Topic: ARMS

@meleebrawler Also there seemed to be very few players waiting for ranked. I had some lengthy waits for matches, and at level 6 it was matching me as low as 1's and as high as 9s. No 10's yet thankfully One of the matches (a Min Min I lost to) I accidentally selected "continue" when it was done, when I wanted to select "new challenger", so I hit the sleep button to disconnect before it loaded. I backed out to the main menu to check my internet settings (because coming out of sleep it often reconnects to the FARTHER access point rather than the one right next to it despite the unusably weak signal for reasons I can't explain), went back into arms and selected ranked match, and immediately got paired against the SAME person! They were just sitting there waiting for another match while I played with network settings after disconnecting on them and I was the first person to show up again! This time he was Master Mummy. I won that time And then remembered to select "new challenger."

(I just discovered you can resize the edit box on this site. Text walling just got a lot easier! )

@NEStalgia Longer waiting periods for ranked are at least partially due to matchmaking. The game tries to find players near your rank, for closer matches, which does have the side-effect of making searching take longer and making it seem as though there are less players than there really are. The game just won't let you play against opponents severely lower or higher than you unless there really is no one else available. And of course, the higher ranks also have fewer players due to the stricter requirements for getting there.

Side note, I rarely get Japanese opponents in Ranked. They appear to prefer Party mode.

Dem text walls

I don't play ranked yet. Still only amassed about 6 hours play and have hardly unlocked any new arms, so although my fighting is ok, my knowledge of the game still feels very basic.

Had my first go at level 5 Grand Prix today. Beat Mechanica easily (she's always easy to beat, it seems) but then got embarrassed by MM. It seems the opponents throw a lot more punches at level 5, which will take some getting used to but should help my learning too.

Hope the online situation improves, though I reckon this game's true value will be in local multiplayer - school/office tournaments etc. I've just ordered my first additional set of joy con, based off my hype for this game, even though I have no mates to play with

@meleebrawler Of course it's match making, or trying, but that's kind of my point. At lv6 I get matched between lv1 and lv9. At lv8 I get matched.....between lv1 and lv9... If more than half the ranks are "near my rank" that's a severe lack of players! Interestingly while in lv6 I find most of my opponents are lv7 or lv8 with an occasional lv9 thrown in, with slightly-more-frequent-than-9 1, 2, or 5. Not sure what that means, but there it is. Often the 1, 2, or 5 is playing better than 8, and I know the progression system pushes you up easily to at least 5, maybe 6, so I'm guessing most players are at 7 or above, and a lot of players below are alts like myself. (Again, a mirror image of Splatoon 1's ranked..)

Party mode seems to consist of players below what's going on in ranked's current skill, plus a few lv15's trolling (I can't see their rank, but sheesh, the way they play....) I'm ASSUMING (as I assumed with Splatoon 1) that party mode is ALSO ranked, it just hides your "party rank" from you. It definitely appears to adapt the player matchmaking to an relatively appropriate skill level (all my Hedlocks are lv6 or lv7, other people are getting all lv4 or lv5.) Which is a good thing.

I don't think I've ever seen a Japanese player in ranked. I only occasionally see them in party mode. A smattering of one or two. Once or twice on a weekend I've seen a bunch in a lobby for party, but that's about it. I'm at the point that I can't stand party mode. I WANT to love it. Fights and team fights and hedlok battles are a blast. But what do I mostly get? b-ball, b-ball, s-shot, and the worst of all the hideous 3-way fights where I either win by doing little and dying of boredom as they duke it out, or lose by being the beating post of both opponents targeting me after prior matches One player always has to be the beating post...

That's why I started with the alt. I can screw around with crazy characters in ranked and just play it as party mode that consists of 1v1 fights only and not sweat it. No v-ball. But endless snakeboards. Unfortunately that means not being able to buy many weapons, either, so I have to git gud with the defaults. Against infinite hydras (even the level 1's are coming in with hydra-loaded min-mins!)

@gcunit It's funny, at lv5 AI, the AI throws more punches. At Lv5 ranked, people stop throwing punches all together and just wait you out the first 30 seconds Then at Lv7 they just start spamming hydras.

Agreed, this game, well, honestly EVERY fighting game's true value is in local multiplayer. Those arcade cabs have 2 sticks for a reason USF:II only plays "ok-ish-I-guess" online as well. The genre's just too fast for the internet to really do it justice. It's serviceable but it's not where the games shine.

@meleebrawler I happen to enjoy playing Japanese players most, when I do get them. Similar to Splatoon, they have a very different play style. Western players mostly seem to be about "I'm faster than you, I have better reflexes than you, I can count frames better than you!" When I play Japanese players I feel like there's mind games going on. They don't go aggro and start spamming attacks in every opening...they wait you out, try to trick you out, give you no opening....there's a much more psychological game going on. It's waaay more fun IMO. The matches are slower, and rarely is either player KO'd. Health doesn't always drop below 3/4. It's a battle for that extra 2 pixels of HP on the bar. More like real boxing.

