Thoughts on the possibility of a content extension?

[OnePotWonder]

Yeah but some (most?) people don't want or need to get better. Some people just casually play the funny squid game with their friends and have no intention of reaching a higher level of play. You can't get stuck if you aren't planning on going anywhere. There are people who *only* play Turf War long after they've unlocked ranked (I once uploaded a TikTok clip and someone asked what was wrong with the timer since it was above 3 minutes...I was really confused until someone else comment in that I wasn't playing turf). Not everyone who plays needs to have a competitive mindset. Some people find that fun (probably most of the people on this forum) thats not the case for everyone who plays the game, and that's fine.

at I get that there might be some people who do want to get better and for which these weapons do become could become a crutch, but think that's kind of just a tradeoff the devs have to make. And given that the internet exists, is pretty easy for people to learn that these weapons are actually bad if you want to get better.

Quite true. There's a difference between poorly designed and delegated bottom-tier. I still think those weapons should have somewhat better skill expression, though. Maybe make Clash's directs stronger, have Blob's blobs come out closer together, give Undercover its shield bump combo, et cetera. Their designs can be improved upon.

 

[Bennet]

Eh, y'know what, screw it, let's make some people mad at me.

Spoiler

Clash Blaster: Do I even need to explain this one? Clash belongs to a category of weapons that are perma-bottom tier because I actually think the developers know how unhealthy it would be for the game if it was ever allowed to be good. And if that's the jail a weapon has to be stuck in, let's just let it go.

Bloblobber: I have a soft spot for this weapon. I am a zoner at heart and this actually feels to me like fighting game zoning in Splatoon. But it belongs to the same tier as Clash, I am putting my bias aside and admitting it would be for the best to drop this one. It's a very mindless weapon that just consists of hoping someone walks into all four blobs. Four blobs may as well be random crits. The shot velocity is too slow to fight with intentionality, and so it drops off as soon as opponents stop standing still.

Undercover Brella: Also in Clash tier. Any weapon low level players rate extremely highly but sees no play at top level, that's a sign of a deeper design issue. Though I know said players love it way too much to ever accept losing it, this is the one that will really make people hate me.

Goo Tuber: The problem with Goo Tuber is that the gimmick simply isn't useful. At all. You never use it. Charge hold got a do-over on Nautilus, and actually turned out to be a lot better on a Splatling, so we may as well leave this failed prototype behind.

Squeezer: As I said before, this weapon is bad for your hands. That's the real reason to get rid of it. And if you have to implement anti-turbo measures, that's even more reason why you shouldn't have put this kind of mashing in the game in the first place.

Splattershot Nova: What is this weapon's purpose? Why does it exist? What identity does it have besides "bad Pro"? I remember this weapon was announced with a trait that the accuracy doesn't get worse as you continue firing... but the accuracy already sucks to begin with so wow what an especially meaningless trait. What was the point of this?

Big Swig Roller: See Nova. I just don't know what the point of this weapon was supposed to be. Big Carbon? Big Carbon is just vRoller!

Glooga Dualies: Worse vDualie. That's all it is really.

Heavy Edit Splatling: You can see this as either a shorter range vHeavy or slower charge Nautilus, they combined the weaker attributes of those two weapons. If it didn't have Cooler there would be no reason to play it over either of those.

Snipewriter: This weapon's gimmick is actually pretty valid, and probably wouldn't be a problem in S4 if it simply doesn't have Cooler again. But I vote we punish it for its sins anyway.

Sploosh/Aerospray: These two are the exact same weapon. Why do we have both? Cut one. I would say Aerospray but we'd have a Little Timmy riot on our hands. Hell, maybe even cut both because Jr. exists, but then there really would be chaos in the streets.

Rapid Blaster/Pro: This is a weapon that gets to have four kits when everyone else gets two. I don't know why they did that, but we don't need both. I want to say keep the Pro and cut regular.

