Weapon kits were designed for different game modes

[takoyakispl]

While there may be some merit to looking at the dev's intent as an indication of how a weapon should be played, I think it's far more beneficial and effective to consider what the weapon can do. The Tenta Brella isn't good on splat zones because the devs want it to be good at splat zones, the Tent is good at splat zones because of its unique strengths. And maybe the devs made those strengths specifically so the weapon could be good at splat zones, but either way, it feels more productive to consider the capabilities of a weapon rather than what the devs want you to do with said weapon.

The splat brella, which we've been talking about, is an excellent example of this. Maybe we can agree that the devs want the vanilla splat brella to be 'the splat zones brella,' and so if we only considered dev intent we might always choose the vanilla kit for splat zones. But the simple fact of the matter is that the sorella kit is dramatically better. Perhaps considering dev intent is beneficial for our understanding of what "should" be, but considering weapon capabilities is much more productive for our understanding of what *is*, which is dramatically more important for improvement.

And besides, a weapon's role usually doesn't change dramatically due to its kit. The vshot and ttek are going to play more or less the same. Maybe certain weapons will play more passive/supportive if they're given a particularly influential special, but the main weapon has much more influence over how a weapon plays than its kit.

Well said

 

[Gh0ul1sh]

This has been my primary cause and belief since the days of Splatoon 2; and with Splatoon 3 still undergoing development, I've been seeing patterns regarding Subweapon and Special distribution amongst weapon kits.

Basically, you don't main a weapon kit, you main the whole *** weapon. You pick the kit according to the game mode currently active. This entails every weapon is meant for competitive play, even the humble Aerospray. This means every kit has a use, even the vanilla Carbon Roller. I've been writing Anarchy guides (link in my signature) where I state which kit should be brought to which game mode and why. These guides don't get a lot of traction and my overall theory absolutely has not been accepted. It fact it's been widely mocked and derided but I keep writing because there are things you notice once you go down that rabbit hole.

Once you believe each kit applies to two modes out of four, mathematically you realize there are only 6 possible combinations present. Mapping for every weapon, I discovered that every primary kit sharing a same special has a different combination of game modes in which they excel. This follows for every secondary kit sharing a same special. For subweapons, the combinations of preferred game modes do not repeat themselves more than twice for every weapon kit sharing the same sub. And whenever a new special has come out, the two sets to come out with it have mirroring combinations.

I can make some lowkey predictions with the following theory. Of the four upcoming datamined weapons, they will not have Tacticooler or Ink Vac in the primary slot, because we have 6 primary weapon kits with these specials already. I can eliminate the probability of certain future weapon kits; for example I can process by elimination that Heavy Edit Splatling was designed for Rainmaker and Clam Blitz because every other combinations for primary weapons with Tacticooler has been taken. I can therefore eliminate Suction Bomb, Torpedo, Splash Wall and Point Sensor from the list of possible subweapons that would be given to the alternate kit because the Splat Zones-Tower Control combinations have been used twice there already.

I've shared this theory on Reddit and Gamefaqs and never found anyone willing to agree, which is a tragedy all if its own. Basically, the lack of people trying out "weak kits" prevents a theory that looks good when seen at a small scale, to be accepted at large scale. Thanks for reading.

I really like this theory, I don’t think it’s the entire basis of kits, but I absolutely agree it plays a part in it. I just think about stringer and how the ink line is good for zones (maybe clams I don’t play it much) while the standard kit is better for rainmaker and tower.
I will also say another of my mains the tetra duelies seem to have a similar idea going on where if my team ever wants a reefslider it would be for zones or specific clams maps.

 

[kyubone]

Every single kit in the game was designed for a use case. Because if you see it in some, why wouldnt it be for all? Why would there be bad kits? Mistakes? Well id trust the judgement of the game developers over that of players. Particularly on the subject of the Splat Brella, which has little changes between Splatoon sequels. Specials change a bit but subweapons wise Nintendo saw no reason to see a "bad kit". Here the 96 Gal is a better example for having the same subweapon kits across three games, and people calling the Deco universally better than Vanilla throughout them all. So why are kits designed the way they are? For different game modes.

this is a curious way of looking at it, almost a bit naive. you're placing a lot of faith in the devs for having a specific vision for the game, which is fair on its own, but then it almost sounds like you're at odds - to the point of arguing ad nauseum - with the players' interpretation of that vision and how it informs their kit choices, which is like trying to fist-fight a waterfall. it's not going to get you anywhere and you're perceiving a conflict where there might not even be any because even if we do it differently, we're still all playing the same game.

