Splatoon Update Improves Matchmaking, Tinkers With Rainmaker And Generally Tightens Things Up

Also included, 2 more maps that will unlock at some point: Piranha Pit and Ancho-V Games.

"In Regular Battle and Splatfest, players of similar skill will be matched more often."

oh thank glob

Why elimate shortcuts?

How about getting shot through a platform? Like in the Mall - I'm on one of those ledges near the middle of the course - and someone has that Splat Bomb - the round one that is a ball - and I'm in squid form - and he's below me - he shoots at his ceiling (my floor) and I get splatted every time. It only happens with the splat bomb or the Blaster Weapons.

@Dakt I'm pretty much done with Splatoon, unless we get to choose what mode to play. I really only like rainmaker, though I'll play tower control depending on the stages. So I don't even bother to turn it on anymore. And I didn't get my sea snails from the last Splat fest even though I turned it on last Friday like the NOA Twitter account said. That was kind of the last straw.

@rjejr Did you vote though?You don't need to play to earn the minimum amount but without voting you won't get any.I've forgot to vote the last twice.

@rjejr
With a small install base, I prefer if we don't have a choice on which map or which mode to play on. It keeps searching for matches easier and faster. I personally hate rainmaker. What if majority of Splatoon players in the whole world hate it too and we get to choose which mode to play on? Then you'd have a problem searching for matches.

Look at the last European Splatfest. Finding matches on a single mode was unbearable (it took 5 mins or so on average) because the other team was outnumbered and EU has the least Splatoon population compared to US or Japan.

Maybe we'll get an update down the line to choose which map or which mode to play on when we have enough Splatoon players or by the time they release the final maps on January.

@jariw Yes- why haven't NintendoLife announced this yet lol

Rainmaker > Tower Control >>>>>> Splat Zones
I wish we could choose the mode we want. Having to plan my day around a 4 hour time period for Rainmaker really sucks.

Those prohibited areas in Rainmaker will mix things up, and could be a great addition. If it increases the difficulty of some routes, then it encourage a greater use of the map. However, I've never seen anyone carrying the Rainmaker run out of time so it might not change anything.

@Splatburst In the US I never have to wait more than a few seconds, no matter the mode or time of day. I'd be willing to wait a minute or 2 for a mode I like. Right now I don't even play b/c I am sick to death of Walleye Warehouse, which ALWAYS seems to be in rotation. And Kelp Dome. I've played on the bridge maybe once. Let me pick the mode or the stage, or put 3 in the rotation.

I'd rather wait for something I want than play something I don't. So I don't play.

@OorWullie I always vote and I always play Splatfest, try to get up to defender. But it was gone by Friday, I never even saw the results screen. I know that was 2 weeks after but still.

Just my motto to know about something like a shortcut right when they're about to fix it. A well doubt I'm skilled enough to use it anyways.

Going to have to say I disagree with the comments saying that they would only like to play the same mode. Yes I understand that you want a certain mode the whole time but wouldn't that get boring fairly quickly? I personally would love just a random mode and a random map. It keeps you on your toes and expect the unexpected. They could also introduce competitive turf wars to the ranked mode and introduce a option for a friendly tower control, splat zones and rainmaker mode as more options for the player.

I disagree with the previous posts. In the first months I also wished for free choice of maps and modes. But with more experience, it became clearer and clearer that the developers actually made a very clever choice with the rotation system. It adds a lot to this game, otherwise the game would've been less fun and exciting for me. I still learn new things and try out new abilities, even after 300 hours of playtime.
Just yesterday they explained it (again!) in an interview that was mentioned in an article here.

@rjejr Then you seem to be doing something wrong, I have played all the stages numerous times, I played the Bridge a lot for example. So maybe you just play at the same times in a week? That can be the only explanation for playing the same maps over and over again.
@TheRedCap30 That's a terrible comparison, neither Smash nor Mario Kart have something similar to the combination of map-mode-weapon-gear that Splatoon has. Because of that, it makes totally sense to have the rotation, because it always forces you to think about what weapon and gear you want to use. That way the game has a lot more depth than it would have if you could choose everything. Because then you would only play with one weapon (if you do that already, you're playing the game wrong...) and the same gear all the time which would really take something away from the game experience.

Tower Control and Rainmaker are the only two modes i really like. Turf War is kind of boring, Splat zones is okay but feels too campy and similar to turf war. Maybe if they didnt just have the one mode in the very beginning it would be more tolerable on my end.

Good, hopefully this will make Rainmaker more fair.

@TheRedCap30 I don't know, back then when Splatoon had only 5 maps, there weren't so many maps not in rotation to train on. That made it a lot easier to learn the game and that's exactly what the developers intended with their decision.
If someone picks the game up now, it would make sense for them to start with only a few maps and modes, e.g. train only the current maps in recon mode. Or find someone to start a private battle with (literally only one other player needed).

As a newcomer, It's better to train the basic mechanics in the single player campaign and then try the current maps in recon mode (instead of trying all maps) and play turf war until they feel comfortable with everything. Then start with one ranked mode at a time and slowly expand the map range.

Also, I don't think the effect of the weapons and gear is comparable to anything in MK8 or Smash, because even changing the vehicle in MK or trying another character in Smash doesn't change the game so much as using a different weapon and ability loadout in Splatoon. It's bascially a new game every time you use one of the 38 (not counting the variants) main weapon types (*4 in combination with the different modes) or change your focus to another of the 10 sub-weapons and/or 7 special attacks. There are so many combinations possible that I haven't even thoroughly tried out all of them after 300 hours.

I'm totally fine with the modes as well, although 1-2 new modes would still be great.
I play mostly Splat Zones (still my favourite mode) and Rainmaker, haven't played a lot of Tower Control recently. And Turf War mainly during Splatfests or when I want to try out some new gear combination.

Have they added local/regional games yet? They don't show the latency but I'm guessing I average 200ms from the feel of it. And that's on a decent wired connection. And how about wiimote controls? Nintendo invents the best controls for a shooter (with lower input latency it would even beat keyboard + mouse) and then doesn't include them as an option for their first big multiplayer shooter?!?

These are old complaints of course but they still haven't done anything about them as far as I've heard. Until they do it's not really what I would call playable. Such a shame as it really is fun... until you hit the artificially lowered skill ceiling where improving reacting times and such isn't going to help since lag is bigger by an order of magnitude

@shani "That can be the only explanation for playing the same maps over and over again."

The only explanation? How about the explanation where we arne't allowed to choose which maps we want to play?

They really need to increase the stage rotation.
By the way am I the only one who doesn't like Tower Control?