What are your opinions on the state of Splatoon 3's meta as compared to past games in the series?

[McSquid82]

Before I begin, let me just preface this with saying I know the game's current meta is less than ideal. But that's not the topic of this thread, or at least the primary one. My question is like it says in the title. I'll start by saying that one thing this game hasn't been so good at is map design. However, I do think that the overall balance of weapons and abilities is way better than the previous two games. Pencil and Zooka meta are definitely not fun to watch right now, and I still believe this game has a long way to go before it finishes with updates. However, I'll take just about anything in Splatoon 3 over some of the broken elements in previous games. Specials like Sting Ray, Ink Armor and the like were just badly designed and I'm glad they're gone. On top of that, I'm glad that the developers have finally learned not to bring back abilities like Damage/defense up in any form. But these are just my thoughts. What do you think?

 

[Dessgeega]

I miss Splatoon 1's meta. Things were easier to balance when there was only 7 specials and all of them were strong. The main thing I recall being an issue on Splatoon 1 was the Quick Respawn zombie comps, and they fixed that in 2 so yeah.

Splatoon 3 is definitely in a better place with it's meta than S2 ever was. Is it perfect? Hardly, but you actually have to ENGAGE foes and not build special to use missiles/etc. and then build more special.

S3's main issue, aside from wonky stages, is bloat. We're at 19 specials and over a hundred kits. Of COURSE the meta isn't ideal, that is a balancing nightmare. I wouldn't be surprised if the reason why S3 balance changes are unsatisfactory is because the devs only have so much time in their work day to research game balance and it's multitude of factors.

Something has to give in Splatoon 4. They need to cut back on specials and kits or devise some other solution, otherwise they're going to run into the same problem as the pokemon devs who gave up on implementing a thousand mons in every game.

 

[EverGreen]

Rollers are actually viable in comp, so that automatically makes S3's meta better than S2's imo.
That being said, I do like the weapon class diversity in S3's current meta. While Cooler and Zooka are the most prominent specials, there's at least 1 weapon from every weapon class that has representation in the meta right now. In fact, I'll list at least 1 weapon from each class that has seen use/has potential in top level play:

Shooters: (Well obviously there's going to be a few) vShot, Ttek, vSplash, vSqueeze
Rollers: vRoller, Carbon Deco
Chargers: vPencil
Blasters: Range, Rapid Deco
Brushes: vInk
Sloshers: nTri, Dread
Splatlings: Edit, vBallpoint
Dualies: vDualies, vSquelchers
Brellas: Sorella Tent
Stringers: iStringer, vReef
Splatanas: ALL OF THEM

And notice how for most of these, I was able to point out at least 2 from each class and there may be more! The meta may not be ideal/perfect, but it's in a solid spot when weapon diversity is considered.

 

[McSquid82]

I feel like a big priority of this game has been main weapon balance. Not counting kits, I think the focus has been on looking at the main weapons at the top and bottom of the tier lists and going from there. For example, look at how much attention the Mini Splatling has gotten. The buffs to its firing time, ink consumption and now inking at its feet may finally be what it needs to help it find a niche after being considered the worst in its class for the longest time. I'm not saying it will necessarily, but it's still in a way better spot that it was at the start of this game's life. And that's just one example.

 

[Kyber]

Not sure how common this opinion is, but I appreciate the fact that there aren't too many major buffs or nerfs every patch. As a low level player it makes it easier to improve my weapon pool without needing to worry if one of them will be nerfed or if I should pick up a new weapon that suddenly becomes viable.

Come to think of it, despite the fact most changes are pretty minor buffs and nerfs across the board, I've noticed that there are much more weapons that persist with each patch compared to past games. For example, Dynamo was heavily nerfed in the middle of S1, Luna between S1 and the start of S2, and BP in the middle of S2. Nerfs in S3 "kill" weapons to a lesser degree compared to past games, like Machine getting knocked down from meta-defining to sitting comfortably as a flex option, or Crab Tank remaining a top 3 Special Weapon even though Double Crab comps aren't common anymore. Regarding Ability balancing, Abilities overall have been fine tuned well compared to S1 and 2 when thinking about it, since not one Ability dominates / affects too many weapons like QR and Damage Up in S1 or MPU during the later half of S2. I remember bomb spam was an issue in the first half of S3, but eventually that got mitigated thanks to LDE nerfs (and maybe definitely because so many kits in S3 lack bombs skhdgfghk).

I think the fact that Kit variety, Stages, and Cooler are the major problems with the current Meta is a testament to how stable S3 has become since its release. Maybe that's too much of an optimistic perspective idk. I think S3 has done a good job solving the problems from past games, but it made new ones that, even though they're fixable, haven't been fixed yet. But like I said, there hasn't been a major change in a while that has reshaped how S3 is played, so I'm fine still sticking to how I've been playing and trying to get better.