once the game is in the hands of the players, developer intent no longer matters until the next patch drops and we readjust. on that note as well, not everything has to be a certain way for a certain reason. sometimes a kit is just better because it works for a wider range of playstyles/team comps than another kit, and even though the devs maybe attempted to craft something that could be picked in other scenarios (not just other modes; remember that some maps within the same mode can play very differently from each other), maybe that was a happy accident rather than a conscious decision. who knows? speculating on the "why" matters a lot less when we're actively engaging with the "what" every time we pick up our controllers.

now it feels like there's been a lot of circular logic thrown around this thread so far and i'm not sure i have anything meaningful to contribute so i'm gonna step back. i've said my piece and made my peace with the state of splatoon 3. there are more productive conversations to be had about how to engage with the game than attempting to decipher something that will most likely never be confirmed by the people who designed it.

 

[Sambews]

I started from the conclusion that SOME weapon kits were better than the other in certain modes, then worked from there to figuring out if ALL kits had their mode specific benefits. Which makes more sense than saying "bad kit bad". "Bad kit bad" is PRECISELY the mindset I wish to avoid, and my texts were designed to see the advantages of what people considered "bad kits".

Yes, 'bad kit bad' can be a reductive mindset, but I think "this weapon is designed for this game mode" isn't the best way to justify it. Again, it feels more productive to justify a kit being bad with its capabilities relative to its alternatives.

Why is the vanilla 96 gal's kit bad in [insert game mode here]? It's not because the devs want it to be used for Splat zones, it's because sprinkler isn't a particularly influential sub weapon (especially compared to having a splat wall), and the kraken tends to be more influential than ink vac. The 96 gal can get much more value out of a wall than a sprinkler, and kraken is better in the meta. The vanilla 96 doesn't have a bad kit because it doesn't do anything, it has a bad kit because what it does is worse than what the other kit does.

Justifying a kit being bad with "it's not supposed to be good at this game mode" feels more productive than "kit bad cuz bad," but it still feels like not the best way to approach things. Seeking to understand *why* a kit is bad leads to a better and more nuanced comprehension of the game, and I just don't think justifying it with dev intent is good enough.

 

[takoyakispl]

Yes, 'bad kit bad' can be a reductive mindset, but I think "this weapon is designed for this game mode" isn't the best way to justify it. Again, it feels more productive to justify a kit being bad with its capabilities relative to its alternatives.

Why is the vanilla 96 gal's kit bad in [insert game mode here]? It's not because the devs want it to be used for Splat zones, it's because sprinkler isn't a particularly influential sub weapon (especially compared to having a splat wall), and the kraken tends to be more influential than ink vac. The 96 gal can get much more value out of a wall than a sprinkler, and kraken is better in the meta. The vanilla 96 doesn't have a bad kit because it doesn't do anything, it has a bad kit because what it does is worse than what the other kit does.

Justifying a kit being bad with "it's not supposed to be good at this game mode" feels more productive than "kit bad cuz bad," but it still feels like not the best way to approach things. Seeking to understand *why* a kit is bad leads to a better and more nuanced comprehension of the game, and I just don't think justifying it with dev intent is good enough.

I would actually argue vac is better than kraken right now but for the role 96 plays and with a wall and everything else kraken works amazingly

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

Every single kit in the game was designed for a use case. Because if you see it in some, why wouldnt it be for all? Why would there be bad kits? Mistakes? Well id trust the judgement of the game developers over that of players. Particularly on the subject of the Splat Brella, which has little changes between Splatoon sequels. Specials change a bit but subweapons wise Nintendo saw no reason to see a "bad kit". Here the 96 Gal is a better example for having the same subweapon kits across three games, and people calling the Deco universally better than Vanilla throughout them all. So why are kits designed the way they are? For different game modes.

Yes, every kit was designed for a use case, but that doesn't mean it's good at it. (It also doesn't mean that that use case is any particular mode, although that may be true sometimes.)

Also, why do you trust the game developers' judgement over the players? Many competitive players spend hours daily practicing Splatoon and testing different strategies to figure out which work the best. This includes weapon choices. Not everyone will have the same opinion, but people still come to generally the same conclusions about what works and what doesn't. There's a reason that ballpoint wins tournaments (while it was meta, anyway; idk about now) while ballpoint nouveau does not. It's not because the maplist didn't have enough of certain modes or anything; the vanilla kit is just better overall, and it would be extremely difficult to find a top player who thinks otherwise.

