Splatoon 2

[ratsoalbion]

I've managed to get a few games with randoms and it was good fun.
Would be even better with CaR pals though (even without comms), so let's do it.

[Stanshall]

I'm loving this. Much prefer it to ARMS which I see only coming out when mates are over now. This is stellar. Obviously I'm playing with lower level dudes at the moment, like myself, but I've just topped my team for a good little run there. Aerospray MG sure suits me in every way. Even the sub and special are exactly what I would choose. Quite enjoying the Duellies too earlier on.

[Flabyo]

Er... you can play Salmon Run with pickup groups? You don’t have to have a party formed to play it.

It’s actually balanced for that, the maps are small enough that just the ‘over here’ and ‘help’ emotes is most of what you need for coordination.

Sure, you’ll do better with a voice chat party, but they’ve not built it to require that.

[Suits]

I persevered with motion controls too and where as I'm hardly deadly efficient with it - I'm having fun, so that's all I care about. Paint certainly feels quicker to get down I'd say.

I did very quickly change it back to twin stick in the test suite and instantly felt disconnected from it in a way, so I'm sticking with motion now.

I like the escalation in difficulty in Salmon Run. It feels very easy and manageable at first, but as your pay grade percent number starts to rise past 120% or so the difficulty really kicks in. I've got it hovering around the 150% mark at the moment, and I'd say at this point I only clear all three waves around 1 in 3 games, so I think I've found my 'level', at least for the time being.

OK, cool. That makes sense. I was wondering how it scaled.

[Stanshall]

Yeah, motion all the way with me on Pro Controller. I totally get now why everyone says it's the way to play.

[ratsoalbion]

As I say, I've been playing Salmon Run with randoms.

I haven't dabbled with motion controls yet but I'll give it a try.

[Stanshall]

For whatever reason, I find the motion controls in the Plaza/lobby make me feel ill, they feel shaky or something, but in-game they work like a charm. I initially switched them to off because my gut reaction was bad but now I don't think I could go back.

[Suits]

Plaza is 30FPS but looks even less that than if you ask me .

[ratsoalbion]

Plaza is 30FPS but looks even less that than if you ask me .

Agreed!

[Stanshall]

I'm certainly grateful that you can just shortcut to everything rather than walking through the Plaza. Gives me motion sickness like the first game.

[seansthomas]

Er... you can play Salmon Run with pickup groups? You don’t have to have a party formed to play it.

It’s actually balanced for that, the maps are small enough that just the ‘over here’ and ‘help’ emotes is most of what you need for coordination.

Sure, you’ll do better with a voice chat party, but they’ve not built it to require that.

How do you do that then? I went to 'Find room' and never got one. I started up a room but had only 1 friend to invite. Couldn't figure out another way?

[ratsoalbion]

Top option on the Salmon Run screen. But of course - this being Splatoon 2/Nintendo - the option has to be currently available (which it had been since the game launched, at least until the last day or so)...

So yeah, right now you can't. Which sucks.

[Suits]

Yeah man, I must have lucked out a bit when I first tried it, as I literally walked in for the first time, pressed the button once and fell straight into a full team of randoms - three times.

I wondered what all the fuss was about .

[Flabyo]

Salmon Run, as a game mode, is only available to play online at certain times.

No one knows why Nintendo would do this. Bring up your menu and tab through to the one that lets you see all the current stages, the salmon run schedule is on there, and outside the weekend it is hella dumb. (Yesterday in the uk it was 1pm till 1am, today it’s 7pm till 7am and so on).

At the weekend they seem to only shut it down for 2 hours in 24.

Literally the only reason I can think they would do this is that they don’t think enough people queue up to play unless they artificially compress the player pool into a smaller time window.

Expect this to get dropped, quickly, once they start to look at their launch week analytics data.

[Flabyo]

How do you do that then? I went to 'Find room' and never got one. I started up a room but had only 1 friend to invite. Couldn't figure out another way?

It sounds like what you’re trying to do is launch a local play game of it in the amusement arcade building. That option is always available, but is for pairing up with other people’s machines in your immediate area. LAN play, essentially.

The online version requires you to visit the grizzco building, which is right at the back on the left hand side, further back than where you go to enter single payer. If the gates are closed, you’re outside a period in which the online is available.

[seansthomas]

Ah I see...

That gate has never been open once in all the times I've played it! Will keep an eye out for next slot.... Thanks!

Do you guys find you have to go into the Lobby area at the start of every game to connect to the net? Sure the original just launched you straight in...?

[Scrustle]

I think the reason the frame rate in the Square feels bad is because of motion controls. With that one-to-one control, you notice much more when your inputs aren't being smoothly translated to what you're seeing on screen. When you're using sticks, there's a buffer between you and what happens on-screen. That, and the camera turns slower with sticks too. Also simply being used to seeing the game in 60fps for the majority of gameplay probably plays big role too. Although I have to say I don't think the frame rate feels that bad to me in the Square. It's obviously much worse than in a match etc., but it doesn't need to be when you're just walking around.

Had a pretty good go at Tower Control today. So far I've been struggling with that mode, compared to the other Ranked modes at least. but I got in to a groove today and managed to jump a few ranks. The secret was to use a Roller! I've been avoiding those so far because I wasn't sure on how they changed the flick. In the first game Rollers were always about territory control, by using the jump flick tot maximise the amount of ground you cover. Felt like the new vertical flick they added would destroy that. Turns out if you time your jumps right, you can still totally do a horizontal jump flick. It's great for being a nuisance in Tower Control. You can arc your flicks on top of the tower to clear it, or just make it so people can't even get in the area. Also good for dealing with enemies up in vantage points trying to shoot down on the Tower as well.

[seansthomas]

Had a pretty good go at Tower Control today. So far I've been struggling with that mode, compared to the other Ranked modes at least. but I got in to a groove today and managed to jump a few ranks. The secret was to use a Roller! I've been avoiding those so far because I wasn't sure on how they changed the flick. In the first game Rollers were always about territory control, by using the jump flick tot maximise the amount of ground you cover. Felt like the new vertical flick they added would destroy that. Turns out if you time your jumps right, you can still totally do a horizontal jump flick. It's great for being a nuisance in Tower Control. You can arc your flicks on top of the tower to clear it, or just make it so people can't even get in the area. Also good for dealing with enemies up in vantage points trying to shoot down on the Tower as well.

I've had the total opposite experience! Tower Control I sailed through the ranks on and I jumped from C- to C+ with a run of 4 or 5 wins last night.

But Splat Zones... man... ended up losing about 15 games on the trot last night. Not helped either by some of my team mates just randomly stood around spraying fecking walls by the respawn point...

[James]

But Splat Zones... man... ended up losing about 15 games on the trot last night. Not helped either by some of my team mates just randomly stood around spraying fecking walls by the respawn point...

Would they know to do differently? The first thing I heard about Splatoon was that the aim is to paint surfaces rather than to shoot others. Could it be an unfortunate byproduct of Splatoon that some folks might imagine that fastidiously painting every square inch is the way to play?

[Flabyo]

Splat zones has different rules, but as you can’t get into ranked play until you’re at least level 10 it’s hard to imagine someone stumbling into a game of it and being completely clueless to the fact it plays differently.

I tend to rank most poorly in that mode of the three ranked games though, it’s the one with most emphasis on actually killing the other team.