@NEStalgia It's a real shame people watching tend not to appreciate defensive play, and would much rather see people getting hit constantly and matches ending quickly. Winning by time-out is generally seen as the lowest form of victory possible. To an extent I suppose it pervades most sports in media. What do people remember most watching games? Goals being scored, and the people who score them. I've even seen this covered in a series called Galactik Football; one character's mother is pressuring her to get an offensive role so that she will be noticed more, but the coach is adamant that she is better in defense. Perhaps because the average viewer only has a basic grasp on the objectives of what they're watching, and thusly see those who fulfill them directly as more valuable.

The patch notes for the 2.0 update are apparently out:

Edit: Here's a different version of the same thing:

Wow, they actually removed Snake Park from the online play roster. I will mourn it's loss as probably the only player who enjoyed it. Otherwise, everything is pretty standard, though I'm glad this update includes more than just Max Brass. I'm excited for future updates if they're as beefy as this one.

New mode, neat!

Why did they take Snake Park out? Were the discs exploitable?

@Nintendoer I don't think Skate Park is an inherently bad map; it can actually be a nice change of pace. It's just not the kind of place that lets you measure your skill effectively, your character traits being largely irrelevant on the boards.

The buffs to the mega arms and nerfs to crackers/hydras will likely go hand-in-hand in changing the meta. Though perhaps their users will migrate to revolvers instead...

Guardian still seems pretty bad. Some extra speed doesn't really fix it's other major flaws, like being easily outmaneuvered by curving punches and jumping.

It's interesting that they called Ribbon Girl's "attack hovering" an issue. As if they never intended for her to do something like that?

Kid Cobra's lessened jump distance is probably intended as a nerf, and likely was implemented to curb the practice of jump-attacking constantly to maintain a safe offence. But on the bright side, it'll likely make it easier for him to jump on certain things.

The next time I play, I'll be going on Party mode to test out these various changes. Here's hoping I get more Hedlok Scrambles than 1v1v1s.

Nice. I like new modes.

I was just thinking. Wouldn't it kinda be cool if there was a on-rails "shooter" mode in this game? Maybe an adventure mode where you walk through the city and fight hedlock's army or whatever.

@Spanjard That sounds legitimately awesome. I'd love to see something like that as a mode or maybe incorporated into a later singleplayer campaign. After all, we know the Mario Kart team is great at track design.

I played a Grand Prix with Max Brass, and the character himself plays fine, but I absolutely love his ARMS. They're so useful and versatile. I think he's going to be my new main.

Speaking of Grand Prix with Max Brass, it turns out the final boss is still Max Brass...somehow. It's not explained how it works, Biff just says something to the effect of "I guess the challenger is just a clone." Kind of a cop-out.

The new Hedlok Scramble mode is fun, but not something I would constantly play. It gives me the same feeling as playing a hack-and-slash game, just beating up everything.

The new Events mode is interesting. I guess there will be in-game events and tournaments. I'm looking forward to winning some.

@Spanjard That sounds very cool, and I don't know why it isn't in the game.

I do hope this game does well enough to warrant a sequel. There's a lot potential with this game. I already like the core game a lot and my mind goes crazy coming up with weird mini games which I will spare you the details of.

Story time, haha. So I again had a duel with someone for a long time and kept losing...I think I took him from lvl 8 to 10 haha.
He did the same thing over and over. Consistently good I might add.
After some time I adapted some new strategies and came close enough but I wasn't there yet. After a while a decided to try one last match with a new strategy.
I took on new arms and kept cornering him with 2 curved punches from left and right... It was brutal... I had this great feeling of "I got it!" And so it happened that I won overwhelmingly, so easily that it was clear to both of us that he would have to adapt a whole new play style.
And so he left. Lol.

I love this game.

@Spanjard I commend your positive attitude. A lot of people would just be like "this isn't fair, screw this spammer". Adaptability is what makes a good player.

@Nintendoer A cop-out... or is it? Maybe this Max Brass "clone" (whichever one it happens to be) is real, and we'll see something to the effect of Captain Falcon/Blood Falcon in the future.

That's it, I'm buying it. Splatoon launch be damned.

See you online

I noticed the Version 2 stats page shows a few things not included in the Version 1 page - your favourite control scheme, seperate left and right favourite arms, and your most used colour for your favourite character. I guess they had this feature planned from the start, but then decided to add stuff they didn't originally program the game to track. This might be part of why the stats are separated by version, but it's cool either way - gives a little history of your play style.

DNA Lab is apparently my best stage, which doesn't surprise me - I like to hide behind stuff! And I can heal while doing so - Master Mummy is definitely my main at this point.

@meleebrawler Cool idea, but I doubt it.

Finally got to play a bit, had a bad streak for a bit on ranked but I did really well tonight! When I'm doing well and getting hyped is when the game gets really fun (especially when I actually put up a fight). I like to use the Homie and then throw a Revolver, it works pretty well for me and my opponents have a hard time with it.

One thing I need to do is get more arms, I think i've only used the arm getter twice and am under equipped because of it.