It's not because people don't try weak kits. It's because people try them, and stop playing them because something else works better.

 

[Mjmannella]

I think it's rather rash to predict any kits right now, did anyone expect Bloblobber Deco to have it kit it got? We know they like to make references to past kits, but it's never been an absolute.

 

[missingno]

Why would there be bad kits? Mistakes? Well id trust the judgement of the game developers over that of players.

Game developers are not omniscent, they make mistakes all the damn time. That's why we have patches, because 1.0 was not flawlessly balanced the first time.

Consider how many people play Splatoon, and how much time they put into grinding it. Even if Hisashi Nogami spent 100 years playtesting the game on his own before releasing it to the world, within 24 hours of public release the worldwide playerbase would have put far more collective hours into practicing, studying, and breaking the game. They will find things he didn't, and as they continue to get the advantage of more and more time they'll be far more likely to be right. You shouldn't trust the judgment of game developers, they're not the ones winning tournaments.

If you want to convince us that a bottom-tier Sprinkler makes a bottom-tier Brella good on Zones actually, show us results. Anyone can theorycraft, but if the results don't back it up then I'm not buying it.

 

[Deepsink]

This has been my primary cause and belief since the days of Splatoon 2; and with Splatoon 3 still undergoing development, I've been seeing patterns regarding Subweapon and Special distribution amongst weapon kits.

Basically, you don't main a weapon kit, you main the whole *** weapon. You pick the kit according to the game mode currently active. This entails every weapon is meant for competitive play, even the humble Aerospray. This means every kit has a use, even the vanilla Carbon Roller. I've been writing Anarchy guides (link in my signature) where I state which kit should be brought to which game mode and why. These guides don't get a lot of traction and my overall theory absolutely has not been accepted. It fact it's been widely mocked and derided but I keep writing because there are things you notice once you go down that rabbit hole.

Once you believe each kit applies to two modes out of four, mathematically you realize there are only 6 possible combinations present. Mapping for every weapon, I discovered that every primary kit sharing a same special has a different combination of game modes in which they excel. This follows for every secondary kit sharing a same special. For subweapons, the combinations of preferred game modes do not repeat themselves more than twice for every weapon kit sharing the same sub. And whenever a new special has come out, the two sets to come out with it have mirroring combinations.

I can make some lowkey predictions with the following theory. Of the four upcoming datamined weapons, they will not have Tacticooler or Ink Vac in the primary slot, because we have 6 primary weapon kits with these specials already. I can eliminate the probability of certain future weapon kits; for example I can process by elimination that Heavy Edit Splatling was designed for Rainmaker and Clam Blitz because every other combinations for primary weapons with Tacticooler has been taken. I can therefore eliminate Suction Bomb, Torpedo, Splash Wall and Point Sensor from the list of possible subweapons that would be given to the alternate kit because the Splat Zones-Tower Control combinations have been used twice there already.

I've shared this theory on Reddit and Gamefaqs and never found anyone willing to agree, which is a tragedy all if its own. Basically, the lack of people trying out "weak kits" prevents a theory that looks good when seen at a small scale, to be accepted at large scale. Thanks for reading.

this applies for most weapons I feel besides sploosh

 

[Sorcerer]

Consider how many people play Splatoon, and how much time they put into grinding it. Even if Hisashi Nogami spent 100 years playtesting the game on his own before releasing it to the world, within 24 hours of public release the worldwide playerbase would have put far more collective hours into practicing, studying, and breaking the game. They will find things he didn't, and as they continue to get the advantage of more and more time they'll be far more likely to be right. You shouldn't trust the judgment of game developers, they're not the ones winning tournaments.

It's entirely possible that someone wins a game tournament by going against the original intent of how the weapon kit was conceived, but isn't this akin to working against the grain? I can either try to play comp imitating some other player who succeeded and hope to equal their skill, or try to figure out why a weapon kit was designed the way it was and build my strategy from there.

Right now, I cannot find a better explanation for kit distribution other than to better fulfill objective roles in the different game modes. I know that no matter how much people point out the lack of balance between two kits of a weapon, they will not change (see Carbon Roller, Splat Brella and 96 Gals as unbalanced kits that refuse to change across sequels). Saying that a subweapon is "bottom tier" just shows lack of understanding: you don't just toss a Sprinkler in the open where it can be shot down, you make the opponent work to reach them.

If this becomes a battle between "dev intent" vs "player practice", then one should at least be aware of both. As it turns out, I'm discovering patterns of distribution amongst weapon kits that lead me to believe there is a dev intent in the first place. This is certainly worth exploring.

