink anything so I spend the last :45 turfing with uncharged shots like I'm an inkbrush while getting overrun.) You get used to 250-350p scores when you're going 5/0 or better more often than not and know nobody used your entire section of the map the whole game - somebody somewhere else dropped the ball badly if they couldn't when when 1/4-1/2 of the map was guaranteed in their hands.

But it depends on map. Piranha I won't have time to ink - I'll be fending off endless invasion attempts all match. Hammerhead, eiter is just worthless for turfing. It can ink the long paths, but so can every other weapon - and they will. Warehouse I often WILL ink the side path myself since I use my "turfing" ability to box in containment areas or act as trip alarms - if I ink the side, and I see enemy ink there suddenly, I know the enemy's there. Underpass....I might as well turf since there' no chance of splatting anything there. That map is SO awful for eliters. Mackerel's much the same - I just keep firing in the same halls to cover enemy paths, but not much else can be done.

All right. The best stages I've found for inking with chargers are Kelp Dome, Mahi-Mahi Resort, Flounder Heights, and Piranha Pit. But I guess that all depends on your strategy. As I'm an inker, I instinctively go to the left as soon as the battle begins, unless someone else is already going there. I fi find myself using a charger, I'm splatting at ground level.

Still, you know that I get a lot of teammates who are afraid to get out of wherever it's safe. If I'm using an inking-based weapon like a Splattershot Jr., I can create the safe space for them. If I'm using a charger, and I get those kinds of players, they're very afraid to do anything and will advance much slower.

I'll try to disregard inking though. Does this apply to the Splat Chargers too? Certainly, it does not apply to the Squiffers or Bamboozlers in my hands.

I'm not the sort of person who would ever cosplay, but I can accept it if it's themed on-topic and I presume a lot of people that do it have an interest in performance arts in general so it makes sense. The ones who go off topic and dress as something entirely unrelated just because it's something else they like....those are a little...questionable.

Depends on the cosplayer. Some just have an interest in costume design. Some like to perform, and that's what stuff like Masquerade is for. And some just do it to get into the mood of the event. An anime convention does feel like a party sometimes, after all.

Bear in mind that, in the end, cosplay is something done for fun and not meant to be taken seriously (as much as the SyFy Channel might want you to believe). Case in point: Anime Expo 2015's Masquerade's opening performance was a song-and-dance number by four guys cosplaying as the Inner Senshi from Sailor Moon (Sailors Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars). It was a comedy act.

Maybe it's something I got used to having been to so many anime conventions. Locals get used to it too.

WOOMY/NGYES! :D It's cool that Splatoon caught so well so as to create cosplayers at anime conventions. People dressing up as inklings would be interesting. Homemade Squidforce T's would be fantastic. But why do I fear it's going to be everyone dressing as Callie & Marie?

Generic Inklings are the most common, followed by Callie and Marie. You also get the occasional Judd, Cap'n Cuttlefish, Octoling, and the rare DJ Octavio. If you look hard enough, you'll find a Booyah Base storekeeper (all are rare, but from what I can determine, Sheldon and Annie are the favorites).

Yeah, the day stages were fun and they were over in like 1:30 while the bad stages lasted 20 minutes of sheer awfulness. People give Unleashed a pass, and I can't understand at all why. It was a bad, bad game with a handful of really fun moments. I jumped from classic Sonic (1, 2, 3/3K) to Unleashed, so it really was pretty jarring. IMO, Lost World was substantially better than Unleashed. It had some very serious problems and the controls felt very wrong, but it was still a better overall game despite that they aped Mario Galaxy a little too much (But they co-developed with EAD, so the Galaxy elements may be contributed from the Galaxy team.) IMO Lost World would have been better had it not been rushed to get the Wii U exclusive out on a poorly selling Wii U. '06 was horrifically bad. I mean worse than Unleashed kind of bad. Not just a bad Sonic, but a bad video game. Colors got the whole "endless runner autopilot" style down right, as did Generations' rehash of it. And we wont' talk about Boom. Even Sega's more or less admitted it was horrible (and deflected blame to their subcontractor they rushed simply to get game out for the platform they'd committed it to that wasn't going to be profitable.)

Interestingly, I put up a comprehensive playthrough of Sonic Unleashed onto YouTube (both the Wii/PS2 version and the 360/PS3 version), and collectively, they seem to be incredibly popular videos. The "Back to Back Comparison" video recently reached one million views.

Between Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic Unleashed, I played Sonic 3D Blast (16-bit), Sonic Triple Trouble (which I also have on my 3DS), Knuckles' Chaotix, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes, Sonic and the Secret Rings, Sonic Advance, Sonic Advance 2, Sonic Advance 3, Sonic Rush, Sonic Rush Adventure, Sonic Riders, Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity, and small bits of Sonic 2006.

Basically that. Granted, on a good team it can come down to the tower riders were splatted so the sniper has to get on just to buy enough time for a respawn/jump back by the riders, but usually it's "no one else is doing it so I have to." Well specifically for TC. No reason a sniper can't grab the RM - the RM itself is basically an amped up unscoped eliter anyway, so snipers are good RM carriers. But TC it's purely desperation.

True--the sniper can handle the Rainmaker well. However, ideally, they would not be the closest one to the Rainmaker. Ideally, there'd be someone closer to it.

When I see the opposing sniper repeatedly on the tower or repeatedly with the Rainmaker though, I can tell things are not going as planned for them.

Anyway, I got caught up in that "Triggerfish Effect" last night myself. Took my Squiffer and followed a Heavy Splatling. (please support your splatlings people!) Back to back covering one another. Together we circumnavigated the map almost twice. All we did was ink while the other pair played 2v4 deathmatch the entire time. All six of them had splattershots and aerospray types.

Maybe I should invest in a capture card.

A bit of a heads-up: Splatoon does not get the YouTube attention games like Super Mario Maker or Call of Duty: Black Ops III get. I've never found much of an explanation why besides that it's a new IP. So if you want to upload videos of Splatoon, do it because you want to, not for any other reason.