 

[missingno]

It's definitely in a better spot than S1 or S2. I'd just like them to get it to a point where Cooler is not outright mandatory for every comp.

 

[GreGuru]

I think we’re in a good place. Obviously there is room for improvement, but there will always be some options stronger than others. It’s important to remember that the meta for top players is not the same as the meta for the vast majority of the player base.

The thing I like most about now compared to Splatoon 2 is back in S2, you were asking a lot of your team if you didn’t play a shooter and wanted to team up with someone who also didn’t play a shooter. Now, shooters are still strong, but instead of having to push to find a way to make a comp work with only two shooters, you can push to find a way to make a comp work without any.

I agree with others that the amount of specials has gotten out of hand, which is why I hope in Splatoon 4 they just open Pandora’s box and give us custom kits. I initially was against such an idea because I thought why wouldn’t every just go something like 52 or another strong shooter, burst or splat bomb, and whatever meta defining special was popular. But then I realized it would be so much easier for the devs to patch the game appropriately if they were more easily able to isolate the problems with no collateral damage. When you look at all the crab tank nerfs, did Splattershot Pro really deserve to be nerfed? Did Clash Blaster deserve to be nerfed because Trizooka was too strong? Unless you nerf points for special for specific kits, any nerf to a dominant weapon or kit also applies to at least one weaker one.

I also think letting the players make the kit choices for themselves would lead to more player satisfaction because they’re not dedicating themselves to a weapon with an underwhelming kit holding out hope for two years that a better one is coming only to be wrong.

 

[Roundabout]

I think double splash meta was as bad as the worst S2 metas, but ballpoint and pencil metas have felt decent in comparison.

I think a lot of the meta hate and frustration comes from the lack of changes we've got in over a year. By this time in S2, we had already been through:

Tri/Inkjet Meta
Machine being broken
That week brella was glitched and amazing
Zap/V Blaster meta
CBlast, Heavy, Zap
Ttek, Enperry and Cjet being good again
The arrival of Kensa weapons

While many of these were "bad" metas, there was an excitement of having new problems to solve and weapons worth learning every month. S3 competitive doesn't really have this sense of hope or momentum because most of the patches have been forgettable and nearly all the weapons worth playing were already here at launch.

 

[zyf_]

I think that on the front of moment-to-moment combat and engagement, we're in a really good place — there's a lot of weapons that are viable or strong, so I get to fight dualies and swords and sloshers and blasters and chargers and rollers and chargers and splatlings and very occasionally tents (lol), in addition to standard shooter v shooter...there's a lot of different weapons to fight and they all feel different to fight.

in this sense, I think the game is in an amazing place, and there's tons of variation and it's fun and healthy

however, I think people have the tendency to see weapon variety and conclude that the meta is "diverse"
where this meta sucks hot garbage is that there's only really one overarching strategy, because the maps are hot trash and there are no specials that give a good answer to fighting coolered people
in particular, the strategy is "pop some random specials + cooler and run tf in and fight with strong main weapons"
even if you don't run cooler, you're just doing the same thing without the insurance + mobility boost from cooler

in this sense, strategically, the game is very boring, because no special or weird combo of weapons has a large enough impact to allow you to play the game in a different way. cooler is just this like, massive black hole of maximum consistency for minimum effort and there's nothing that can escape it
my team oftentimes doesn't run cooler but it still doesn't feel like we have much of a different strategy other than "fight w good mains that can handle them even if they're coolered"

the good news is that at least the main-weapon-focused meta means that i GET to feel that weapon diversity (vs, say, missile spammer 1 vs missile spammer 483, and i don't care which weapon it is cuz im not even fighting them), but I just wish cooler was a little less stupid to allow for more interesting counterplay.
right now, it's not rock paper scissors, it's just scissors-scissors-scissors with a knife sharpener (cooler is the knife sharpener) -- cooler does not exist as part of the ecosystem of things with counterplay, it's just a thing that gives a universal boost with no interesting RPS dynamics

 

[zyf_]

right now, it's not rock paper scissors, it's just scissors-scissors-scissors with a knife sharpener (cooler is the knife sharpener) -- cooler does not exist as part of the ecosystem of things with counterplay, it's just a thing that gives a universal boost with no interesting RPS dynamics

tbh i'd be curious to hear what people think are good ways to bring cooler into the RPS dynamic so that there could be actual meaningful kit choices

i think what would make the most sense is to make an RPS of
cooler -(beats)> burst specials (zooka, tristrike, booyah, wail to some extent) -(beats)> long, steadier control specials (crab, inkjet?, kraken, bubble) -(beats)> cooler

and I think the way you do that is just remove/drastically reduce the cooler mobility bonus so that you WILL die if you try and run in at an inkjet or crab or rush in to punish endlag, but it still lets you respawn quickly and negate random zooka momentum or whatever

idk if that'd actually work tho