Why Competitive Splatoon should use all Game Modes instead of one

[Njok]

The last 60 second thing only applies to teams that are roughly equal in skill. There was some giant skill disparity in Ink or Sink.

Yeah that's true. Then again when it's roughly equal skill i don't expect triple or quad kills to be very common, which is the most likely way to make a push at the end.

But like i said, i do get why one would exclude it.

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

Getting 1 quad kill in a random match doesn't mean it's going to happen/it's realistically possible in competitive matches. I think Turf War is perfectly acceptable for competitive Splatoon.

 

[Sitri]

Getting 1 quad kill in a random match doesn't mean it's going to happen/it's realistically possible in competitive matches. I think Turf War is perfectly acceptable for competitive Splatoon.

Getting 4 down is a realistic goal in any game.

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

Getting 4 down is a realistic goal in any game.

Depends on the team, I'd like to have mine spread out so something like that doesn't happen.

 

[Kaliafornia]

As far as making Turf War competitive you could make kills a second win condition. Think of it as a pseudo-team death match. Most of the arguments I have seen so far against Turf War is the lack of win conditions other than the timer, which is a valid concern. I feel that adding kills would fix that issue and promote a more aggressive approach at the game mode where controlling the map means a lot more overall. That triple kill in the middle of the round means a lot more now, where it may not have meant much at all before considering how easy it is to recover in turf wars. Weapons that are generally weaker for spreading ink, but better at splatting, can pull their weight now also. Maybe add something like 1% to the total for each kill. Nothing major by itself, but it can still turn a game where you were clearly winning but lost in the last 30 seconds into a win. I'm not for or against Turf Wars so I honestly don't care what the community decides on. This is just something to think about before killing a mode without thinking outside the box.

When is win condition based on anything else but ultimately the timer in any Splatoon game mode for evenly matched teams who run out the clock?

Not to mention the majorities' concern is fast recovery in Turf war for the last 30 seconds yet acknowledge this only happens in evenly matched teams.... and? It's not any different for TC or SZ in the last 30 secs for evenly matched teams. When you are evenly matched in any game mode those last seconds matter regardless even despite how easy you may feel it is to loose/regain control. Besides TC easily trumps Turf as the mode where anything can happen in the last seconds for even teams.

A triple kill/quad kill in the middle of a match in Turf doesn't mean more or less to the match's result than it does in SZ or TC, especially in competitive. Also the fact that if we are talking about skilled competitive players there is no reason why someone should be getting triple or quad kills in Turf from a inkzooka, etc. as players are a lot more spread out all over the map.

Placing these extra rule sets on Turf are unnecessary and just make the mode convoluted to focus on kills than the actual objective.

The real issue I see is most people who play are shooter fans and just want to competitively play modes where confrontation is unavoidable. That's totally fine, [even though you can easily get best K/D ratio out of all players and still lose in a ranked match] and I would agree on that point. However all the other reasons I've been seeing on why not to include Turf or to modify it are just faulty.

 

[Inyo]

"Only the last 30 seconds count": Weird argument against Turf War. Like others have said, if you lose in the lsat 30 seconds, you should have done a better job preventing that from happening. Use that 2:30 to set up a perfect defence.

I mean, comebacks are exciting to watch in other "competitive" games, so why shouldn't Splatoon have them, too?

I don't see a need to modify Turf War to make it "suitable" for tournaments. Causing big rifts this early into a game's life is a sure way to sour everybody on the experience

 

[AnchorTea]

Oh god... It's been like a month since I last been on this website and this thread has gotten three new pages.

Give me an hour to read the new posts and reply to this never-ending debate.

Edit: I'm adding this in the OP

As far as making Turf War competitive you could make kills a second win condition. Think of it as a pseudo-team death match. Most of the arguments I have seen so far against Turf War is the lack of win conditions other than the timer, which is a valid concern. I feel that adding kills would fix that issue and promote a more aggressive approach at the game mode where controlling the map means a lot more overall. That triple kill in the middle of the round means a lot more now, where it may not have meant much at all before considering how easy it is to recover in turf wars. Weapons that are generally weaker for spreading ink, but better at splatting, can pull their weight now also. Maybe add something like 1% to the total for each kill. Nothing major by itself, but it can still turn a game where you were clearly winning but lost in the last 30 seconds into a win. I'm not for or against Turf Wars so I honestly don't care what the community decides on. This is just something to think about before killing a mode without thinking outside the box.

 

[Kosaki]

Getting 1 quad kill in a random match doesn't mean it's going to happen/it's realistically possible in competitive matches. I think Turf War is perfectly acceptable for competitive Splatoon.

