The Splatoon Thread

[Opa Opa]

Fwiw, I really enjoyed it, however there are some things that are concerning. I'll make a lengthy post this evening when I have a chance.

Hope you have fun, aj!

[alienjesus]

Well, just got off the demo.

I loved it. It lived up to my expectations for sure. I didn't find the splat roller overpowered like Emwearz did - I actually found that I perfomed best with the Splattershot Jr., despite it seeming like the worst choice by far. It has a nice balance between being useful in battle and covering a lot of ground in paint. The shield subweapon definitely helped too.

I only used the full splattershot once, so I'll try it out more later. The roller was good, but I found I was better off just covering as much ground as possible with it, rather than getting into firefights. I liked how you could use it to slip past enemy lines and colour in their whole base quickly. I won a fight where the whole map was the enemies orange simply by sneaking behind them and colouring in as much as I could. We won 48.1 to 47.8%

The charger is kinda awkward to use - I actually did quite well with it, but it wasn't my favourite weapon to use. I like that it's a one shot kill if you aim it just right, but I prefer getting into the action. It's range isn't amazing and it's not great at covering ground.

I didn't mind the controls. I turned motion controls off, but it seems like the game still uses motion for aiming, so the only difference seemed to be that I could aim up and down using the right stick too. I liked the motion aiming, but definitely only for precision - up and down I'd rather use the stick for.


My one issue was with matchmaking. If you dropped out, chose a new weapon and jumped in again, you seemed to get a match really quickly. If you stick to stay around though, it seems to take ages to fill empty spaces in the room - it's like it prioritises new rooms above existing ones. I managed to play to level 15 of the squid jump game whilst waiting for one match. I just swapped weapons every time after that.

I worry about this 2 maps at a time system they have going for online though. Seems kinda dumb to me, would rather have a wider choice.

[s1mplehumar]

Sitting in the lobby. Waaaaaaiting...

[alienjesus]

Definitely preferred the Splattershot Jr - partly due to the shield powerup mind. The roller was good, the normal splattershot was decent. I wasn't too hot on the charger still.

My waits in the lobby were shorter this time round.

[Opa Opa]

I only tried the Splattershot and Roller. Didn't try the other two (I meant to but missed the last window of play time). The Splattershot was good if you wanted to be an offensive player; I didn't. I enjoyed just painting pathways for my teammates and increasing our percentage. Of course this is why rollers were getting the highest scores in this game mode (which spoonybard commented on); the rollers were covering the most ground. However, the roller will probably suck for the king of the hill mode.

*matchmaking*

Fortunately I never had any trouble staying in a lobby. It filled up quickly for me (less than 10 seconds?). Of course connection is different for everyone.
On the other hand, I did have two matches lose connection. No lag or anything, but the game would freeze and a few seconds later I'd be back at the weapons screen. I have no clue why that happened to be honest.
-

While I really enjoyed the time I spent with the game, here's a list of things I am bothered by:
-On-disc DLC locked behind amiibo. Not only do I not want any more amiibo figures and hate the practice of disc-locked content, but good luck finding these things if you didn't pre-order 15 seconds after they were announced.

-Map rotation (formerly mentioned by aj). IIRC, you have the ability to only play two different maps every four hours. I have no clue what the logic behind this decision was. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

-Lack of maps. Only 5 maps at launch (of which you'll have to wait four hour intervals to swap between). I know they're slowly publishing more maps throughout the summer and that they'll be free, but c'mon. The latest Call of Duty features over ten maps (pretty sure the last one had 15) and that's the vanilla version. It seems you'd be better off waiting 6 months to play Splatoon and get it cheaper so you can just download every map at once rather than at a drip feed.

I still had a blast playing it and want to play more but I really don't know if it's a day-one purchase or not... Knowing me I'll buy it anyway. haha

[Ziggy587]

I haven't played the demo, so I don't really know, but I feel like it would be better getting only 5 maps at launch and then slowly getting more over the course of a few months. 5 isn't overwhelming, and it forces you to play and learn them. Then as new maps come out, you can learn them at a slower pace. Instead of having, say, 15 maps at once that you have to learn.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I haven't played the demo, so I don't really know, but I feel like it would be better getting only 5 maps at launch and then slowly getting more over the course of a few months. 5 isn't overwhelming, and it forces you to play and learn them. Then as new maps come out, you can learn them at a slower pace. Instead of having, say, 15 maps at once that you have to learn.

That is something I found to be a bit frustrating with games like GTA V's online. Allowing people to make custom maps made it absolutely impossible to get into a match with people effectively, as most maps were made as XP farms and were poorly made.

I want to have a nice core group of maps that are incredibly well put together and then slowly roll out new ones as the game starts to taper off.

[Opa Opa]

I haven't played the demo, so I don't really know, but I feel like it would be better getting only 5 maps at launch and then slowly getting more over the course of a few months. 5 isn't overwhelming, and it forces you to play and learn them. Then as new maps come out, you can learn them at a slower pace. Instead of having, say, 15 maps at once that you have to learn.

I don't really agree. It only takes me about a couple of matches and I'll have a multiplayer map pretty well figured out. Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.

It's been confirmed that there'll be "one more round" of the Testfire on Saturday 23rd May at 3pm Pacific / 6pm Eastern / 11pm UK / midnight CET for one hour. The demo is available to download once again to give players plenty of opportunity to get ready, and as before those with the demo in Europe will be able to save 10% on the eShop purchase for the game from 29th May until 4th June.

[Blu]

Any updates on some early adopters of the game? Did you play last night? What are your impressions!?

[s1mplehumar]

Picking up my copy this afternoon. Will post my thoughts...