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I HAVE BECOME THE CAT KING.
YOU MAY REFER TO ME AS CAT KING SNO.

 

So if you get in a good party during the Splatfest, stick with it. The faction vs faction nature of it means there's no party shuffling across the teams. Once i had already been playing for a bit, i landed in a really great party that did not lose a game, it was a 20+ game winning streak, we rocketed through the longest Splatfest rank and all became kings and queens. (Which seems to be the maximum achievable rank in Splatfests.)

 

I looked at my group's Inklings in the hub after i eventually bailed out and their ranks were i think A-, an A+, a B- and me as a B. It didn't feel like anybody in particular was carrying anything though, everybody had strong games and weak games and everybody knew what they were doing and how to back each other up. Splatoon really does feel like it supports interesting coordinated team tactics quite well, Nintendo seems to have created a game with a potentially very high ceiling, i'm very curious to see the 4v4 parties playlist whenever that goes up. (The game's wonky netcode will probably limit how competitive anybody gets with it though.)

 

As for the Splatfest as an event... I mean, it's Turf War with marginally more static teams, but no option to join friends. I guess i'll have earned some super seashells for upgrading gear when all of this is done? Nintendo does go all out for making it feel special though, with all of the unique music and the significantly reconfigured hub, nevermind that every map also has a night time variant for Splatfests. Also, miiverse posts are everywhere. There are fireworks in the sky that take the shape of miiverse posts.

 

Also, wow, the kraken nerf is frickin` great. I was able to completely halt the approach of a kraken on several occasions with my dual squelcher.

Incidentally, sure seems like there's a whole lot more bubblers in play than before.

 

The ink resistance nerf is really severe too, but not so severe that i want to use something else instead of it.

 

Also, I didn't get to play the tower game type when that went up, and i guess i can't while this is on. Splatfest seems to entirely replace the other playlists and matchmaking options.

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I HAVE BECOME THE CAT KING.

YOU MAY REFER TO ME AS CAT KING SNO.

 

So if you get in a good party during the Splatfest, stick with it. The faction vs faction nature of it means there's no party shuffling across the teams. Once i had already been playing for a bit, i landed in a really great party that did not lose a game, it was a 20+ game winning streak, we rocketed through the longest Splatfest rank and all became kings and queens. (Which seems to be the maximum achievable rank in Splatfests.)

 

This was my experience this morning, too.  As soon as all of the people who got frustrated with losing dropped out of our matchmaking lobby and we got filled up with competent players, we were just fucking unstoppable.  There were a few instances where one of our teammates had a connection drop and the game started with us playing with three players and we still pulled it out with a 60%.

 

I don't know how matchmaking works for the opposite team - like if there's two lobbies, and your lobby gets rotated through the opposite team's lobby, or if there's one lobby for both teams, but it looked like the lineup of team dogs we were matched against changed after every round.  I'd like to believe it's because after playing against our Team Cat Elite Murder Squad people were like hm, nah, but it's probably the two separate lobbies.

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Here in Australia our Splatfest is music themed! Pop vs Rock (as it is in Europe). So apparently the highest rank for us is ETERNAL Pop/Rock Girl/Boy. Such a badass name. 

 

I absolutely love the atmosphere here. It's amazing. Nintendo has done a fantastic job, down to all the different dance animations that the squids do. (I've seen at least three unique animations) 

 

x1P5UUj.jpg

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I don't know how matchmaking works for the opposite team - like if there's two lobbies, and your lobby gets rotated through the opposite team's lobby, or if there's one lobby for both teams, but it looked like the lineup of team dogs we were matched against changed after every round.  I'd like to believe it's because after playing against our Team Cat Elite Murder Squad people were like hm, nah, but it's probably the two separate lobbies.

 

It just seems like it builds a party out of your faction members and then once that party is matchmade it additionally goes and finds a party in the opposing faction to match you against. Despite being in the same party for all of those games i was definitely playing against different dog teams after every match, i don't think i ever once played against the same dog team twice in a row.

