Why Competitive Splatoon should use all Game Modes instead of one

[CutestFish]

Anything that is VS. can be Competitive

Anything that involves any form of Versus can be competitive. Turf War is 4 players vs. 4 players, so it counts as viable for competitiveness. Same things goes for Tower Control and Rainmaker. Conclusion: Every Game Mode can be competitive. Not just one just because it's considered competitive or "more competitive".

 

[River09]

I completely agree, I'm most certain that all ranked modes will be played competitively, but turft Wars I can't see happening at all, none of the match matters until the end

I foresee something similar. I think it'll have a good run but ultimately people just have more reason to go to ranked modes for competitive play. I think another thing to take into account is that Turf Wars are pretty scewed towards weapons that focus a lot on covering turf. Rollers, aerosprays, etc. They well in that mode because of the little confrontations with foes which is really where they fail. SZ and TC has a higher skill ceiling than regular turf war. As a team your going to be focusing on one location (either the tower or zone) and not everyone going about different directions trying to cover turf. Team co-ordination is much more involved than turf war which is why I predict people to gravitate towards ranked modes.

 

[flc]

Alright, proper grammar, here we go.

I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute. The same argument could be flipped on Splat Zones as well if the game goes into OT. Especially in higher ranked rooms I often find that a lot of games go into OT and at that point a team could be dominating you the whole game and you could come back just because you were able to fend them off for however many seconds you were behind do to that lucky inkstrike/inkzooka. In TC we stopped them at 2 secs, had 94 secs on our clock and rode the tower all the way back to their camp base in OT. In Splat Zones, if matches are close, it all comes down to who can make the final push at the end of the game clock. I even had a 100/100 game once that we ran the timer out on and in that scenario the team with the most ink on the map won.

I mean I agree with that assessment that game clock is a bigger factor in TW because the clock always runs its course so the chance for variables is greater but I don't think its the strongest argument for why TW shouldn't be competitive especially since in higher ranked rooms OT is common.

While this line of thought is fine (and, as you say, this is devil's advocate), the problem is not that a triple kill wins the match, it's that a triple kill with about 25 seconds remaining wins the match. Since that triple kill has no dependence on the rest of the game--all you need to do is stay alive for long enough to get a zooka, or land a lucky splat bomb, or something like that--this turns the rest of the match into a formality. The fact that the end result of a triple kill at 0:25 is identical no matter if you had been spawn camped until that point or if you had been holding at 70-25 is a crippling problem.

Similarly, Zones has two things to prevent "fluke" victories: the timer itself, and the penalty time. For the first point, the winning team needs to run through 100 points (or have the fewest remaining points at the end) in order to win, but if neither of these conditions are met, then the actual score does not matter; 100-0 and 1-0 are both victories by knockout, and 100-99, 100-1, and 50-40 are all victories by time (just like how 44.1 vs 44.0 is an identical result to 95 vs 2 in turf). The key difference is that the eventual winners could choose to run the time down so that they can all build special and have an unbeatable quad special combination that takes the mid point, thus securing penalty time (to the tune of three quarters of whatever score the opponents just got) that allows them to have a second attempt if the other team has a "fluke" of their own and retakes the point, but in Turf, you're forced to make a move at the 25-30 second mark in order to have enough time to push out and take over the map or choke the map out and make such a comeback impossible (depending on which side of the spawn camp you're on).

Furthermore, consider that defending on some maps is so much easier than pushing (see Arowana, Saltspray, Mackerel once you get set up) that being able to secure a point for an extended period of time is not necessarily indicative of superiority, only a "fluke" on the first engagement (maybe they have a 96 user, for example, whose gun decided to shoot straight for fifteen seconds). If the losing team is the superior team, they will get about four good pushes in before the game ends. That's four opportunities for them to outplay the other team; maybe they luck out and it takes one, or maybe it takes all four and it gets down to single-digit points for the other team, but they then get the same advantages that the inferior team had, and can almost certainly win the game.