No it's not.
The comeback aspect in Turf Wars is plain stupid in a competitive point of view.
To picture it differently, it's like a fighting game where you have infinite HP, the game must finish on a time out and you can recover HP, which is your strategy of choice.
The issue with this game mode is that it doesn't reward the better team overall on a given game, it rewards the one that did the best on the 30 last seconds, because that's how it works.
When the level of play of both team is equivalent this becomes ridiculous, especially compared to the other modes.

In SZ and TC, every moments of the game count for the victory. And it leaves a permanent mark on the score represented by points going down over time lost due to mistakes. Major mistakes weight a lot in the outcome of the game, and you must work really hard to initiate a comeback, and a comeback takes quite some time due to penalties (secondary timer in SZ, tower must travel the whole path before you can claim more points). A comeback legitimately demands from your team to do more efforts than the opponents to take your momentum back.
In Turf Wars, the first 2min30 serve as set up for the last 30sec rush. Whatever happens during the first 2min30, you can just win the game by being better than the other team in the last 30s, because you had that one good flank or splat, even though they rekt you for the whole time before, and that isn't being put in consideration in the end. This is a possible scenario, it's very likely to happen because of how special weapons work (that are designed to break through the other team's defence) and it doesn't exist in the other modes.
You can even win and end a game early in the other modes as the game properly rewards you for dominating the other team.

 

[Dreamy Luigi]

No it's not.
The comeback aspect in Turf Wars is plain stupid in a competitive point of view.
To picture it differently, it's like a fighting game where you have infinite HP, the game must finish on a time out and you can recover HP, which is your strategy of choice.
The issue with this game mode is that it doesn't reward the better team overall on a given game, it rewards the one that did the best on the 30 last seconds, because that's how it works.
When the level of play of both team is equivalent this becomes ridiculous, especially compared to the other modes.

In SZ and TC, every moments of the game count for the victory. And it leaves a permanent mark on the score represented by points going down over time lost due to mistakes. Major mistakes weight a lot in the outcome of the game, and you must work really hard to initiate a comeback, and a comeback takes quite some time due to penalties (secondary timer in SZ, tower must travel the whole path before you can claim more points). A comeback legitimately demands from your tean to do more efforts than the opponents to take your momentum back.
In Turf Wars, the first 2min30 serve as set up for the last 30sec rush. Whatever happens during the first 2min30, you can just win the game by being better than the other team in the last 30s, because you had that one good flank or splat, even though they rekt you for the whole time before, and that isn't being put in consideration in the end. This is a possible scenario, it's very likely to happen because of how special weapons work (that are designed to break through the other team's defence) and it doesn't exist in the other modes.
You can even win and end a game early in the other modes as the game properly rewards you for dominating the other team.

In racing, only the final lap counts so what do you do for the other laps? Set it up. Now we may both have different experiences but the perfect team gets and keeps the most Turf occupied, sets up good defenses, and keeps the other team pinned to their side. Then here comes those 30 seconds and that's where the defense comes into play. Whether's that's competitive or not, I don't have a PhD in eSports so idk.

Anyways, you make good points.

 

[Kosaki]

In a race, if you're behind you have to double your efforts for the whole race to comeback ahead. Not during the final track lol, because each laps count. If you're behind on lap 1 and don't do enough efforts, you'll be even more behind on lap 2 and so on until you eventually lose.

What I meant with my post above is that there's never a guarantee that you'll win when you dominate a game in Turf Wars.
You can think it's the same for SZ or TC, but if you get 2-100 comebacked, man you absolutely deserved losing for the whole game, the other team definitely did better for being able to comeback and then holding a better defence than you on given periods of time.
In Turf, you can't possibly say something like that, because in the end, only what happens during the last 30s count.
Turf is fun and all, but it definitely is way "less" competitive than the other modes.

EDIT : Turf wars would have been perfectly fine if, let's say, there was an objective like capturing a certain % of the map to win and finish the game. Like 80% of the map to seal the deal.
But it was designed to be newbie-friendly, so there's no stress or frustration implied in the end, or at least not too much. There's a reason Turf wars are not available in Ranked.

 

[Inyo]

In a race, if you're behind you have to double your efforts for the whole race to comeback ahead. Not during the final track lol, because each laps count. If you're behind on lap 1 and don't do enough efforts, you'll be even more behind on lap 2 and so on until you eventually lose.

What I meant with my post above is that there's never a guarantee that you'll win when you dominate a game in Turf Wars.
You can think it's the same for SZ or TC, but if you get 2-100 comebacked, man you absolutely deserved losing for the whole game, the other team definitely did better for being able to comeback and then holding a better defence than you on given periods of time.
In Turf, you can't possibly say something like that, because in the end, only what happens during the last 30s count.
Turf is fun and all, but it definitely is way "less" competitive than the other modes.

EDIT : Turf wars would have been perfectly fine if, let's say, there was an objective like capturing a certain % of the map to win and finish the game. Like 80% of the map to seal the deal.
But it was designed to be newbie-friendly, so there's no stress or frustration implied in the end, or at least not too much. There's a reason Turf wars are not available in Ranked.

