Acid
Banned (6 points)
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2015
- Messages
- 5
Ever since its release back in August, Rainmaker has easily become one of the most controversial and mechanically flawed modes in Splatoon. Now after seeing this thread title, I'm sure the majority of you think the reasoning behind why this thread was made is due to the ramblings of a whiny scrub who sucks at the mode and wants it gone completely. If you are currently under this mindset while reading this I kindly suggest you stop because that is not the case here and this is for the betterment of the competitive community as a whole and not just for one player. Now for those that aren't under this mindset and are open to intelligent discussion please continue to read.
As stated before, Rainmaker mechanically is flawed primarily due to the fact that most maps in the game due to their simplistic designs cannot properly support them in competitive play. Maps such as Blackbelly Skatepark due to their small size make RM almost unplayable as at any given instance a player can just push RM at a very short distance and win almost instantaneously. Other maps such as Saltspray Rig, Walleye Warehouse, Arowana Mall, Moray Towers, Camp Tiggerfish, and various other maps no matter how minuscule or huge the advantage might be run issues of providing areas to camp the RM or put it in unfavorable spots so that the opposing team has a hard time getting to it. Not only that but many maps that have had any exploitable bugs or glitches in the past and even present have made this mode completely broken due to the fact that the player who has the RM is given complete freedom to do what they want with it. This is something I refer to as a controllable objective. Modes such as Splat Zones and Tower Control are what I would call an uncontrollable objective. This is mainly referring to the idea that because they are either stationary (Splat Zones) or binded to a set path (Tower Control) there is very little a player can do to abuse it. Rainmaker's objective is completely abusable and because of the amount of freedom you are given with the Rainmaker being a controllable objective combined with map bugs and exploits it leads to many unfavorable and one sided scenarios that create an uncompetitive and unfair playing environment.
Rainmaker also has the issue of games being decided and won within the first 10-30 seconds of a match. How that can be deemed competitive is a mystery to me. Games can commonly and easily be decided in one of the following ways.
1. Team A pushes objective before Team B. Team A captures objective before Team B can do anything and proceeds to win the game instantaneously.
2. Team A and Team B both on objective. Team A captures objective first and pushes halfway(let's say somewhere between 10-30 points) to then be killed by Team B. Team B captures objective and proceeds to continuously push but gets walled out by Team A until time runs out and Team A wins by default.
3. Team A and Team B both have even instances of pushing objective until one side decides to abuse objective and incorporate broken strats via map exploits to time stall the other team into overtime and winning from there.
Rainmaker's final issue is rewarding only hyper aggressive playstyles with no transitional periods in ones own play. Splat Zones is the perfect example of transitional periods being that it rewards players who know whether to act aggressive/defensive in certain scenarios and when it's proper to do so based on current game states. This coupled in with basic team strats can lead to games that are more skill based and more rewarding to teams that played better. In Rainmaker, it's basically non-existent. What reason does a team have to play defensively if they can easily lose within the first 10-30 seconds of a game via knockout or pushing it out incredibly far to a point where the other team has to struggle to get past that because they decided to not push objective early. If a game can be won that early or even at any point in the game there is no reason not to play hyper aggressive the entire time. Defensive play in this mode isn't even really true defensive play as all you have to do is camp the Rainmaker until time runs out or stick it in unfavorable spots via map exploits so you can time stall the other team from winning.
In conclusion, I hope this has convinced you all that this mode is unsuitable for competitive play and at the very least should be considered being removed. I know many players such as Fiveleafclover although who has left the game has gone on record many times during his stream that Rainmaker is very flawed and wanting it to be removed from competitive play as well. Trying to ban certain maps or waiting for the devs to fix the issues even though they have resolved some just isn't worth it in the long run. Cutting it out completely instead of shoehorning in specific rulesets to keep it in would actually be more ideal in the long run. That isn't to say that smaller tournies can't host Rainmaker Only tournies themselves but I feel for somewhat larger tournies or what the community deems as large tournies nowadays it shouldn't exist.
As stated before, Rainmaker mechanically is flawed primarily due to the fact that most maps in the game due to their simplistic designs cannot properly support them in competitive play. Maps such as Blackbelly Skatepark due to their small size make RM almost unplayable as at any given instance a player can just push RM at a very short distance and win almost instantaneously. Other maps such as Saltspray Rig, Walleye Warehouse, Arowana Mall, Moray Towers, Camp Tiggerfish, and various other maps no matter how minuscule or huge the advantage might be run issues of providing areas to camp the RM or put it in unfavorable spots so that the opposing team has a hard time getting to it. Not only that but many maps that have had any exploitable bugs or glitches in the past and even present have made this mode completely broken due to the fact that the player who has the RM is given complete freedom to do what they want with it. This is something I refer to as a controllable objective. Modes such as Splat Zones and Tower Control are what I would call an uncontrollable objective. This is mainly referring to the idea that because they are either stationary (Splat Zones) or binded to a set path (Tower Control) there is very little a player can do to abuse it. Rainmaker's objective is completely abusable and because of the amount of freedom you are given with the Rainmaker being a controllable objective combined with map bugs and exploits it leads to many unfavorable and one sided scenarios that create an uncompetitive and unfair playing environment.
Rainmaker also has the issue of games being decided and won within the first 10-30 seconds of a match. How that can be deemed competitive is a mystery to me. Games can commonly and easily be decided in one of the following ways.
1. Team A pushes objective before Team B. Team A captures objective before Team B can do anything and proceeds to win the game instantaneously.
2. Team A and Team B both on objective. Team A captures objective first and pushes halfway(let's say somewhere between 10-30 points) to then be killed by Team B. Team B captures objective and proceeds to continuously push but gets walled out by Team A until time runs out and Team A wins by default.
3. Team A and Team B both have even instances of pushing objective until one side decides to abuse objective and incorporate broken strats via map exploits to time stall the other team into overtime and winning from there.
Rainmaker's final issue is rewarding only hyper aggressive playstyles with no transitional periods in ones own play. Splat Zones is the perfect example of transitional periods being that it rewards players who know whether to act aggressive/defensive in certain scenarios and when it's proper to do so based on current game states. This coupled in with basic team strats can lead to games that are more skill based and more rewarding to teams that played better. In Rainmaker, it's basically non-existent. What reason does a team have to play defensively if they can easily lose within the first 10-30 seconds of a game via knockout or pushing it out incredibly far to a point where the other team has to struggle to get past that because they decided to not push objective early. If a game can be won that early or even at any point in the game there is no reason not to play hyper aggressive the entire time. Defensive play in this mode isn't even really true defensive play as all you have to do is camp the Rainmaker until time runs out or stick it in unfavorable spots via map exploits so you can time stall the other team from winning.
In conclusion, I hope this has convinced you all that this mode is unsuitable for competitive play and at the very least should be considered being removed. I know many players such as Fiveleafclover although who has left the game has gone on record many times during his stream that Rainmaker is very flawed and wanting it to be removed from competitive play as well. Trying to ban certain maps or waiting for the devs to fix the issues even though they have resolved some just isn't worth it in the long run. Cutting it out completely instead of shoehorning in specific rulesets to keep it in would actually be more ideal in the long run. That isn't to say that smaller tournies can't host Rainmaker Only tournies themselves but I feel for somewhat larger tournies or what the community deems as large tournies nowadays it shouldn't exist.