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Splatoon Direct - 7th May 2015
- Thread starter JoeM86
- Start date
Steve McQueen
Member
The Splatoon Amiibo's seem to be sold out everywhere. Do I need these to fully enjoy the experience?
You shouldn't. They only unlock cosmetic outfits and a challenge mode that you can do in single player already.
Bots are better than you
Banned
They unlock certain clothing items and weapons, but i think you can unlock them by playing, although i might be wrong on this.
And you can get special missions with a time limit, but those are "only" altered regular missions.
I think the Amiibo-stuff falls into the "Nice to have, not needed"-territory.
IMO, you don't need them. You'll be able to get some specific challenges (on already existing courses) to get some more crazy-looking gear, but that's about it.
I've pre-ordered one amiibo just out of curiosity, but I'm personally ignoring most of the amiibo-related reveals for this game anyway. As I've understood the game design, it's more important to increase the stats of your gear than the gear itself.
I like how they added the giant tanooki and a fox spirit thing to the tops of the buildings in the central hub. Actually It's good to see my fears were unwarranted that this game being tailored to the western market would detract from EAD's unique japanese design aesthetic.
Pretty much nails how I've been feeling about it in a more succinct post and why I really don't have a problem with buying the game as it is on launch, especially with it's compact post-launch schedule. Even if the value might not be apparent for several it's not unreasonable to assume that it isn't there for others.
They did a really cool job designing humanoid characters around sea creatures.
I wonder if we can keep our created Inkling for retail?
are people really complaining that it's not more like CoD?
I'll never understand the argument where people want games to be like other games. If you want that, go play x other game. I'm all for more originality and different types of iteration on a genre. Splatoon has this in spades. I'm stoked.
I'll never understand the argument where people want games to be like other games. If you want that, go play x other game. I'm all for more originality and different types of iteration on a genre. Splatoon has this in spades. I'm stoked.
Boss Doggie
all my loli wolf companions are so moe
That other thread was pure cancer. It feels weird that /v/ has better threads with video games lately.
I still can't really believe that in a competitive arena multiplayer game, there is no option at launch to team-up with your friends. I also can't believe how people are brushing it off like it isn't a big deal. I'm still getting the game at launch, but it is a huge hype killer for me.
HawthorneKitty
Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
I don't have friends.
Yeah well maybe it's not a big deal to everyone.
I think it's a fun idea. Surely not for every game but in this case it feels ok. And the update will change it anyway so no biggie for me to be honest.
Me neither, we should both buy this game and not play with each other
Benzychenz
Member
Man, I'm so hyped for this.
The different weapons look fantastic.
The single player looks loads of fun.
The little bonuses like the retro minigames are neat.
All the characters and the world in general is charming as hell.
And most importantly the core gameplay looks so fresh and fun.
3 more weeks
The different weapons look fantastic.
The single player looks loads of fun.
The little bonuses like the retro minigames are neat.
All the characters and the world in general is charming as hell.
And most importantly the core gameplay looks so fresh and fun.
3 more weeks
HawthorneKitty
Sgt. 2nd Class in the Creep Battalion, Waifu Wars
Okay, I'm going to hold you on this.
Save your hype for August then?
Personally, Turf War seems like much more fun to me, since the player competes against both the other team as well as against the own team members. It seems like all the ranked battle modes only have one main objective per mode?
Funnily enough I feel like the matchup options we will get is a good solution to the whole "friends will obviously have advantage" argument that was prevalent a few times.
Mixing up teams after each round on regular battles is a good way to make things fun, fair and varied. I have just as much fun playing with my friends as I do against them. Making friend team ups exclusive to matching with other friend team ups is a good idea because that makes it a more leveled competition rather than just going all out against randoms.
Not that I find it any less silly that this is a feature coming later but the handling of this particular matchmaking in terms of function was a surprisingly smart move on Nintendo's part.
Mixing up teams after each round on regular battles is a good way to make things fun, fair and varied. I have just as much fun playing with my friends as I do against them. Making friend team ups exclusive to matching with other friend team ups is a good idea because that makes it a more leveled competition rather than just going all out against randoms.
Not that I find it any less silly that this is a feature coming later but the handling of this particular matchmaking in terms of function was a surprisingly smart move on Nintendo's part.
Flintty
Member
This post is a winner.
I'm not going to read all previous pages but it looks like there is some controversy.
I watched the stream with my kids and we were all super impressed. My kids are gonna eat this up.
Nintendo doing it right.
I am so hyped for the single player mode, every time they show it it looks better.