I don't really buy the "no comeback" idea. I've seen many, many Smash and other fighting game tourney matches that had big comebacks at the end, and the crowd goes wild, and nobody says "comebacks are stupid" in that situation.

Plus, having played Turf War 90% of the time since the game came out, I can say with confidence that the better you play in those first 2:30 seconds, the less likely it is that the other team will mount a comeback.

Overall, I think your arguments reflect a misunderstanding of how Turf War works and the nature of a "competitive game" in general.

 

[Box]

It's not even about comebacks. It has to do with scoring. Imagine if Splat Zones was scored by which team held the zone at the end of 5 minutes, or if tower control was scored by what position the tower was at at the end of the game. In turf you're having teams play for 3 minutes and by looking at just one moment in time, you're losing information about how the rest of the match was played.

 

[missingno]

Rare comebacks are exciting when the player is truly coming back from a major deficit, and has to bust their *** off to beat seemingly impossible odds. But when the game is designed with rubberbanding that makes 'comebacks' commonplace and easy, it just feels artificial and doesn't mean much any more.

What's more impressive, a comeback from perfectly parrying every hit of Chun-Li's super, or a comeback because the game gave you a Blue Shell?

 

[Poxnixles]

Rare comebacks are exciting when the player is truly coming back from a major deficit, and has to bust their *** off to beat seemingly impossible odds. But when the game is designed with rubberbanding that makes 'comebacks' commonplace and easy, it just feels artificial and doesn't mean much any more.

What's more impressive, a comeback from perfectly parrying every hit of Chun-Li's super, or a comeback because the game gave you a Blue Shell?

Blue Shells and the like are a result of RNG, something Splatoon's mid-battle gameplay is totally lacking to my knowledge.

 

[Inyo]

Blue Shells and the like are a result of RNG, something Splatoon's mid-battle gameplay is totally lacking to my knowledge.

RNG doesn't factor into Splatoon at all under the conditions that I assume will be used for tournaments, that is, you know who is on your team, what weapons they are using, and you pick the maps beforehand.

As the announcer from Street Fighter Alpha 3 says: "It all depends on your skill!"

 

[KnightMB]

In a race, if you're behind you have to double your efforts for the whole race to comeback ahead. Not during the final track lol, because each laps count. If you're behind on lap 1 and don't do enough efforts, you'll be even more behind on lap 2 and so on until you eventually lose.

What I meant with my post above is that there's never a guarantee that you'll win when you dominate a game in Turf Wars.
You can think it's the same for SZ or TC, but if you get 2-100 comebacked, man you absolutely deserved losing for the whole game, the other team definitely did better for being able to comeback and then holding a better defence than you on given periods of time.
In Turf, you can't possibly say something like that, because in the end, only what happens during the last 30s count.
Turf is fun and all, but it definitely is way "less" competitive than the other modes.

EDIT : Turf wars would have been perfectly fine if, let's say, there was an objective like capturing a certain % of the map to win and finish the game. Like 80% of the map to seal the deal.
But it was designed to be newbie-friendly, so there's no stress or frustration implied in the end, or at least not too much. There's a reason Turf wars are not available in Ranked.

If your team is dominating in Turf Wars, that means you will win. I don't know if maybe you meant to say something else but I've played plenty of Turf Wars where my team was dominating and have never seen a loss from it unless my entire team disconnects and there is enough time for the other team to make up the difference. I think that is kind of the definition of dominating. You are pushing the other team back and they can't advance to get more than half the map inked. When playing with random team mates without any coordination then I can see how a dominating team can lose at the end if you lose players (disconnect) or everyone just gets chaotic and the opposing team takes advantage. But that can hold true for any of the Ranked modes because there is "overtime". In theory a losing team can make a completely comeback for the win. You don't get overtime in Turf Wars, so the entire 3 minutes has to be a focus on keeping the other team back.

 

[Kaliafornia]

It's not even about comebacks. It has to do with scoring. Imagine if Splat Zones was scored by which team held the zone at the end of 5 minutes, or if tower control was scored by what position the tower was at at the end of the game. In turf you're having teams play for 3 minutes and by looking at just one moment in time, you're losing information about how the rest of the match was played.

Fundamentally all matches are based on the game clock. Ranked just gives the loosing team (be it the match dominate team or not) a chance to make a final push for the win if they have control. Realistically in any mode, but especially turf, if you were truly the better team you will win, if for some reason your team that was spawn camping the entire game gets wiped out and loses the map... then you weren't the better team if you couldn't hold for the full 3 minutes. Who cares what happens for the rest of the 2 mins and 59 seconds? You either win or you lose.