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The splat fest seemed to be flawed. I was on the pop team in the Eu, and I had around 8 matches where I had 3 players on my team. I don't know whether it was due to poor numbers on that team, or something else. But it kinda sucked.

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I only got to play for maybe an hour yesterday but I sure ain't gonna complain about ten sea snails.

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The splat fest seemed to be flawed. I was on the pop team in the Eu, and I had around 8 matches where I had 3 players on my team. I don't know whether it was due to poor numbers on that team, or something else. But it kinda sucked.

 

I only had two disconnects in all of the Splatfest games i played, which was shockingly solid connectivity as far as this game goes, but i saw a lot more of other people on either team disconnecting, though i never ended up in one of those "everybody but two people got dropped" games that people are talking about in random places on the internet.

 

I played in the early hours of the splatfest though, it seems like Splatoon's connectivity gets considerably worse during high activity hours, there's definitely some server stress factors to consider here. Even when i got on again later at night though, it still seemed mostly fine to me. In general, i seem to have a better connection on the game that most people do, and i still find that level of intermittent oddity kind of unacceptable. Even in the best case scenarios, the netcode in Splatoon is kind of its biggest failing. If this was a Halo game, people would be making videos breaking down the mechanics of what's wrong and demanding that Bungie fix it. (Totally a thing that happened, and totally a thing Bungie fixed. Multiple times on multiple games even, Bungie was good about that stuff.)

 

That all said, i'm sure a lot of it can probably be traced back to the Wii U strongly encouraging use of a wi-fi router, and people setting up that router and their system in contexts that have terrible signal reception.

 

Edit: CATS LOST?! BOO! BOO AT THIS POPULARITY CONTEST.

We even had more victories, but lost significantly on popularity?!

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I'm mad because I thought this was supposed to last all weekend, but it was already done by the time I wanted to play this morning.

 

|:

 

|:

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Congrats to all the Dog and Rock fans out there! I'm happy with my 18 Super Sea Snails from losing. I may have played way too much to get the maximum rating...

 

Sorry to hear about that Twig D:

Pretty sure every Splatfest is exactly 24 hours, hopefully you'll get in on the next one.

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I've already seen some people deconstructing and criticizing how the math used in determining the winner was handled, the Cats are salty about still losing after taking the victories lead on a numbers disadvantage. People don't think popularity should be a deciding factor, but Nintendo probably also need a balancing factor against people just grinding out wins all day.

 

It was fun though, and I already used my rewards to roll a build i'm pretty happy with:

Tenacity, Ninja Squid, and Ink Resistance as the mains. (Yes, it's definitely a tryhard build.)

1 Quick Respawn, 3 Special Charge Ups, 1 Special Saver, 1 Ink Saver (Main), 1 Swim Speed Up, and 2 Ink Recovery Ups as the subs.

 

I leveled up some 1 and 2 star gear with brands that were going to more or less give me what i want, and It turned out about as close to perfect for my purposes as i could hope for. I'd probably want to lose some of the special charge ups for some ink saver (sub) skills, but i'm wary of doing any more rerolls, i already used most of my snails on this.

 

Also, i played some Tower Control. That mode is super fun, you definitely want one guy on the tower and a few guys on the ground around it so everybody doesn't get splatted by a single grenade, but the way the maps complicate that by having the tower take weird paths out across gaps in the map on Arowana and Saltspray is rad as hell.

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I'm finding that while Tenacity goes great with any special, it's really, really handy when paired with Echolocation.  Any time your team number drops, you can even up the score in a hurry.

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A Special Charge Up in a main slot honestly probably gets you more meter on average, but Tenacity's drip feed sort of edges it out in situations where your team is struggling. Since it's the only mechanic in the game that kind of buffers you against having a bad team, i sort of like having it for that reason. (Of course, if you yourself are struggling and dying repeatedly, it's instead Special Saver that is useful. It is what will get you out of those situations where it's hard to build up enough meter for game-changing plays because your opponents have momentum and are overwhelming your team with quickly refreshed supers.)

Also, i'm B+ now, hurrah.

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I hate the new map. It is a paradise for rollers and my personal hell.