In this sense, "flukes" have a chance to balance out. There are five whole minutes for one team to emerge victorious, and if neither of them do, then they're evidently matched closely enough that a deciding factor needs to break the tie. A single "fluke" at the end of a Turf match wins. No counterplay, no preparation, nothing to do except hope to hell the other team all decides to ink their feet while they have complete map control.

@flc it's your teams fault they lost, not the Game Mode. An Inkstrike at the last 20 seconds that gets a triple can determine a win at all Game Modes. Heck, all game modes can determine a win at the last seconds if you think about it. It's mostly a psychological thing. The last seconds will make you get more aggressive for that victory. @Ryuji your opinion doesn't determine what something should or shouldn't. @Power it's typically considered that TW has less strategies, but is there a way to prove this? We still don't have Private Lobbies yet, and you can make independent Tactics and group Formations. I even created some in one of my threads.

I don't mean to be rude by what I said and for what i'm about to say to all three of you, but I am detecting some Splat Zone bias. And don't think I have TW bias. I love all the Game Modes. I play them all.

Of course I'm biased toward Zones. It's so much better than Turf for competitive play that to not be biased toward Zones would be unreasonably optimistic.

"It's your team's fault" is a cop-out answer that has no place in this kind of discussion. It's my team's fault that they died to, say, an inkzooka? Inkzookas are not dodgeable. You cannot avoid an inkzooka on reaction; by the time you see it, it's either hit you on the user's screen or it hasn't, and then you cower in a corner if it's the latter. A single shot is unreactable, and if the other guy just happened to get a clowny shot that took out half my team behind a crate, that's not my team's fault, that's a fluke shot. And that's the whole point of the Inkzooka. It's supposed to get fluke shots. And when it gets a fluke shot at 0:25 on Turf, it literally wins the game. It's also not my team's fault that the 96 on the other team decided that now would be an appropriate time to start landing shots (referring to the weapon, not the person using it), or that a splat bomb bouncing off five walls and not making a sound, or that a roller's internet had a heart attack and he just casually walked through four people while they were all moonwalking on the spot. These are all things that can and do happen in all game types. These are all things that directly determine the outcome of the game in Turf, while only influencing the outcome of Zones or even Tower.

Now consider two teams who are trying to take advantage of this.

The Imperious Lounge (basically a whole bunch of A+ players) frequently takes over Turf lobbies and runs everything from clown setups to proper team comps, and invariably, the team that wins that 0:25 fight wins the game. People routinely hold specials for the entire match when they're spawncamping, just so that they can have one available for that fight (since they won't be able to build special if the map's already inked). People--and this includes me--will sandbag just to see how much they can come back from with a quad kill inkzooka at the end, gambling on the chance that the inkzooka on the other team isn't looking their way when they pop it. The best four players in the game could all get slapped on the same team, spawncamp the whole match on 70% territory, and lose, just because of the other team guessing right (or them guessing wrong) at the end of the game. I personally have had games where I've gone 3-12 and won because those 3 kills happened at the very end. This is what Turf War turns into at a high level. Two teams who don't give a **** what happens (only that they ink the map a little) in the first two and a half minutes, culminating in one last fight that goes the way of whoever happened to guess right with their inkzooka or have a functioning 96 gal.

Turf is NOT a competitive gametype.

 

[Phobos]

I wonder if there'd be anyway of making it more competitive? Speaking hypothetically, since the key problem is that it's only the result at the end of the 3 minutes that counts, maybe having the result determined by, say, coverage at a number of evenly spaced intervals during the match (and not necessarily weighted equally) would work better? But perhaps we'd just have the same problem several times over...
Still, I don't see that people should mind that it's isn't competitive - it's clearly the 'for fun' gamemode, and it does that very well.

 

[AnchorTea]

Turf is NOT a competitive gametype.

I said this in the OP, and i'll say it again.

Anything that is vs. can be competitive.

