Thoughts on the possibility of a content extension?

[Driftwood]

I would eat it :3

What if it was made of kraken cheese?

 

[Bennet]

What if it was made of kraken cheese?

never tried it but yes I would eat that

 

[Cephalobro]

There's something I haven't seen anyone bring up yet, remember how that Jellyfish in the desert part looked like a cutscene? This can't be a coincidence since every Splatoon 3 cutscene Nintendo has shown in promo videos so far has been in the game. But I highly doubt Nintendo will simply stop Splatoon 3's online this early, the fact that something that looks like a cutscene is what convinced me we might have one final story mode to close off the current story arc.

 

[Bennet]

There's something I haven't seen anyone bring up yet, remember how that Jellyfish in the desert part looked like a cutscene? This can't be a coincidence since every Splatoon 3 cutscene Nintendo has shown in promo videos so far has been in the game. But I highly doubt Nintendo will simply stop Splatoon 3's online this early, the fact that something that looks like a cutscene is what convinced me we might have one final story mode to close off the current story arc.

ooooo, I would love to grind on that like I did on S2's hero mode (which surprisingly it took me little under 24 hrs)

 

[Cephalobro]

ooooo, I would love to grind on that like I did on S2's hero mode (which surprisingly it took me little under 24 hrs)

Did you try to play all of the levels with all of the weapons?

 

[Lisku]

absolutely 0

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

There's something I haven't seen anyone bring up yet, remember how that Jellyfish in the desert part looked like a cutscene? This can't be a coincidence since every Splatoon 3 cutscene Nintendo has shown in promo videos so far has been in the game. But I highly doubt Nintendo will simply stop Splatoon 3's online this early, the fact that something that looks like a cutscene is what convinced me we might have one final story mode to close off the current story arc.

I don't think anyone's saying they're going to end online functionality.

 

[ikebro]

i still think it's possible, but it's probably not gonna be anything substantial like new seasons or anything. most likely just gonna be a few extra things and patches thrown in there until switch 2

 

[Bennet]

Did you try to play all of the levels with all of the weapons?

no not yet, I was saying that saving Callie and completing the levels with the weapon that Sheldon wants you to use I did under 24 hrs(which I say is completing is just going thru it once)

 

[Yeenom]

I think at most, we'll get third kits. I think Splatoon 3 suffered due to Nintendo kind of not trying anymore. They try to have their cake and eat it too by having constant game releases and having live service games but they can't coexist in their current form. Switch Sports, Mario Tennis, Mario Party Superstars, Mario Soccer and New Horizons died within two years of their releases because Nintendo dropped them as soon as possible so they can work on the next big singleplayer title and Splatoon 3 is just another victim of that cycle.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I'm not getting my hopes up for a content extension. The main arguments for evidence of a content extension are both previous Splatoon games getting content extensions, which isn't really predictive, and a lack of third kits which is kind of unusual due to the game's 'three' motif and the fact that both previous games had third kits.

I'm thinking it's not impossible, but extremely unlikely. I don't count splatfests continuing as a content extension as there was never an end date for splatfests in Splatoon 3 in the first place.

 

[Catloafman]

How would 3rd kits work with table turf serious question

 

[Cephalobro]

I think at most, we'll get third kits. I think Splatoon 3 suffered due to Nintendo kind of not trying anymore. They try to have their cake and eat it too by having constant game releases and having live service games but they can't coexist in their current form. Switch Sports, Mario Tennis, Mario Party Superstars, Mario Soccer and New Horizons died within two years of their releases because Nintendo dropped them as soon as possible and Splatoon 3 is just another victim of that cycle.

I agree, it's very unfortunate that Nintendo continued their habit of releasing too much in one year. I know that at the time of the Switch's release, they just came off of one of their worst with the Wii U, but now, there really wasn't any excuse given the Switch is one of their most successful consoles ever.

 

[Grushi]

How would 3rd kits work with table turf serious question

I feel like they could just not give the 3rd kits any tableturf cards. Every time they add new ones, they usually make an announcement about it, like it's not assumed they'll always happen.
And if they do some, they could just switch the position of the special square, like they did with wiper deco and stamper nouveau. I really hope tableturf isn't the secret reason why we're not getting 3rd kits

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

How would 3rd kits work with table turf serious question

same way reef-lux and wiper work I assume
ohwait grushi already said that. ah well

 

[Driftwood]

I kind of want to push back on the idea that there aren't enough weapon kits in the game. I actually think that if there are problems, they are that a) there may actually be too many base weapons in the game, b) a number of the kits are mid and some are downright bad, and possibly relatedly c) the devs seem to have become cautious when it comes to balancing the game.