 

 

Next splatfest is weekend after next! July 17-18, 9pm to 9pm pacific, rollercoasters vs. waterslides!

 

Same day as Evo.

It's like they're trying to pick bad times for it.

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I think my favorite part of Moray Towers right now is finding the most inconvenient/improbable places to drop a sprinkler.  Drop off the side of a switchback facing backward, plonk a sprinkler on the wall on your way down!  I haven't experienced any special difficulty with rollers in the new level, usually you can see them coming from a long way off and it's a lot easier to scale those switchback walls with a gun than it is with a roller.

 

Lately I've been trying to change up/expand my proficiency with the weapons in the game - I was leaning on the aerosprays pretty heavily for a long time as soon as they became available to me, but after seeing so many matches where teams will have three or four aerosprays with them I figured it was time to maybe expand my horizons.  I've gotten pretty comfortable with the .96 Gal, which I've been using a lot lately, and alternating it with the custom splattershot jr, which I find very frustrating to play against in the hands of someone who uses the disruptor bombs well.

 

I've also been seeing players using blasters to do a cycle of swimming, leaping and firing simultaneously, and dropping right back into swimming.  I think this is a thing that you have to be a 16-year-old Japanese killbot to perform well, but after clumsily trying it a few times with the Luna Blaster, it's immensely satisfying to be able to pull off a kill with that method.  I don't think I'll ever be good enough at it for that method to be at all helpful in securing a win through paint coverage, though.

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Maybe i'll figure out Moray Towers the way i finally got a handle on Arowana Mall, but i suspect it could just end up being a bad map for me like Rig and Port are. The rollers i was playing against though, they were all over those walls. Flying out at me from weird angles just all over the place. It was like a horror movie.

 

I've generally stuck to shooters and blasters, but mostly shooters. (The luna blaster is ridiculous though.) I started out maining the aerospray same as you, though i prefer the splash-o-matic to it now for its consistent accuracy, but overall i've shifted over to the .96 gal and the dual squelcher. I'd like to pick up the chargers, but i'm a bad sniper, i'm always a bad sniper. Rollers, on the other hand, given how prevalent they already are, i don't want to add to that. That's just boring.

 

The bunny-hopping is near-constant at high ranks, blasters and rollers do it basically nonstop. It's probably going to be a wall for a lot of people who aren't willing to play with the motion controls, not being able to jump and aim on the stick at the same time. (Nintendo clearly does not appreciate the wisdom of bumper jumper control schemes.) Shooters, however, can mostly get away with not leaning on it as a tactic since they feel the aim penalty pretty harshly, but it's something to keep in mind as a possibility for close ranges, it can be used throw yourself or others pretty off. (As for chargers, i'm not sure if you can even jump while charging.)

 

It's not that hard to do, i find. I just... I keep forgetting to do it when it matters, i get lazy. I'm lazy. Also, muscle memory and all that.

 

Another near constant at high ranks? The dynamo roller.

I think that thing needs a nerf, it's probably the dominant weapon in the game, it has range that feels like it exceeds the longest-range shooters, has a massively wide arc, and one-hit-kills everything in that arc. It's insane.

Theoretically it's balanced by its long firing delay, but it's only slightly longer than the time-to-kill on better shooters, putting you in kind of a "land every hit perfectly or get destroyed" situation. Except not even really then, they'll still get out their attack because of the lag delay and the best you can really hope for is either catching them completely off guard or nabbing a simultaneous kill.

 

So the thing that theoretically balances the dynamo roller doesn't really effectively balance it in real world conditions, and things that work against other rollers, being conscious of where they're likely to try and camp or flank from and abusing well placed grenades or a range advantage, don't work against the dynamo roller because the thing covers so much ground with a single shot. I have been in so many games where dynamo rollers have had 20+ kills in games where mostly everybody else is sitting around 7. You see amazingly good players run a lot of different weapons, but the best dynamo rollers are consistent in a completely unreal way.

 

There's also some vaguely exploitative hijinx happening with chargers getting faster kills off of attack buffs, but i'm willing to concede to them a rare advantage for the time being, because there's just not enough of them to really worry about it.