And just a few salty matches on TW doesn't exactly sum up the entire Turf War meta. From what you said, the Bad Guys had a member who used an Inkzooka at the last 25 seconds, and a 96 Gallon was a factory defect and went frenzy at the last 25 seconds, so you are saying that TW is "not competitive" just because of a special and one weapon? What if neither of the teams had those? Would TW be "fine"? Would it be "competitive"? Maybe there is luck to TW. Maybe it can happen at the last 25 seconds.

You are also proving my point that each mode has their own meta. Maybe the whole competitive meta for TW will become something like, to prepare for that 25 seconds, or to rush the other team down as fast and aggressive as possible. TW is it's own thing. You and a few others may hate it, while some prefer it. This goes back to my third reason why all Game Modes should be legal. You and others may find TW "non-competitive" and it is true that anything vs. can be competitive, and some will believe that.

Besides, even if we all are researching data and getting better to the point we're winning tourneys, this is all about fun isn't it?

 

[Poxnixles]

I feel like what is and is not competitive also needs to be considered from a spectator point of view. Turf War is fun but I strongly agree with the notion that the outcome is generally determined in its last breaths.

I bring the spectator side up because in the long run it draws more word of mouth to the scene, be it players or more viewers. A growing base means more life for the community as a whole. We've got to show Splatoon at its finest.

That said I think every mode is worth at least a little shot. We don't gain much by completely shunning things without much time and research. Almost any assumption until group matchmaking is out is premature.

 

[Trieste Sp]

Please don't post things like this here.

 

[Deleted Member]

Turf Wars:
I am guessing the reason that most people do not find it competitive is that usually the results are determined in the last minute or 30 seconds of the competition. ---My team could be absolutely dominating the entire match, but we all die at the last thirty or 20 seconds and the opposition has a chance to scratch out a win.

You aren't entitled to a win just because you were dominating most of the match. If you're "dominating" the other team, you should have them pinned back at their spawn point so they're unable to do anything and win with a 80%+ - 15%. If they are able to make a comeback in the last 25 seconds and win, its because your team wasn't defending your inked turf or made mistakes and the opposing team capitalized on that.

It could be said that it takes skill to not allow this to happen, such as setting yourself up in position to not all die, saving specials or avoiding making silly mistakes that cost a game.

That's exactly right. These skills are also what makes you win in Splat Zones.

Most people aren't comfortable with that type of flip the switch comeback and would deem it as luck, reducing the "competitive" side of it for them.

The inability to defend your position is not luck. And its funny you say that because flip the switch comebacks also occur in Splat Zones and Tower Control.

The skill gap in this mode would not be as wide in other modes

Prove how the skill gap isn't as wide as in other modes.

To be honest, that is an ignorant statement. To say they are all 'equally skill-based'. Do you have anything to back up this statement?

Just like Splat Zones and Tower Control, there is inking and holding positions, map awareness, team coordination, routing, stealth attacks and more. The only difference are objectives. All 3 modes have different objectives, but have the same gameplay mechanics and require the same basic skills in acquiring, killing and defending.

 

[SlimyQuagsire]

The inability to defend your position is not luck. And its funny you say that because flip the switch comebacks also occur in Splat Zones and Tower Control.

Yes but (in Splat Zones), you have to run down a 100 second timer, plus any penalty time if you are not constantly in control. If you get a lucky multikill in the last few seconds of the game, you still need to continue holding it alllll that time. Only reason it'd be similar to Turf Wars is if you happen to be in single digits. In which case, you'd have to had run down that much time earlier, plus the penalty time you'd still need to go to. Fluke wins aren't an issue in Splat Zones like that are Turf Wars.

(I hope this paragraph made sense I'm tired)

 

[Power]

@AnchorTea
Sure turf wars can be competitive, but the potential for growth of strategies is limited from what we know now. Maybe down the line something changes who knows. Personally I would find a competitive mode to be boring if it's main strategy was to avoid throwing at the last 30 seconds at all costs, nearly ignoring the rest of the match. Once again, not much growth is possible from this.

