So I saw an interesting idea on X (formerly Twitter), thought of a fun way to expand on it, and figured it'd be worth sharing here to see what others think.
A lot of people are hoping for some change to the way kits work in the next game. Some people are saying fully custom kits, some people are saying mix and match from 3 subs and specials, so on and so forth. Pressing the L button and clicking the left control stick currently do nothing during a match if I'm not mistaken. What if both of those let you access a different sub and special? For example, if they were to do this with Wiper (and didn't change its kits for some reason)...
Imagine if pressing the L button let you use Torpedo, R let you use Squid Beakon, and if your special gauge was full then pressing the left or right stick would let you use Ultra Stamp or Tenta Missiles respectively. I'm not suggesting that Splatoon 4 just copy and paste 3's kits for this, just wanted to show Wiper for the sake of example. Torpedo would make Wiper better at fighting just like usual but it'd still have the option to place Squid Beakons if it finds the time to. Tenta Missiles is the better of the two specials for its tracking and displacement making it easier to go in, but Ultra Stamp would still have some amount of use for its DPS or for up-close fighting if the Wiper user's already where they want to be.
You can't make a comparison like this with all of Splatoon 3's weapons. Big example is that there are a couple of weapons like Range Blaster with both Splat and Suction Bomb on their two kits - like, yeah, they're not the same thing, but it'd feel way better even if you had Angle Shooter or something in place of one of the Bombs. They'd need to build the game around it but I think there's room to make a fun and unique system out of something like this.
Think about how many weapon kits there are in this game that feel like they have one part that works, but get ruined by a second part that just...doesn't. Slosher Deco being stuck with Angle Shooter if it wants to use Zipcaster, for example. If we were to combine its two Splatoon 3 kits then that would allow it to play to the strengths Angle Shooter and Zipcaster can give without being as concerned with the drawbacks of having Angle Shooter as your only subweapon. You can now lean on Splat Bomb too. This opens up the room to let weapons feel fine running other subs they might find fun even if they technically need something else, like Ink Mine on Inkbrush. There would be way fewer examples of a kit feeling terrible by default and that being the end of it and it wouldn't feel outright detrimental to have something like Toxic Mist when you can still have a bomb with it too.
The same would apply to specials as well where it'd be nicer to have two good specials for the sake of flexibility, but not nearly as important as just having at least one good one since you'll still have a similar special output regardless. Having two good specials could let you build more comps around a weapon if they mostly need one special or the other. And is it really that much better to have 4 Crab Tanks and 2 Booyah Bombs per game than it is to have 6 Crab Tanks? This is with the idea that you'd still have one special gauge that fills just as normal and depletes when you use either of your two specials, forcing you to refill it all over again if you wanted to use either of them.
Two big drawbacks to this idea though. Too much flexibility might make it a bit too limiting to form counterplay to some things when building a team. I would hope that the next game doesn't fall into this, but imagine if Splattershot had its crazy special output with Trizooka still. Okay. Trizooka's main direct counter is Big Bubbler. What happens if it just chooses to Tristrike the Bubble instead? You could argue that forcing the weapon off of using Trizooka is still worthwhile, but the whole idea of counterpicking weapons based on their kits could become a lot muddier if any kinds of mistakes are made. You could also argue that this would force Nintendo to be even more cautious about balancing and this would instead require them to make Trizooka weaker. I wouldn't want to hinge the entire design of my game around that being necessary at some point though.
If Nintendo were to do something like this then there'd be no way we'd get any more than one combined kit on each weapon. If you're a Decavitator player like me, you're getting Suction Bomb, Splash Wall, Big Bubbler, and Inkjet, and you have no other options. The whole point of kits is to allow for one main weapon to have one of multiple different playstyles that you can choose from before you even start a match. You could argue the whole point of additional kits would be gone if one weapon's combined kit now encompassed too many playstyles for Nintendo to think it's worth adding more to that. Also, casual players currently have to remember the two subweapons and two specials that 50+ weapons get across their two kits, so now imagine doubling that. Third kits would be completely out the window rather than being a question unless you were to make further changes to how this works.