 

Anyways, i'm probably still just a bit salty from those Moray Towers matches. Damn those rollers.

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Having finally played Moray Towers, my saltiness derives from users of the E-liter, which is able to shoot across the centre of the map, and seems to be the only charger capable of doing so. Thus playing ranked whenever Moray Towers is in the rotation, approximately 3-4 players are all using some kind of E-liter gun. I did eventually find out how to get up to the opposite sniper nest from the low-ground, and splatting snipers who are too busy looking elsewhere has been fun.

 

In other Splatoon news, I finally completed the single player! That final boss is great, and I highly recommend anyone who hasn't played the single player to go back and finish it. I want to go back and get all the scrolls I missed, but there are a few that I can't figure out the locations of.

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The final boss of the single player makes the rest of the single player look bad. It's some good quality shit right there.

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I was honestly a little shocked at how good the solo game in Splatoon is. I went into it assuming that it would have just been a lazy "throw it in" the way the 1v1 local mode is, but it's definitely not that.

 

It's probably the part of that game that is the most unmistakably a product of Nintendo, it's so evocative of the 3D Mario games in its level design and how it employs the toolbox of mechanics at its disposal.

 

Those bossfights were especially impressive, yeah.

 

Wouldn't mind seeing an even more fleshed out solo mode in a Splatoon follow-up, ideally without them lazily repurposing multiplayer maps for some of the stages. (Or at least doing it in a more interesting way.)

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Has anybody here mentioned that custom games are apparently coming with the august update? I didn't realize that was a thing Nintendo had confirmed until very recently.

So the august update will have both party matchmaking and custom games.

I'm assuming custom games will be run out of private lobbies, and party matchmaking is allegedly going to be a new playlist. I wonder how the presence of those will affect matchmaking times across the board. There at least seems to be enough people playing to probably accommodate these additional features.

 

Also: Splatfest starts on the 17th, today, at 9pm pacific.

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I haven't played the game in about 4/5 weeks and missed the Splatfest as I was away at the time. Other than more weapons and maps has there been anything added recently that warrant going back for? I loved the game for a few weeks but I kind of have that sick after eating too many sweets feeling.

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There's been a small balance update along the way, but it's mostly just been weapons and maps. Depending on how long you've been gone, some of the additional weapons will have changed the meta pretty dramatically. So did that balance patch, actually.

 

The big overhaul is coming in august, though nobody's sure what the entirety of that will end up being.

 

Edit: Oh, of course, the tower mode. If you haven't played that, it's a ton of fun. It rotates in and out of ranked, which will be gone for the duration of the Splatfest, unfortunately.

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Made it to coaster king!

 

A fun minigame in Splatfest is trying to determine whether my party is crap, or if we're just paired against teenaged killbots.

 

Without teamchat or any kind of way to communicate with people in the lobby, it's hard to figure out what people's intentions are, but I've noticed an interesting trend - the longer I stay in a party, I'm able to get a pretty good idea of who knows their business and who's a liability.  After a loss, a few people will drop out of the room, and my assumption is because they think the team is crap and they're rolling the dice on a better room.  HOWEVER - and I know that anecdote is not evidence - the trend I'm noticing is that the poorer players tend to be the ones to bail early.  Which is nice, because it means that the quality of players in the room will trend upwards as long as you continue to stay put.

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I've splatted the toons and it's pretty good. It moves so fast and fluidly and it's a great game for not actually relying on aim that much. (and I don't just mean with the paint roller).

I'm kinda bummed about the splatfest blocking me from playing other modes though cause I can only play for today, when visiting my parents to use my brother's Wii U.

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Made it to coaster king!

I have also done this, also for the coasters. Seeing the huge bias in favor of the water slides in miiverse posts around the hub sure makes me feel like i picked the wrong side.

Splatfest was pretty rough for me this time around though. Connectivity seemed pretty bad, i never really managed to land in a good party that would last for more than a couple of games, and i kind of hate two of the three maps that were in rotation.

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