The skill gap needed to win turf wars does not appear very wide compared to the other modes. In this sense the competitive community can appeal to those lower skill level players if turf wars is played as a competitive modes. However high level competition will eventually alienate the lower skill levels, but such competitions usually have more excitement and interest in them. which is what I am looking for at least. (An example is the popularity of professional sports and say high school sports) The majority want to see the highest ends of competition and the lower level still have their own group of followers.

When people want competitive, they usually mean the highest ends of competition. Turf war probably does not attract the focus and research into many of its intricacies that other modes do. This is how things appear right now, it may change down the line. I would love for turf wars to be at a highly competitive level, it just does not appear that way right now.

I may have repeated myself a few times and the points may be unclear. Sorry, I was on my phone in spurts, so things may be disorganized and sporadic in my post.

@GeneraLight
The difference between the flip the switch comebacks in splatzones and TC is that they are less likely to happen because of the way the mode is designed.

In reference to the inability to defend at the last 30 seconds, this reduces the importance of most of the battle. If you dominate in splatzones, your timer is much lower than the other teams, making the chances of a comeback much more improbable, but still possible. TC is a similar story.

And once again, this is just theory. I am not expressing my post as fact. It just appears at the moment that there is more potential for strategies in modes other than turf war, which is why people are more attracted to those modes as the preferred mode in competitive play.

 

[[EJ]_Locke]

Anything that is VS. can be Competitive
.

It can be competitive but why should we make everything competitive? If we did that there would be no central metagame to evaluate any certain aspect of the game on and the forums would be an absolute mess. It is like saying "Well this half cooked hamburger could technically be eaten by one of our customers because it is a hamburger, and all hamburgers should be served no matter what."

Each Game Mode is different enough to have their own Meta

If we did random spin the bottle to see what game mode we are going to play today then I would personally quit competitive Splatoon. This is honestly ridiculous. As a captain of my team, Ender's Jeesh. It would make my life a living hell, drawing up formation after formation after formation. I have about 10 pages of work done in my formations for splat zones. For half of the maps. If I had to triple the work and memorize every single formation I would shoot myself. Anyways, as I said earlier, we should allow other game modes to have their own metagame, but if we force people to talk about all of them and feature all of them in tournaments then we as a competitive community will collapse. All competitive games have their certain mode they play. COD, CSGO, and BF all have team death match. Smash has 1v1. Pokemon has 6v6 singles. It is simply the way it works.

It will attract more players to be a part of Competitive Splatoon

This is a theory, with no solid reasoning put behind it. I personally think that if we had one lush, striving mode to center the meta on, people would join competitive Splatoon a lot quicker. Especially if there was rational discussion. If there are too many modes to juggle and learn, why would you want to join that? The learning curve would end up being too high.

Wrapping Up.
Whether people actually listen to this or not doesn't really matter. Not because your essay was bad, no. It is because people will eventually start preferring one mode over the other and the fanbase will grow larger for that mode and there will be more threads for that etc. It is common human nature, and logical at that.

 

[AnchorTea]

It can be competitive but why should we make everything competitive? If we did that there would be no central metagame to evaluate any certain aspect of the game on and the forums would be an absolute mess. It is like saying "Well this half cooked hamburger could technically be eaten by one of our customers because it is a hamburger, and all hamburgers should be served no matter what."

If we did random spin the bottle to see what game mode we are going to play today then I would personally quit competitive Splatoon. This is honestly ridiculous. As a captain of my team, Ender's Jeesh. It would make my life a living hell, drawing up formation after formation after formation. I have about 10 pages of work done in my formations for splat zones. For half of the maps. If I had to triple the work and memorize every single formation I would shoot myself. Anyways, as I said earlier, we should allow other game modes to have their own metagame, but if we force people to talk about all of them and feature all of them in tournaments then we as a competitive community will collapse. All competitive games have their certain mode they play. COD, CSGO, and BF all have team death match. Smash has 1v1. Pokemon has 6v6 singles. It is simply the way it works.