EDIT: If anyone wants me to justify a specific kit seen as wholly inferior; first look to my signature to see if I didn't cover it in a gamefaqs.com guide. Everything is a work in progress and research is still required for some kits. Also, I prefer to write a full guide rather than rattle off points in a post.

 

[missingno]

It's entirely possible that someone wins a game tournament by going against the original intent of how the weapon kit was conceived, but isn't this akin to working against the grain? I can either try to play comp imitating some other player who succeeded and hope to equal their skill, or try to figure out why a weapon kit was designed the way it was and build my strategy from there.

If players are able to prove that dev intent was wrong, then the dev intent doesn't matter, does it? You shouldn't be basing your strategy around what you think the developers wanted you to do, base it around what will actually work. In competitive games, that frequently does mean doing things developers never considered, come up with your own ideas rather than trying to assume theirs. Death of the Author applies just as much to competitive gaming as it does to literary analysis.

Right now, I cannot find a better explanation for kit distribution other than to better fulfill objective roles in the different game modes.

If you only wanted to argue that the developer intent behind kits was to try to make them better on certain modes, I suppose that's a possible theory, but it's also one you have no way of proving unless the devs come out and tell us this themselves. But that is a very different argument than what you opened this thread with, you didn't just claim that devs wanted kits to be better on certain modes, you claimed that they are better on certain modes.

And if your only justification for this theory is that you can't think of a better one, that's really not enough to back it up. Because the theory I'll counter with is that you're overthinking this and sometimes developers just have bad ideas sometimes. They're human, and humans make mistakes. They don't have the collective manhours to push a game to its limits the way we do, players will always find things they miss.

Saying that a subweapon is "bottom tier" just shows lack of understanding: you don't just toss a Sprinkler in the open where it can be shot down, you make the opponent work to reach them.

That's... not the point. At all. Just because you've put a Sprinkler in a funny spot doesn't mean it's suddenly getting amazing value for it. Not only is it not that hard to shoot down even in a funny spot, opponents can also just... ignore it. In many cases the funnier the spot, the less it's actually doing out there.

This Squid School ****post is a glib but correct way of summarizing the problem with this type of thinking. If you have to attach a bunch of qualifiers to say "well it's a little bit less bad under these very specific circumstances"... okay, but look at what better options are doing more easily. Don't just give me reasons to say it's slightly less bad, show me reasons for it to actually be good.

I play vHeavy. It's not like I don't know how to use a Sprinkler. Quite the opposite, I know it well enough to know that no, it really isn't that good. Honestly the best thing it does is paint my feet for mobility, but that's just a way of saying we have Burst Bombs at home.

As it turns out, I'm discovering patterns of distribution amongst weapon kits that lead me to believe there is a dev intent in the first place. This is certainly worth exploring.

The human brain has a tendency to obsessively look for patterns in everything, to the point where we can look at genuinely random data and still convince ourselves that a pattern exists when it literally doesn't. You may think you've found a pattern that applies to some kits, but you've not been able to show that this pattern holds for all of them.

 

[Sambews]

Could it be that you’re construing the devs attempting to make different playstyles as the devs attempting to make weapons for specific modes? Idk, I’m just spitballing here.

Sorella brella is the aggressive brella, vbrella is the passive one. Same with the tents. The heavy is a more supportive back line, whereas the heavy deco is meant to play more aggressively so it can take full advantage of kraken. Same idea with the splat charger. Vanilla bow is more centered on bullying other players, the inkline has more of a focus on paint and map control. It’s not that the devs are making kits for specific game modes, but for specific playstyles. And those playstyles, all else being equal, make them better on certain maps/modes.

I’d also like to point out real quick that I think a lot of the critique towards your theory isn’t directed at the theory itself, but rather at the value the thought process provides. It’s a very interesting way of looking at the game design, and it could certainly be true, but I’m not sure that it has merit outside of that. At least, that’s my critique with the theory. Heaven forbid I speak on behalf of the internet.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

It's entirely possible that someone wins a game tournament by going against the original intent of how the weapon kit was conceived, but isn't this akin to working against the grain? I can either try to play comp imitating some other player who succeeded and hope to equal their skill, or try to figure out why a weapon kit was designed the way it was and build my strategy from there.