Number one Sploosh and Aerospray aren't the same thing Sploosh is a tad bit slower and more accurate than Aerospray which is faster than Sploosh but with the inaccuracy it is very good at covering turf quickly

Number two, Rapid blaster and Rapid blaster pro are two separate blasters and they have only one rework on them, think about this, if you said that it was four reworks then people would be saying that Splattershot has a ton of reworks (Jr, annaki nova, forge pro, pro, nova, tentatek, and custom jr) so you can see why it has '4' when it is really just two different kits with one single rework, pay attention to the parentheses because you will see that there is the two kits of each type of splatter shots in there, so once again none of these are correct and that Nintendo can do whatever they want to do. It's only up to us what splatfests team wins, and that's all that we have control over

thanks!

 

[missingno]

I don't think you understand the point I'm making.

I am aware that Aerospray and Sploosh are not literally 1:1 identical, of course they have very slightly different parameters, but the differences aren't significant enough to actually set them apart. My point is that they are similar enough to be redundant with one another.

Likewise, the Rapids are too similar to have distinct identities, they play the exact same role. vRapid is just a slightly worse RPro and could easily be left on the cutting room floor. This is not comparable to Shot/Jr./Pro, those three weapons actually are very distinct (but also, as I've said, Nova is not).

 

[Bennet]

I don't think you understand the point I'm making.

I am aware that Aerospray and Sploosh are not 1:1 identical, of course they have very slightly different parameters, but the differences aren't significant enough to actually set them apart. My point is that they are similar enough to be redundant with one another.

Likewise, the Rapids are too similar to have distinct identities, they play the exact same role. vRapid is just a slightly worse RPro and could easily be left on the cutting room floor. This is not comparable to Shot/Jr./Pro, those three weapons actually are very distinct (but also, as I've said, Nova is not).

and you aren't getting my point, they are very different weapons and if you think that they are close to being the same then you're wrong, look at the kits, name and how they shoot and then you will see my point

rapid and rapid pro are two very different blasters, one has more range then the other and that they only have one rework not four reworks.

 

[missingno]

They are similar enough to be redundant. They do not have distinct niches.

 

[OnePotWonder]

Likewise, the Rapids are too similar to have distinct identities, they play the exact same role.

Well, actually, the two are surprisingly distinct despite how similar they are. Short Rapid tends to play heavily into a midline role while Rapid Pro plays a lot more like a backline. Sure, they have different kits that cater to those playstyles, but I don't think you could slap Rapid Deco's kit onto a Rapid Pro and have it be able to do the same things quite as well.
They could be made a little more distinct, but they play different enough.

and you aren't getting my point, they are very different weapons and if you think that they are close to being the same then you're wrong, look at the kits, name and how they shoot and then you will see my point

rapid and rapid pro are two very different blasters, one has more range then the other and that they only have one rework not four reworks.

I have to be honest, your argument for Sploosh and Aerospray being different is not good. Both weapons are short-range, inaccurate shooters that play close to opponents to get splats, and otherwise spend their time painting the map. They're very similar. I could see Aerospray being removed for that reason. I don't even think anyone would be too upset about it if Neo Sploosh got Booyah Bomb.

 

[NeoXVIII]

I don't have very high hopes for a content extension, like getting a whole other season or two. Maybe splatfests, big runs, and balance patches at most.

Splatoon 3 feels meticulously planned to more or less reach the state it's in currently, with every weapon having 2 kits and the maps taking up full pages, and fulfilling the motif of 3 (where convenient), a full on third kit sized content extension is unlikely unless they're porting it to the Switch 2 and/or flat out say they're giving another 4 seasons of support where they blitz out kits.

 

[Bennet]

Well, actually, the two are surprisingly distinct despite how similar they are. Short Rapid tends to play heavily into a midline role while Rapid Pro plays a lot more like a backline. Sure, they have different kits that cater to those playstyles, but I don't think you could slap Rapid Deco's kit onto a Rapid Pro and have it be able to do the same things quite as well.
They could be made a little more distinct, but they play different enough.