This is a theory, with no solid reasoning put behind it. I personally think that if we had one lush, striving mode to center the meta on, people would join competitive Splatoon a lot quicker. Especially if there was rational discussion. If there are too many modes to juggle and learn, why would you want to join that? The learning curve would end up being too high.

Wrapping Up.
Whether people actually listen to this or not doesn't really matter. Not because your essay was bad, no. It is because people will eventually start preferring one mode over the other and the fanbase will grow larger for that mode and there will be more threads for that etc. It is common human nature, and logical at that.

So FOUR Game Modes will make the Comp Community collapse? I think you need to look at that differently, besides, why does it matter to you? Your group only focuses on Splat Zones.

And the third reason isn't exactly a theory, I know I haven't put evidence behind it, but it's just common sense.

 

[Feryn Hyrk]

OK, so you guys are sayng that Turf Wars can't' be competitive because the last 30 seconds is all that matters.

So what if we can customize the time of the matches? Like, instead of 3 minutes be 2 or 1,5 or even 1.

Though I think the least should be 2 because it would buff the Opening Gambit and Last-ditch-effort hats TOO much

 

[[EJ]_Locke]

So FOUR Game Modes will make the Comp Community collapse? I think you need to look at that differently, besides, why does it matter to you? Your group only focuses on Splat Zones.

And the third reason isn't exactly a theory, I know I haven't put evidence behind it, but it's just common sense.

It wont make it collapse, it will just disorient the entire meaning of Splatoon and people will be grasping at straws. This was a weak counter argument honestly. No facts, just pointing fingers at me.

 

[Narayan]

I agree OP in one point: Every game could be played competitive since playing PvP is competitive after all.
But we're not looking for cpmpetitive types, but for the MOSTE competitive type. And that's the point where TW loses against every other mode (so far).
Oh, and by the way:

It will attract more players to be a part of Competitive Splatoon

Let's say that Rainmaker was the only Mode used at tourneys and this situation happened:

Person: "I really want to join this tourney! Because I have been practicing Tower Control!"

TO: "No-can-do. Tower Control is illegal at all tourneys."

Person: "Why?"

TO: "Because Tower Control and all other Game Modes besides Rainmaker are considered casual and non-competitive."

Person: "What if I don't want to do Rainmaker?"

TO: "Oh well."

I know that this is a really specific type of situation, but you get the idea. Every single human being ever has their own opinions. Every single gamer has their own opinions. Every single Splatoon player has their own opinions. Some would prefer certain Game Modes over others. I don't really have much to say since this is very straight forward.

Sorry, but this is so much bullshit.
First: It's the TO's choise which game will be played, not the player's choise. If the TO wants to play TW/SZ/TC/RM whatever and the player doesn't, than the player is screwed.
Second: Many games have other modes as well. Let's not take Smash for exapmle but better DotA. The common Tourney Mode is CM (captains mode) but the intital mode was AP (all pick). "Every single Human benig ever has their own opinions. Every single gamer has tehir own opinions. [...] Some would prefere certain Game Mode over others." But CM is THE MOST competitive mode in DotA and AP is LESS competitive than CM.

 

[Ryuji]

@AnchorTea Why shouldn't my opinion matter whether TW is competitive or not? I have seen some say that the playerbase decides what should be(and I agree), despite Nintendo's designation of Splat Zones as competitive. That itself is an opinion, so I should be able to hold mine too. Please give me a proper response.

