thoughts on custom kits becoming a thing in splat 4?

[chaotik0]

i realized, especially with this last balance patch, that the devs would not be able to keep up with the balance changes they would need to do if the introduce customizable kits. there would be a few weapons with better synergy with the better subs and specials than any other and they would not be able to keep up with having to balance the game. unless game balance and competitive is what they want to focus on in the next game, but i doubt it.

 

[plantknowsyourlocation]

custom kits are flawed down to the concept imo. part of what makes weapons and comp building unique is how you also have to consider the kits tied to the main weapons. as a pb mode, custom kits would be great but i hope splatoon 4 doesn't introduce it as a core thing.

 

[vitellary]

i think it could happen honestly, since i think splatoon 4 will have to do something really different and unique to stand out from splatoon 3. i think the balancing would be different but i don't think it'd be too much to handle; you'd be able to tell pretty clearly what stuff is and isn't getting picked as often, and try to make them more equal. i would imagine it would be a rough first 6 months or so but i think they could figure it out eventually

 

[Beckett.]

if they did that, which they probably wont, it should be a reward for beating the story mode 100% or something (instead of a reskin of a weapon) and you can exchange power eggs or those silver salmon things you get from story mode to make custom kits (it should be very expensive). but anyways i still dont think they should add them

 

[vitellary]

if they did that, which they probably wont, it should be a reward for beating the story mode 100% or something (instead of a reskin of a weapon) and you can exchange power eggs or those silver salmon things you get from story mode to make custom kits (it should be very expensive). but anyways i still dont think they should add them

locking it behind anything sounds wayyy worse than it being available to everyone by default. it would punish players for not playing a game that would end up inherently unfair against them, which in turn de-incentivizes playing it. you'd end up with an elite group of players that have an inherent advantage over anyone else

 

[Whale with Ginger Ale]

i realized, especially with this last balance patch, that the devs would not be able to keep up with the balance changes they would need to do if the introduce customizable kits. there would be a few weapons with better synergy with the better subs and specials than any other and they would not be able to keep up with having to balance the game. unless game balance and competitive is what they want to focus on in the next game, but i doubt it.

Custom kits would be very fun and I'd love to be able to make comps without the weird restriction of kits. There's a few things that would have to be ironed out such as burst on some weapons and special output on weapons but I definitely think it can work and I really hope it does happen

 

[vitellary]

in a game with custom kits i wonder if you'd have to actually make burst bomb cost >50% of the ink tank to stop double burst from working by default
could honestly see them swapping the ink costs of sprinkler and burst. if you need the immediate paint on a weapon then you'd go with sprinkler so you can keep fighting for a long time after, and if you actually need the damage then you'd go with a more ink-hungry burst bomb

 

[Beckett.]

custom kits would completely change the way the game is played. tbh im neutral about it. on one hand i wanna put burst inkjet on all my weapons but on the other i dont want the game to change so drastically

 

[ShotTwiceOver]

i realized, especially with this last balance patch, that the devs would not be able to keep up with the balance changes they would need to do if the introduce customizable kits. there would be a few weapons with better synergy with the better subs and specials than any other and they would not be able to keep up with having to balance the game. unless game balance and competitive is what they want to focus on in the next game, but i doubt it.

I do agree that custom kits would be nice, but they would need to limit it to like, 3 specific subs/specials per kit. If you leave it open to everything available, almost every shooter is gonna have burst bomb, every charger/stringer will either have splat bomb or ink mine, every splatana will have torp/burst, etc etc. Bombs in general are an incredible sub for so many weapons, so if we open it up like that, suddenly there's bombs EVERYWHERE and no room for interesting support subs like beakons or point sensors. We need a limiting factor if we're going to be able to customize weapon kits to our liking.

 

[vitellary]

i do honestly think things could get balanced in a way that would mean they wouldn't have to restrict it. having limitations on what you could choose would hardly even be better than just having defined kits, so i think they'd need to go all-in if they did it. if they nerfed burst bomb a ton (like i said i think making it >50% ink consumption would be a good change) and buffed some of the weaker subs then you would definitely be able to see unique strategies come up. there are plenty of weapons that would like a point sensor, for example, to the point that i could definitely see people opting for it if given the option, at least casually

though, a thought i just had while typing that: i wonder if all the problems would be solved if you could choose TWO sub weapons for your kit, rather than just one. after all, the left bumper goes completely unused in regular splatoon gameplay. that way you could dedicate one of your subs to a lethal bomb, and the other to a utility sub like point sensor or sprinkler

 

[Ktdubz]

What if for custom kits, the special has a higher cost, and the bombs use more ink/the weapon is more ink hungry?