I have to be honest, your argument for Sploosh and Aerospray being different is not good. Both weapons are short-range, inaccurate shooters that play close to opponents to get splats, and otherwise spend their time painting the map. They're very similar. I could see Aerospray being removed for that reason. I don't even think anyone would be too upset about it if Neo Sploosh got Booyah Bomb.

if they do that then how will Nintendo have realistic replicas?(Aerospray is a tattoo gun I.R.L

 

[Driftwood]

I don't have very high hopes for a content extension, like getting a whole other season or two. Maybe splatfests, big runs, and balance patches at most.

Splatoon 3 feels meticulously planned to more or less reach the state it's in currently, with every weapon having 2 kits and the maps taking up full pages, and fulfilling the motif of 3 (where convenient), a full on third kit sized content extension is unlikely unless they're porting it to the Switch 2 and/or flat out say they're giving another 4 seasons of support where they blitz out kits.

I think data miners have confirmed that they added Splatoween and Frosty Fest skins for Pearl and Marina (since they weren't in the game when those two events took place the first time), so we should be getting those, including the special ones. I'm more or less expecting Big Runs to continue too. And if history is anything to go on, we should get balance patches for a while (also the most recent patch notes confirmed that we will get a mid season patch). But I agree that we shouldn't expect too much more.

If they are porting to Switch 2 I'm pretty sure they would want crossplay (otherwise they would be splitting their player base which would hurt matchmaking) so I would expect purely visual additions (better graphics and maybe some new clothes, stickers, locker decorations etc). Switch 2 only maps would be out of the question and the blowback they would get if they added Switch 2 only kits (especially if they were really good) would not be worth it for them imo.

Also I know I've said this elsewhere but I'm pretty sure the dev team is refocusing on the next Animal Crossing game since the same team works on both games.

 

[Bennet]

I think data miners have confirmed that they added Splatoween and Frosty Fest skins for Pearl and Marina (since they weren't in the game when those two events took place the first time), so we should be getting those, including the special ones. I'm more or less expecting Big Runs to continue too. And if history is anything to go on, we should get balance patches for a while (also the most recent patch notes confirmed that we will get a mid season patch). But I agree that we shouldn't expect too much more.

If they are porting to Switch 2 I'm pretty sure they would want crossplay (otherwise they would be splitting their player base which would hurt matchmaking) so I would expect purely visual additions (better graphics and maybe some new clothes, stickers, locker decorations etc). Switch 2 only maps would be out of the question and the blowback they would get if the included Switch 2 only kits (especially if they were really good) would not be worth it for them imo.

Also I know I've said this elsewhere but I'm pretty sure the dev team is refocusing on the next Animal Crossing game since the same team works on both games.

I want to play Animal crossings again.

 

[mossyquartz]

Yea we're cooked guys

 

[Cephalobro]

If they are porting to Switch 2 I'm pretty sure they would want crossplay (otherwise they would be splitting their player base which would hurt matchmaking) so I would expect purely visual additions (better graphics and maybe some new clothes, stickers, locker decorations etc). Switch 2 only maps would be out of the question and the blowback they would get if they added Switch 2 only kits (especially if they were really good) would not be worth it for them imo.

There would be no need for a Splatoon 3 port for the Switch 2 if the original Switch's games are compatible with the Switch 2.

 

[Driftwood]

There would be no need for a Splatoon 3 port for the Switch 2 if the original Switch's games are compatible with the Switch 2.

There wouldn't be much benefit for the players but it would benefit Nintendo if it could give more people a reason to buy the new console. What if you mainly just play Splatoon? Why would you buy the new Switch...unless Nintendo gave you a reason to.

Edit: ok to be honest I don't think this actually that likely (better for them to put their resources into actually new games) but I wouldn't say it's out of the question. And because of that I was kind of just arguing about how limited a "deluxe" version would likely be, in the odd chance that they did do something like that.

 

[Cephalobro]

There wouldn't be much benefit for the players but it would benefit Nintendo if it could give more people a reason to buy the new console. What if you mainly just play Splatoon? Why would you buy the new Switch...unless Nintendo gave you a reason to.