As for bias towards Splat Zones, of course I'm biased. There's a higher skill level there and some actual strategy. Plus, your rank is on the line. This means more difficulty. This is what makes them competitive to a much greater degree than TW. Why do you think people don't want to do Ranked? Because they're deterred by the challenging elements to it and want to blame their losses on their teammates all the while being ignorant of any mistakes they themselves may have made. Subsequently, they fail to improve, ie, git gud, and then stop playing Ranked altogether. Such self-critique and improvisation isn't as necessary in TW, where much less skill is involved. I'm sorry, but what strategy is there in inking turf and perhaps splatting a few enemies along the way when they will just respawn and cover over your ink? This is why the last few seconds are the deciding factor in who wins, whereas in SZ it's often an uphill battle trying to keep control. Again, the only thing that makes TW somewhat competitive is that you're on a team. You said it yourself in the OP with "Turf War is 4 players vs. 4 players..." . I'm afraid simply having a team hardly does enough to make TW any more competitive than the smallest degree.

 

[AnchorTea]

I agree OP in one point: Every game could be played competitive since playing PvP is competitive after all.
But we're not looking for cpmpetitive types, but for the MOSTE competitive type. And that's the point where TW loses against every other mode (so far).
Oh, and by the way:



Sorry, but this is so much bullshit.
First: It's the TO's choise which game will be played, not the player's choise. If the TO wants to play TW/SZ/TC/RM whatever and the player doesn't, than the player is screwed.
Second: Many games have other modes as well. Let's not take Smash for exapmle but better DotA. The common Tourney Mode is CM (captains mode) but the intital mode was AP (all pick). "Every single Human benig ever has their own opinions. Every single gamer has tehir own opinions. [...] Some would prefere certain Game Mode over others." But CM is THE MOST competitive mode in DotA and AP is LESS competitive than CM.

You don't get it. If there is a group of players who prefers, let's say Rainkmaker, and Tower Control is the only mode that the community would consider competitively viable, and thus Rainmaker wouldn't have a chance. And those who are good at Rainmaker and can't win tourneys because of some opinions, then that group of people wouldn't give damn about Comp Splatoon.

It wont make it collapse, it will just disorient the entire meaning of Splatoon and people will be grasping at straws. This was a weak counter argument honestly. No facts, just pointing fingers at me.

What do you mean grasping at straws? All these Game Modes are quite simple, TW being the most simplest. What logic are you coming from that if all Game Modes were available that it would disorient the meaning of Splatoon? Are you saying this because groups will have to work harder? Because if that's a reason why, then that's ****ing bullshit.

If you want to be the best, then you gotta work for it. Being lazy about it would not get you to victory.

 

[Power]

At one point a certain group of people will have to be alienated right? I am pretty sure other competitive games have modes that are not used and people who love those modes are left out. (correct me If I am wrong on this notion) competitive communities could TRY to appeal to everyone with all modes, but I am not entirely sure of the result or if it is worth it.

 

[[EJ]_Locke]

You don't get it. If there is a group of players who prefers, let's say Rainkmaker, and Tower Control is the only mode that the community would consider competitively viable, and thus Rainmaker wouldn't have a chance. And those who are good at Rainmaker and can't win tourneys because of some opinions, then that group of people wouldn't give damn about Comp Splatoon.


What do you mean grasping at straws? All these Game Modes are quite simple, TW being the most simplest. What logic are you coming from that if all Game Modes were available that it would disorient the meaning of Splatoon? Are you saying this because groups will have to work harder? Because if that's a reason why, then that's ****ing bullshit.

If you want to be the best, then you gotta work for it. Being lazy about it would not get you to victory.

As far as I concerned it is not laziness, it is avoiding unnecessary work. Every one of these game modes are complex enough to have a meta worthy of competitive play. That doesnt mean they all should. You talk about working harder when you have done nothing in the last week to support the team. The captain is the one who truly takes the brunt for it. You are living in lala land right now and you think everything can happen if you wave a magic wand in the air and say "there's no place like home." You have not a clue how a competitive community works or how a captain works, so stop pretending you do.

 

[Narayan]

And those who are good at Rainmaker and can't win tourneys because of some opinions, then that group of people wouldn't give damn about Comp Splatoon.

That people who wouldn't give a damn about Comp Splatoon just because Rainmaker isn't legal or common in tourneys won't hurt anyone. Why do we have to please everyone?