I'm usually not good with chaotic multiplayer environments, so we'll see how I do with the MP server test tomorrow. In Smash, for example, my ability goes waaay down as soon as a third player joins.
I'm usually not good with chaotic multiplayer environments, so we'll see how I do with the MP server test tomorrow. In Smash, for example, my ability goes waaay down as soon as a third player joins.
thebisonxrc
Member
Just finished watching the Direct and damn, I can't wait for this game. I was pretty excited for it before, but now I'm literally counting down the days. Hurry, May 29th.
A while back, I pre-ordered the Splatoon amiibo 3-pack and afterwards wondered if I had made a mistake. After having seen this, I'm glad I did. I'm going to want every little bit of this game that I can get.
Good job, Nintendo. You got me. Fantastic Direct.
A while back, I pre-ordered the Splatoon amiibo 3-pack and afterwards wondered if I had made a mistake. After having seen this, I'm glad I did. I'm going to want every little bit of this game that I can get.
Good job, Nintendo. You got me. Fantastic Direct.
I want the 3-pack so bad. Us europeans got better pricing but getting the 3 amiibos cost more than the game itself. At least amiibos are region free so I'm thinking of importing.
Not sure if this was posted earlier but the cover plate is up for pre-order on amazon.co.jp.
Cover Plate 60
Cover Plate 60
You would have a point if other games did not put parties against each other, but they do. Other games try to get parties in the same lobby against each other.
And I think people definitely have fun playing against friends, but typically amongst other friends, not randoms in team based games.
Team shuffling is a good idea for non-party lobbies, but outside of that, they really dropped the ball in terms of matchmaking for launch.
Though the thing that has me peeved out is the lack of private lobbies till August. If there's one thing I thought Nintendo did with games that feature online multiplayer is that they let you play with randoms and with just friends, but they didn't think it was a priority or something.
thebisonxrc
Member
Wow, that seems ridiculous! Definitely import them if you're interested in those extra missions. Plus, they just look great.
Very very interesting read, i agree with you.SHUFFLE
Not being able to play with your friends on the same team is definitely going to turn people off. There will be less people buying it, and of the ones that buy they'll shelve it quicker. It's a no-brainer to let friends go in as a team. They're playing to have fun with friends, when they're forced to fight against each other they may not like it. This is a major oversight of a basic feature in every other online game for more than a decade. Splatoon is suppose to be Nintendo's answer to the team based shooting genre and they skimp on the team aspect? Why? Okay I'm not stupid I know why: they rushed it. If it's going to take 3 more months(!!!!!) to implement teams they should have released it then. As it stands I think they should reduce the price to $50 as an apology, this would at least get more people in on day 1. I guess that's why the digital version is $50 but it should be for physical too. I know it won't happen.
Full disclosure: I'm mainly going to be lone-wolfing it because my friends don't have Wii U. I wouldn't be using team features like friend teams and voice chat but those should be included. As game designers the team at Nintendo should know those features need to be there from the get-go to foster a strong community.
I've seen some people say "but a team of 4 working together would dominate 4 randoms". That wouldn't happen if the matching system is well thought out. Only match full teams vs other full teams. If none are available match 4 vs 3+1 or 2+2. Simple.
PERKS
Look at this. 24 perks or "abilities" all with the potential to change to tide of a fight, likely without you knowing the enemy has it. This is reminding me of CoDs perks and the luck kills they facilitate. How bad it will be here is dependent on how much power each perk has. Based on the name + picture some of them have real potential to be annoying.
Here's what I think they do:
Ink Saver (Main) - Uses less ink, if shooting for a second used half a tank now it only uses a quarter.
Special Charge Up - Charge meter will build faster.
Quick Respawn - Respawn faster.
Ink Saver (Sub) - Uses less ink, if a grenade used half a tank now it only uses a quarter.
Ink Recovery Up - Ink will recover faster.
Bomb Range Up - Looks like you throw bombs farther.
Tenacity - Not sure about this one. Maybe if you're outnumbered you get some kind of stat boost?
Quick Super Jump - Super jump engages faster and/or moves faster.
Damage Up - Deal more damage.
Special Saver - If you die your special meter progress does not reset.
Run Speed Up - Increased run speed.
Swim Speed Up - Increased swim speed/
Comeback - Maybe after being killed you respawn where you died.
Defense Up - Additional health.
Special Duration Up - More time in special mode.
Bomb Sniffer - Alerted to enemy items in the level.
Opening Gambit - For the first 30 seconds of the match you get a stat boost.
Ninja Squid - While moving in squid form your ink doesn't ripple.