Backward compatibility, Nintendo always had a history of backward compatibility starting all the way from the Game Boy Color. While their backward compatibility was just handhelds for the longest time, that changed with the Wii. The only reason why the Switch did not have backward compatibility was due to the format being entirely different from the Wii U and 3DS.

Backward compatibility helps a lot in a system's sales, it's why Nintendo did it for many of their systems. And both new and old players like backward compatibility for different reasons, old players like it because they can still play the games they bought from a previous system without keeping an extra console, and for new players, it just means so many available options from the start.

 

[Driftwood]

I edited my post but almost certainly after you started writing your response I don't think we actually disagree that much thb.

 

[Cephalobro]

Yeah, the only reason Nintendo really ported Wii U games to the Switch was really due to the lack of backward compatibility, and maybe because the Wii U failed to sell as much as Nintendo wanted.

 

[missingno]

Fun bit of trivia, every Nintendo console that has had backwards compatibility did it at the hardware level by literally including the previous console inside.

GBA contains the GBC's Sharp SM83 CPU, and it's only there to run GB(C) games. GBA software never touches it.
DS contains the GBA's ARM7, which DS games can also use as a coprocessor. The SM83 is omitted though, which is why it will not run GB(C) games anymore. To keep you from trying, the cartridges are shaped slightly differently and will not fit snugly in the DS, but that's just plastic - the cartridge reader is otherwise the same.
3DS contains both the DS's ARM9 and the GBA's ARM7, the latter is necessary since DS games use it. They just didn't include a cartridge slot for GBA games, but the Ambassador "VC" releases are able to run on that hardware. This is why the Ambassador games cannot suspend to the home menu or even use sleep mode, they boot into a compatibility mode that disables all 3DS hardware. With homebrew it's possible to inject other ROMs as well.

Wii is a little more complicated. Rather than including Gamecube hardware separately, its CPU and GPU are based on the Gamecube's architecture, just at higher clockspeeds (I'm simplifying this a bit, there's more to it). By downclocking, they become perfectly compatible with Gamecube software.
Wii U is even more complicated. I'm not even going to try to explain this one, but you can read Rodrigo Copetti's documentation if you're interested. The disc reader won't accept 8cm Gamecube discs, nor does it have controller ports or memory card slots, but the hardware is secretly still compatible and can be hacked via homebrew.

Also, did you know that the SNES CPU boots into a 6502-compatible "NES mode" before SNES software instructs it to switch to native mode? I haven't been able to find much technical documentation on this, but evidently it doesn't actually run NES software, but was likely supposed to. Backwards compatibility was initially advertised when the console was first announced, only to be silently dropped at some point in development.

It is a near certainty that the Switch 2 will build on the Switch's architecture. The ARM4 and Tegra X1 are generic enough that they can easily be built upon while maintaining compatibility (I am, again, simplifying a lot here), there's nothing they would need to break away for. Switch had to break the Wii U in order to transition to a hybrid, but they don't need to do that a second time, and if they don't need to then they won't.

And with how much slower the transition between console generations is these days - look at the pace of PS5 and XBS adoption, as well as how many games still get cross-gen releases - backwards compatibility is absolutely essential to bridge the gap. In fact, the big three may all be permanently locked in to the architectures they're using now, if they ever try to reset and launch a new console without backwards compatibility they would die as a result.

 

[Bennet]

Backward compatibility, Nintendo always had a history of backward compatibility starting all the way from the Game Boy Color. While their backward compatibility was just handhelds for the longest time, that changed with the Wii. The only reason why the Switch did not have backward compatibility was due to the format being entirely different from the Wii U and 3DS.

Backward compatibility helps a lot in a system's sales, it's why Nintendo did it for many of their systems. And both new and old players like backward compatibility for different reasons, old players like it because they can still play the games they bought from a previous system without keeping an extra console, and for new players, it just means so many available options from the start.

I have to agree, anyone familiar to the Gameboy SP? you could play a Gameboy game, Gameboy color, or Gameboy advance, that's the same (kinda, you only can do Gameboy advance on it) for the first model of the DS