Thoughts on all of this? Any more concerns or ideas? Should make for some interesting discussion regardless.
A lot of people are hoping for some change to the way kits work in the next game. Some people are saying fully custom kits, some people are saying mix and match from 3 subs and specials, so on and so forth. Pressing the L button and clicking the left control stick currently do nothing during a match if I'm not mistaken. What if both of those let you access a different sub and special? For example, if they were to do this with Wiper (and didn't change its kits for some reason)...
Imagine if pressing the L button let you use Torpedo, R let you use Squid Beakon, and if your special gauge was full then pressing the left or right stick would let you use Ultra Stamp or Tenta Missiles respectively. I'm not suggesting that Splatoon 4 just copy and paste 3's kits for this, just wanted to show Wiper for the sake of example. Torpedo would make Wiper better at fighting just like usual but it'd still have the option to place Squid Beakons if it finds the time to. Tenta Missiles is the better of the two specials for its tracking and displacement making it easier to go in, but Ultra Stamp would still have some amount of use for its DPS or for up-close fighting if the Wiper user's already where they want to be.
You can't make a comparison like this with all of Splatoon 3's weapons. Big example is that there are a couple of weapons like Range Blaster with both Splat and Suction Bomb on their two kits - like, yeah, they're not the same thing, but it'd feel way better even if you had Angle Shooter or something in place of one of the Bombs. They'd need to build the game around it but I think there's room to make a fun and unique system out of something like this.
Think about how many weapon kits there are in this game that feel like they have one part that works, but get ruined by a second part that just...doesn't. Slosher Deco being stuck with Angle Shooter if it wants to use Zipcaster, for example. If we were to combine its two Splatoon 3 kits then that would allow it to play to the strengths Angle Shooter and Zipcaster can give without being as concerned with the drawbacks of having Angle Shooter as your only subweapon. You can now lean on Splat Bomb too. This opens up the room to let weapons feel fine running other subs they might find fun even if they technically need something else, like Ink Mine on Inkbrush. There would be way fewer examples of a kit feeling terrible by default and that being the end of it and it wouldn't feel outright detrimental to have something like Toxic Mist when you can still have a bomb with it too.
The same would apply to specials as well where it'd be nicer to have two good specials for the sake of flexibility, but not nearly as important as just having at least one good one since you'll still have a similar special output regardless. Having two good specials could let you build more comps around a weapon if they mostly need one special or the other. And is it really that much better to have 4 Crab Tanks and 2 Booyah Bombs per game than it is to have 6 Crab Tanks? This is with the idea that you'd still have one special gauge that fills just as normal and depletes when you use either of your two specials, forcing you to refill it all over again if you wanted to use either of them.
Two big drawbacks to this idea though. Too much flexibility might make it a bit too limiting to form counterplay to some things when building a team. I would hope that the next game doesn't fall into this, but imagine if Splattershot had its crazy special output with Trizooka still. Okay. Trizooka's main direct counter is Big Bubbler. What happens if it just chooses to Tristrike the Bubble instead? You could argue that forcing the weapon off of using Trizooka is still worthwhile, but the whole idea of counterpicking weapons based on their kits could become a lot muddier if any kinds of mistakes are made. You could also argue that this would force Nintendo to be even more cautious about balancing and this would instead require them to make Trizooka weaker. I wouldn't want to hinge the entire design of my game around that being necessary at some point though.
If Nintendo were to do something like this then there'd be no way we'd get any more than one combined kit on each weapon. If you're a Decavitator player like me, you're getting Suction Bomb, Splash Wall, Big Bubbler, and Inkjet, and you have no other options. The whole point of kits is to allow for one main weapon to have one of multiple different playstyles that you can choose from before you even start a match. You could argue the whole point of additional kits would be gone if one weapon's combined kit now encompassed too many playstyles for Nintendo to think it's worth adding more to that. Also, casual players currently have to remember the two subweapons and two specials that 50+ weapons get across their two kits, so now imagine doubling that. Third kits would be completely out the window rather than being a question unless you were to make further changes to how this works.
Thoughts on all of this? Any more concerns or ideas? Should make for some interesting discussion regardless.