Same in ranked. If you get your tower or zone clock to 1 sec, stop the other team all game until the final push and then the other team manages to get it to 0, your past efforts before that don't amount to you winning the game just because you dominated the majority of it.

 

[Kosaki]

I don't really buy the "no comeback" idea. I've seen many, many Smash and other fighting game tourney matches that had big comebacks at the end, and the crowd goes wild, and nobody says "comebacks are stupid" in that situation.

Plus, having played Turf War 90% of the time since the game came out, I can say with confidence that the better you play in those first 2:30 seconds, the less likely it is that the other team will mount a comeback.

Overall, I think your arguments reflect a misunderstanding of how Turf War works and the nature of a "competitive game" in general.

I'm not against comebacks by any means. I state how stupid can comebacks be in Turf wars. A close match of Turf war is always fine, so I'm not mentionning it. But comebacks can happen and has happened in Turf wars, and that's a broken part of Turf war as a competitive mode.

Game 2 of this set is an example.
We've been crushing them for 2 minutes straight, but we won't die hard spawn trap them to play it relatively safe. On the last minute, they began to pierce through our defence one by one, some of us get flanked, and on the 30 last seconds, they have their Bubbler and that's it, they comeback the situation.

Now here's the matter : Do you consider Turf War fair enough to let them win because we've made some mistakes at the end, while they have done a whole lot more during the first 2 minutes ?
We've played better overall during this game, and that was poorly rewarded in the end.
This is what I meant when I say all is decided in the last 30sec in Turf War. The last minute at best.
I'm not salty or anything but, if it was a bigger tournament, with bigger stakes, I would probably cringe all out about that Turf war game.

Competition is about rewarding the better performance, and that's how I think Turf war is not entirely suited for competitive Splatoon, especially when you compare it to Splat Zones or Tower Control. Or at least, it fails in showing which team really played the best during the whole game.

In Splat zones, your opponents take 50 points, you have to capture 51 points to take the lead back. When penalty timers come into play things get even more tight (that's some really good game design btw).
In Tower Control, it's even more punitive, your opponents take 50 points, you have to get the tower back to mid, and then capture 51 points to take the lead back.
This is what the word "fair" looks like in a competitive game.
I've seen and have done plenty of comebacks in both modes. We do have a comeback factor in those modes.
If you manage to win by comeback in those 2 modes, you completely deserve your win for having pulled more effort in winning than the other team, score is showing it clearly and accurately. You did fewer and smaller mistakes, you did better plays, that's factual, otherwise you wouldn't have won. There's even extra time for making already engaged comebacks likely to be concluded. This is what matters : every moments count.

The fighting game mention is a very bad example.
If you get comebacked in a fighting game, it's because your defence became crap and that your opponent fully took advantage of it as you didn't manage to finish him while he was low on health. It's all being fair.
As I've already stated, Turf war is like a fighting game with infinite HP (you can't KO the other team even if you currently hold 95% of turf), win is always decided by time out (3 minutes timer, higher % wins), you can recover HP by inflicting damage to the opponent (inking back).
If Splatoon Turf war was a fighting game, everyone would blatantly consider it utter crap.
Some might find it fun or interesting, but ask a competitive player if he is willing to fight for a big title on a set where you can play Turf war. Just think about it.

Just why play Turf when you can play Splat Zones and/or Tower Defense ?
Should we not only consider what really succeed the most in showing players skill levels ?
Please take it as a serious matter if you're willing to be into competitive Splatoon.

Same in ranked. If you get your tower or zone clock to 1 sec, stop the other team all game until the final push and then the other team manages to get it to 0, your past efforts before that don't amount to you winning the game just because you dominated the majority of it.

HELL NO, as I've just stated, it's completely different in Ranked modes. Infinitely fairer and more finely designed.
Every moments count in TC and SZ.

 

[Kaliafornia]

So basically people are against Turf due to a falsely perceived concept that in Ranked modes your whole team can throw/mess up in the last 30 seconds and are still guaranteed to win the game for [insert random faulty reasoning here]... OK. Inaccuracies aside you guys are so concerned about competition being based on skill yet want handicaps in case you happen to mess up... o_O. Don't mess up, don't throw, you will win... it's a revolutionary concept I know .

 

[Kosaki]

Where is your argument here ?
Instead of a bunch words telling me that what I say is complete bs, I don't see any reasonning proving me that my point is wrong and that I should just shut up.

Please.
I take the time to write things because I have some respect for you guys that don't think Turf war has issues as a competitive game mode. At least have the decency to stay silent or write something worth being read.

EDIT : And hell no, if A team wins in a ranked battle, while B team was making a push in the 30 last seconds, it's because the damn A team stopped that push, and B team messed up. And there's something called extra time in Ranked that helps those kind of push.
Have you really played a single game in ranked ?

You must think you're funny, aren't you ?