After the upcoming season comes out, there will actually be more kits in Splatoon 3 than in Splatoon 2. By my count* (and excluding scoped chargers and skins (hero, order octoshots), Splatoon 2 would have 124 distinct kits while Splatoon 3 will have 126. The reason for this is that the total number of base weapons went up from 48 to 63 (2 splattanas and stringers in the base game plus one new weapon for the 11 weapon classes). So there wouldn't be less weapon diversity in S3, it's just spread out differently.

I'm sure a lot of people are thinking that it's not that hard to make weapon kits and so surely they can and should make more. But I kind of think Nintendo puts more thought into the affect new kits will have on balance than is often assumed, and specifically they seem to err on undertuning new kits (though with this upcoming batch this might not be so true this time) and then *possibly* buffing them later. When it comes to balance changes in general the devs seem to be trying to iterate slowly. For instance it took them a long time to figure out how to debuff Splash / Crab Tank, but they (eventually) managed to do it in a way that didn't nerf it into the ground. I kind of think weapon balance is hard as it's pretty easy to make a monster (like the Snipewriter is now) and then have the task of trying to tame the weapon kit without killing it. Making more weapon kits increases the chance of that happening and I suspect they are wary of adding too many, especially near the end of new content when a lot of resources would be moved to other projects.

I guess another gripe is that there are some weapons that seem to get neglected (L-3, H-3, most brellas, Dapples etc) and there is the hope that if there are third kits would give them a chance. But I kind of think that...well the third kit might not be good either? It kind of depends on the design goals of the devs but given the track record so far, it would probably a flip of a coin. But also this is kind of the problem with having so many weapons in the game in the first place. It's almost inevitable that some of them will be neglected...or if not neglected then at least not all weapons won't get the same amount of attention.

I'm not saying things are perfect but I don't think we are in bad place right now as far as kits are concerned. I can see disappointment being justified when it comes to things like map design and and the state of the online services. But for weapon variety and balance? I wouldn't say they hit a home run but I don't think they under delivered either.

*I pulled the weapon lists from splatoonwiki.org and put it on a spreadsheet and organized it quickly so there might be an error or two but the basic ratio should be correct. Tell me if you see any errors though!

 

[missingno]

It's not that 126 isn't enough total kits, that number isn't the right way to look at it. It's that 2 kits per main weapon and an average of 6-7 kits per special isn't enough options to enable players to be able to find the dream main they'll be happy with. Because Splatoon 3 has more main weapons, more specials, and even one more sub, there are a lot more possible permutations and thus a much lower percentage of that is covered.

Look at Stringers to see where S3's handling of hits failed hardest. An entire new weapon class has been left behind because there are only 4 kits and all of them are mediocre. Only now are we finally getting that number bumped up to 6, and these ones still don't look good. 6 Stringers just wasn't enough.

There's a quote from Gem that I think put it best:

In Splatoon 2, if you liked a special, there was probably a weapon you could play that had it. I don't feel that way in this game, and I don't like that.

 

[Driftwood]

It's not that 126 isn't enough total kits, that number isn't the right way to look at it. It's that 2 kits per main weapon and an average of 6-7 kits per special isn't enough options to enable players to be able to find the dream main they'll be happy with. Because Splatoon 3 has more main weapons, more specials, and even one more sub, there are a lot more possible permutations and thus a much lower percentage of that is covered.

Look at Stringers to see where S3's handling of hits failed hardest. An entire new weapon class has been left behind because there are only 4 kits and all of them are mediocre. Only now are we finally getting that number bumped up to 6, and these ones still don't look good. 6 Stringers just wasn't enough.

There's a quote from Gem that I think put it best:

In Splatoon 2, if you liked a special, there was probably a weapon you could play that had it. I don't feel that way in this game, and I don't like that.

Re Gem's quote, I would say is more of and issue of an unequal distribution or specials (and some subs while we are at it). I'm assuming he was talking about Inkjet and there are notable lack of Inkjet weapons, as well as lower number of weapons with the newer specials. But that isn't an issue of having enough kits, and issue of not having enough of certain specials in the available kits.

And look, I'm a Tri-Stringer main. Trust me, I know the pain. But to be a little pedantic, I'm still better off in Splatoon 3 because there were zero Tri-Stringer options in Splatoon 2. I think thing about kits is that it makes it easy to imagine potentially better options, whereas it's easy to discount the fact that missing potential also existed in the times before new weapons, subs and specials were introduced. In Splatoon 2 you would never think about how it sucked that the Tri-Stringer didn't exist yet. But there was missed potential in both situations and both should be taken into consideration when judging the game. It's just that it's a lot easier to see one type of missed potential than the other. There isn't a Tri-Stringer like weapon in Splatoon 2, or in any other game that I'm aware of (yes I know bows are ubiquitous but the specifics of the weapon class are pretty unique). I think that should count for a lot, and applies to a ton of other new weapons in the game too.