Right now, I cannot find a better explanation for kit distribution other than to better fulfill objective roles in the different game modes. I know that no matter how much people point out the lack of balance between two kits of a weapon, they will not change (see Carbon Roller, Splat Brella and 96 Gals as unbalanced kits that refuse to change across sequels). Saying that a subweapon is "bottom tier" just shows lack of understanding: you don't just toss a Sprinkler in the open where it can be shot down, you make the opponent work to reach them.

If this becomes a battle between "dev intent" vs "player practice", then one should at least be aware of both. As it turns out, I'm discovering patterns of distribution amongst weapon kits that lead me to believe there is a dev intent in the first place. This is certainly worth exploring.

EDIT: If anyone wants me to justify a specific kit seen as wholly inferior; first look to my signature to see if I didn't cover it in a gamefaqs.com guide. Everything is a work in progress and research is still required for some kits. Also, I prefer to write a full guide rather than rattle off points in a post.

If the statement that something is "bottom tier" shows a lack of understanding, then Splatoon must be a perfectly balanced game where every weapon is exactly as good as every other weapon, so that they are all the same tier. It's not. Some weapons are better than others, both in certain situations and overall.

Also, the goal of playing in a competitive tournament isn't to do what the developers intended. The goal is to win. Feel free to play the game how you like, including trying to go "with the grain", as you put it, but if your goal is to win then it's important to recognize that some strategies are better than others, and understand why that is.

Yes, everything has better and worse ways to use it. But that doesn't automatically make it worth using. Yes, sprinkler can serve as bait, even if it only works occasionally, but is that really more valuable than having, say, a splat bomb that can force someone to move away from whichever area you like?

I can't explain why the devs made the choices they did when choosing weapon kits. But even if you are right about their intent, the devs wanting something to be good doesn't make it good.

 

[RubberCF]

It's entirely possible that someone wins a game tournament by going against the original intent of how the weapon kit was conceived, but isn't this akin to working against the grain? I can either try to play comp imitating some other player who succeeded and hope to equal their skill, or try to figure out why a weapon kit was designed the way it was and build my strategy from there.

Right now, I cannot find a better explanation for kit distribution other than to better fulfill objective roles in the different game modes. I know that no matter how much people point out the lack of balance between two kits of a weapon, they will not change (see Carbon Roller, Splat Brella and 96 Gals as unbalanced kits that refuse to change across sequels). Saying that a subweapon is "bottom tier" just shows lack of understanding: you don't just toss a Sprinkler in the open where it can be shot down, you make the opponent work to reach them.

If this becomes a battle between "dev intent" vs "player practice", then one should at least be aware of both. As it turns out, I'm discovering patterns of distribution amongst weapon kits that lead me to believe there is a dev intent in the first place. This is certainly worth exploring.

EDIT: If anyone wants me to justify a specific kit seen as wholly inferior; first look to my signature to see if I didn't cover it in a gamefaqs.com guide. Everything is a work in progress and research is still required for some kits. Also, I prefer to write a full guide rather than rattle off points in a post.

Even if a kit is designed for a purpose in mind its unlikely it will end up getting used for that purpose explcitely. Ofc the devs design weapons and kits to fill certain niches but that doesnt mean that it will be worth it to use that weapon for said niche, mainly bc some subs, specials and main weapons are worse than others. Things dont have enough strengths to compensate for their weaknesses. To me it seems like you have an undue degree of faith in the devs ability to reliably make things that are good enough that picking them for their intended niche is actually the most effective option. Whats the purpose in worrying about what the devs intended wheb you can just skip the middle man and just try to find ahat a weapon is good at urself. Even if the devs wanted vbrella to be a zones niche, it being slightly better at zones does not make up for the fact that sbrella is way better at crucial game fundumentals. The things vbrella is better than sbrella at are just way less important than what sbrella is better than vbrella at, even in zones.
even though each mode has unique things that need to get done, and therefore have certain niches that are more important to fill in said mode, that stuff is only a part of what is important to any game. Even though aoe is better in tc, paint output is more important in sz, having a bomb more important in rm, etc, the game is still largely the same otherwise. Aerospray paints better than a shot and hss reefslider for zone cheese, but im still picking the shot any day for sz, because even though it doesnt paint as good, it can fight significantly better. Mode specific niches are not the most important thing for a weapon to be good at in a given mode.
You say "I can either try to play comp imitating some other player who succeeded and hope to equal their skill, or try to figure out why a weapon kit was designed the way it was and build my strategy from there." But those are not the only 2 options, its a false dichotomy. If you want to succeed by doing smth off meta, you can just look for any unexplored strategies/ideas, not just what you think the devs designed the weapons for.