Recon - While respawning you see where enemies are on the map?
Last-Ditch Effort - For the last 30 seconds of the match you get a stat boost.
Cold Blooded - Recon items or abilities can't see you.
Haunt - While dead you can see the player that killed you?
Stealth Jump - Invisible while super jumping.
Ink Resistance Up - Can walk faster and/or take less damage in enemy ink.
ACCESSORIES
It was bad enough when I heard accessories had perks tied to them but up to 4 EACH? With 3 star accessories that's a total of 12 perks. Tally up the whole team and its 48. CoD only has 3 per player and that's already a pain in the ass. There will be no way to keep track of this shit in a fight even if it listed all 12 of the enemy's perks on the death screen. And it probably won't do that anyway, too much clutter, so now you'll just never know what your opponent has until its too late. You get the jump on him and he has Defense Up? Too bad, he reacts to your advantageous position and manages to edge you out. You kill him and he immediately comes back and kills you with a special thanks to Special Saver? Too bad! Of course he would have that one! With no indication of what powers they might have you'll have to play as if they have every one. That's a lot to factor in, in addition to their weapon combo.
On an aside it looks like they may have done weapon combinations right from what I saw in the direct. You buy a set from the shop like splattershot, ink bomb, and multiple ink bombs for the special and I assume it's permanent. When you see an enemy with a splattershot you'll know that they can use the ink bomb and possibly the special, and you adjust your play style to deal with that. I'm just assuming though. You might be free to mix and match which would make it just like the perks scenario I described above. I hope not.
I've previously praised the Splatoon team for what looked like great game design sense but the addition of this bloated perks system will likely throw it all out the window. I haven't played it yet so my opinion could change in a snap but from what I'm seeing... fucking 12 perk slots. Jesus. Hopefully there's a mode with no perks or locked loadouts where the weapon, sub weapon, special, and perks are set and you can only choose the well crafted loadouts.
It also seems like the perks have been tacked on to make people grind. I'm sure they started out with the intention of having the 3 perk system, and that would've been tolerable like in CoD but at some point during development they went too far. You have to level up your accessories to roll a random additional perk. If you don't get the one you want you go to Spike and re-roll with a hard to acquire snail creature. This is not the game design prowess they showed at e3 with the barebones demo. It's just randomness, and grinding to trap the player. This is not what an online shooter should try to be. The base mechanics should just be set and you go at it. Players will continue to play on the merits of the gameplay. What they've shown now seems to have muddied the whole affair.
FOUR HOURS
This is a strange limitation. Why not have a voting system like most other games? "But then people won't use all the maps." If you design the selection algorithm well you can make players play each map more evenly. Keep count of how many times the player plays each level online. At the voting screen present only 2 of the 5 levels. The players choose one and when they play it to completion/enough it adds 1 to the played count of that level. He plays 4 times and now the lremaining level gets priority to show up on the next vote. Write the code to prioritize showing the least played level more often and it should eventually build up till the others are less played.
In the direct the stated goal of 2 levels for every four hours is to make players consider what is good for that level combination,The dev team will likely farm the supposedly consistent data and balance the game around it. And also its to make players check in more frequently to play the map they want. That's great for them and all but forcing players in this way will ultimately lead to quicker abandonment of the game. People want to play what they want to play. Impose easily identifiable unnecessary limitations and they will get fed up and not play at all.
This choice may also be influenced by the absence of a loadout system. I don't know if it's been confirmed but it looks to me like you can only have one loadout. Hardly anyone plays like that or wants to play like that. This would be baffling if true. Everyone will have to constantly switch guns and accessories on their one character. Please no. Allow an infinite amount of loadouts.
PLAZA
The Booyah Base is great and all but I hope there is a quick select menu. Once I'm done with single player I'll want to jump straight into multiplayer from the start screen. I don't want to waste time running around the plaza. Sometimes sure but not every time I want to do anything. Hopefully they'll update us on the specifics of menu navigation.
This is just cool. Look at this Naruto pose. So anime.
I'm definitely looking forward to Splatoon. I'll play it either way, it looks amazingly fun as always but this recent direct has shown many potential missteps that were worth pointing out. I'll see you in the demo(stress test)!
No, they offer a sp costume set, a mini game, and sp challenges. Extra things that are nice but definitely not necessary to fully enjoy the game. Exactly what amiibo should be imo.
You should specify that this is sp only content. Just saying that amiibos unlock weapons gets people confused. Don't expect to be able to unlock these by playing either. They're amiibo specific for a reason.
And where did you hear about the the special time limit missions? Link?