 

[vitellary]

i feel like special cost would be dynamically calculated, where main weapons would have an initial points for special cost (eg. n-zap has a base of 200p, but carbon roller starts at 170p), and certain sub weapons like sprinkler or suction bomb could add 5p-10p to that cost

 

[Hope]

It would be fun in PBs, but custom kits would result in just a few optimal sub / special combos being used on everything. It would lower diversity of subs / specials.

 

[plantknowsyourlocation]

It would be fun in PBs, but custom kits would result in just a few optimal sub / special combos being used on everything. It would lower diversity of subs / specials.

this. and all comps would run the same specials regardless of what mains they're trying to run. or vice versa. it'd get really stale.

 

[vitellary]

idk, splatoon 3 has gotten pretty close to having a really good variety of specials, and i don't think that's just because kits are restricting it. if we ignore tacticooler (since i don't really think it would return for splatoon 4), there's a ton of options for aggressive and support specials right now, and i don't think people would easily be able to find Exactly One option that always works and always counters every single other option in the game

there are a lot of weak special options right now too, but i also feel like splatoon 4 would have a smaller special selection overall which would help make it easier to balance

 

[EverGreen]

I really want to see them if the devs can keep the game balanced similar to what we got today where nothing is inherently the best in the game. It may make subs like Sprinkler almost non-existent, but I think there's enough variety in subs/specials where most people will choose between a few options. If for some reason they were to introduce them in Splatoon 3, my weapon pool would be Roller/Shot/Wiper/TriSlosh and my kits would cycle between Burst/Splat/Suction/Fizzy/Curling/Beakon for subs and Crab/Bubble/Zooka/TriStrike/Cooler for specials.

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

Looking at s3 for a second....don't think nintendo would allow this tbh they love bleeding tf out of content with these 90 day drip feed patches

 

[plantknowsyourlocation]

idk, splatoon 3 has gotten pretty close to having a really good variety of specials, and i don't think that's just because kits are restricting it. if we ignore tacticooler (since i don't really think it would return for splatoon 4), there's a ton of options for aggressive and support specials right now, and i don't think people would easily be able to find Exactly One option that always works and always counters every single other option in the game

there are a lot of weak special options right now too, but i also feel like splatoon 4 would have a smaller special selection overall which would help make it easier to balance

you underestimate the lengths people will go to optimize the fun out of things

 

[Joy]

Custom kits keep being brought up but it fundamentally restricts the design space. Rather than being able to make a gamut ranging from strong to weak mains, subs, and specials, they’d have to homogenize the power levels of everything. If they don’t, it would significantly reduce weapon diversity.

That’s not even touching the fact that it becomes basically impossible to analyze pairwise kit relationships (let alone anything more complex) as the amount of data points needed explodes insanely fast. Meaning balancing pairs of weapons (or weapon matchups) becomes unfeasible as the data requirements are absurd.

 

[vitellary]

Rather than being able to make a gamut ranging from strong to weak mains, subs, and specials, they’d have to homogenize the power levels of everything.

counterpoint: this seems like a good thing to me? obviously it'd be hard but it would definitely be possible to flatten the quality floor and ceiling of weapons. i don't think sprinkler being bad is making splatoon 3 have less restricted design, it just means there's less weapons they can acceptably put sprinkler on

and, unless i misunderstand what you mean by "pairwise kit relationships", i don't think there's much consideration for that in the current splatoon games anyway, at least in terms of whole kits. most of the time when they nerf/buff weapons it feels like it's addressing the weapon as a whole rather than its particular kits (eg. nzap buff feels less like it was "let's make the n-zap 85 stronger" and moreso "i think the n-zap is a weaker main weapon than splattershot right now let's buff it")

to be clear i don't really think it's actually all that likely to happen at all, the main reasoning being that they could never go back if they ever did decide to do it. imagine how lame it'd be for splatoon 4 to allow custom kits, then for splatoon 5 they're like "lol nvm we're making the kits for you again". i think nintendo would understand that risk and therefore never actually do it
BUT it's fun to think about how it could work, since i do not believe the concept is inherently flawed at all. it would just take a lot of consideration and creativity to figure out how you balance a game like that to make it work