There is a deeper question here which is, is there a ceiling to the total number of weapon choices that we can or should expect to be in an installment of Splatoon. I feel like a lot of people think there isn't one, but for the reasons I talked about in my previous post, I don't think that's a reasonable assumption. Balancing a game like this is really hard, especially when you subs and specials shared across multiple weapons. Adding too many options would get really unwieldy. And like I said in the previous post, adding third kits would not guarantee that weapons would suddenly get their dream kits. A few might but a lot of them wouldn't. Throwing third kits wouldn't fix as much as I think a lot of people would like.

Finally I think there is a diminishing rate of return of adding more options after a certain point. Something Gem also said, which I will clumsily paraphrase here is that if you like a weapon but you aren't seeing the results you want from it, there is probably a better weapon with a similar playstyle. There really are a lot of options to choose from so there is something for just about everyone. It's also worth remembering that the meta is actually not that restrictive until you get to high level competitive play. You can see all kinds of crazy stuff working in solo queue, or hell even in low level competitive play. At high level things get a lot more restrictive but for the average player, the majority of weapons are perfectly viable. I mentioned I was Tri-Stringer main. Why would I be when the kits are so meh? Because in addition to enjoying the hell out of it, I do pretty good with it. Yes even the Inkline version with sprinkler and chumps. Are either of the options my "dream kit". Not really but I actually don't think that is something that should be expected for every weapon. Lack of a dream kit does not make a weapon unviable or unfun.

I don't know, maybe I'm easy to please. I'm probably older than most people here. I cut my teeth on Halo 2 multiplayer, where we had like 13 weapons and you didn't really have armor customization. But I really don't think the situation is in a bad place weapon variety wise.

 

[missingno]

Re Gem's quote, I would say is more of and issue of an unequal distribution or specials (and some subs while we are at it). I'm assuming he was talking about Inkjet and there are notable lack of Inkjet weapons, as well as lower number of weapons with the newer specials. But that isn't an issue of having enough kits, and issue of not having enough of certain specials in the available kits.

Even if specials were perfectly evenly distributed, 126 kits / 19 specials comes out to 6.63 kits per special. That's less than the number of weapon classes in the game! So it's not just an issue of distribution, because no matter what there will always be gaps.

For comparison, Splatoon 2 had 124 kits / 11 specials = 11.27 kits per special.

There is a deeper question here which is, is there a ceiling to the total number of weapon choices that we can or should expect to be in an installment of Splatoon.

The real answer to this is that I think it's time to reconsider the kit system for Splatoon 4. Kits worked in a game that had fewer weapons to begin with, but they aren't working anymore, the system has reached its breaking point. If we expect sequels to continue expanding and have more stuff than the last, then it's no longer sustainable to constrain them this way, it could even get worse in S4.

Just to be clear here, I'm not saying S4 should simply take what S3 is now but you can pick Burst Bomb/Trizooka on everything. Changes are going to be necessary to redesign and rebalance a new game around a different system. But I think changing the system will be the best way forward, because what we have now no longer works.

 

[Driftwood]

Even if specials were perfectly evenly distributed, 126 kits / 19 specials comes out to 6.63 kits per special. That's less than the number of weapon classes in the game! So it's not just an issue of distribution, because no matter what there will always be gaps.

For comparison, Splatoon 2 had 124 kits / 11 specials = 11.27 kits per special.


The real answer to this is that I think it's time to reconsider the kit system for Splatoon 4. Kits worked in a game that had fewer weapons to begin with, but they aren't working anymore, the system has reached its breaking point. If we expect sequels to continue expanding and have more stuff than the last, then it's no longer sustainable to constrain them this way, it could even get worse in S4.

Just to be clear here, I'm not saying S4 should simply take what S3 is now but you can pick Burst Bomb/Trizooka on everything. Changes are going to be necessary to redesign and rebalance a new game around a different system. But I think changing the system will be the best way forward, because what we have now no longer works.

For your first point I kind of think this is an argument that too many specials exist in the game, including some redundant ones (hello reef slider).

As for your second point, we're obviously not going to see eye to eye on this one so I'm just going to reiterate that I simply do not agree that the kit system has reached a "breaking point" or "no longer works". I think it works well. 63 weapons with two kits for each is a lot options for a pvp game that needs to be balanced. A lot of people don't seem to agree and to each their own, but if anyone reading this is on the fence then please consider that we do have a lot of options in the game as it is currently.