Its lame, should be there at launch, etc etc.. There are plenty of posts bashing the august update, and for good reason. However you shouldn't expect everyone to sit here and complain about it especially since the vast majority of players wouldnt use it.
It's a shame that with all the negativity the good things are being so overshadowed. The new weapons are look cool and I love that we can play squid jump during matchmaking.
This.
I actually really like this, there's nothing worse in an fps than queuing solo and running into a team all on comms who queued together. Those people will have their mode slightly later on. No bad players pub stomping is a massive plus in my books.
So? Teamwork is a fundamental part of doing well at anything competitive, especially multiplayer games like this. Not that Nintendo really care about people using teamwork effectively; they already removed voice chat and now we can't even use Skype or a similar service to communicate with those on our teams.
Fine, I understand that, and Shuffle is a great option for solo players.
You completely misinterpreted my post, thanks.
Also your last point makes no sense whatsoever. You "can't" use Skype to communicate? Of course you can use Skype to communicate with your friends. Some rounds you'll play as teams and some rounds you'll play as opponents. In normal mode this makes perfect sense since you're going up with only select friends against randoms, and there's nothing wrong with that. Competitive shit talking and playing is just as much fun as team banter. Why do you think people raise beef about not voice chatting in other games like Kart or Smash?
I already said it was stupid that the friends vs friends matchmaking isn't available at launch but now you're misconstruing it further.
Yuuuuup for one hour. Then two more play periods tomorrow.
Technically not really, but I'm kind of annoyed because I have no interest in owning or collecting figures, but I really like challenge modes, and having four minigames to play while waiting is a big difference from having only one. I feel like that goes beyond the "inconsequential bonus" implementation that the amiibos have had in other games and would rather they have been included in the game normally.
Turf War isn't based on teamwork, it's based on teams. You can still win as individual while your team looses. Ranked battles is where the teamwork is needed.
KratosEnergyDrink
Member
I think Nintendo goes in a interesting direction with Splatoon online.
No friend teams for the first few month. I think this done intentionally. In most multiplayer games there are teams short after launch who slaughter all other players, you have not the slightest chance as single player with random team to survive battles against such teams. The fully random battles will surely increase fun for single players. I hope there will be a option for players to choose full random battles even after august and teams could play against other teams.
Map cycling. Again in most online multiplayer games some player/teams specialize on some maps, often only ONE map that appears in most online matches forever. Boring. The map cycling will secure diversify.
Yes, Nintendo has a real new approach regarding only matches. But I think this is good. It was about time that a big company tries something new with online multiplayer.
No friend teams for the first few month. I think this done intentionally. In most multiplayer games there are teams short after launch who slaughter all other players, you have not the slightest chance as single player with random team to survive battles against such teams. The fully random battles will surely increase fun for single players. I hope there will be a option for players to choose full random battles even after august and teams could play against other teams.
Map cycling. Again in most online multiplayer games some player/teams specialize on some maps, often only ONE map that appears in most online matches forever. Boring. The map cycling will secure diversify.
Yes, Nintendo has a real new approach regarding only matches. But I think this is good. It was about time that a big company tries something new with online multiplayer.
I agree that the approach they are taking with Splatoon is very interesting. I personally think it has some potential but it's hard to say until it all comes down. By the way I don't think single-playability is compromised after the August update because it seems like it only adds an option for teams to play in a separate mode instead of modifying the existing modes. The mode where teams are randomized after each match stays.
That looks fantastic. I'm really curious what Ink-based mechanics they can use for boss fights.
Derp Clam confirmed
2fast2splatoon
How many bosses are known currently for Hero Mode? I think I've seen 3 different in various trailers, and some big thing that looks like a mini boss.
Arrggh screw it. I'm buying this on launch day. I 've been pondering about it since it doesn't have AI bots for multiplayer. I'll enjoy some online matches again after quite some time and if the single player mode takes at least 5 hours (which I doubt) it's worth for me. It is so cheap anyway.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Just saw it, really liked everything, and so many name puns When they give the thanks to the research team is all full of spanish sea puns, so not only treehouse had to break they head looking for puns, but also the different teams for every language. The only one that I didnt like in spanish was that they didnt do a pun for shibuya and just called it shopping zone.
BTW How many fan art is there already about the squidsisters? lol
Spyke is a female. In the spanish direct they refer as she, and she is called Eri.
BTW How many fan art is there already about the squidsisters? lol
Spyke is a female. In the spanish direct they refer as she, and she is called Eri.
The US and UK Direct refer to Spyke as a guy.