Splatoon Wishlist

Hold on to your tentacles!

…Yeah, it’s been a long time since I said I was going to have a one-week break. Splatoon is too much fun.

Since the big August update I’ve been thinking about two things I’d like to see in future updates.

You guys are looking pretty fresh, click below to read more.

#1: Expanded Ping Options

In the current game, there are only two ping options:

Up on the D-pad: カモン!/C’mon!/To Me!
Essentially; “Jump to my location, it’s safe!”/”There’s a gap in their defence, let’s go!”

Down on the D-pad: ナイス!/Booyah!/Nice!
Essentially; “Good job!”

I, along with several others feel that for a game with no voice chat (I’m not complaining, I know for a fact I’ve done nothing but shout profanity at the screen since day one) we need a few more options for pinging our allies.

A couple good ideas I’ve had for the left/right d-pad options would probably be:
“Go round!”: Something along the lines of “Don’t follow me, find another route!”
I’ve had it happen plenty of times: I’m trying to ink an area and some douche behind me is trying to ink the area I’m aiming at/about to roll over. It’s even sillier when I’ve already inked the area in question and a roller of all things is following me, as in inking the ground I’ve clearly already inked.
Basically I find it annoying when I’ve got someone following behind me either dicking me around or just being incredibly stupid. Another idea I had was:
“ENEMY!”: You know that moment when you’ve spotted an opposing team member flanking behind your team but too late to do anything about them and the rest of your team hasn’t noticed? Yeah. Could even be used just to say “I’ve spotted an enemy, I’ll try to minimise the threat.” Not everyone understands the importance of spotting opposing players in this game (as a fan of the Echolocator this breaks my heart), so this ping could be of very limited use but I’d like to see how it changes the gameplay.

An interesting concept for the pings could be setting up specific pings to be seen by the enemy only, rather than allies only. In this instance it could be a taunt like “Stay Fresh!” when you’ve just splatted an enemy, or a neutral phrase like “You Again?” which could be used as a taunt (as in “You keep getting splatted by me, lol.”) or as a statement of frustration (as in “Dammit! You keep splatting me!”). These ‘to the bad guys’ pings could be balanced by the fact that using them gives away your location to the enemy team, encouraging you to use them sparingly otherwise you’ll just attract the enemies to you.

Another idea that’s been passed around is the ability to equip different pings like you do weapons and gear. This could open up a whole slew of new tactical options, including designating yourself as ‘the taunter’ who acts as bait for a trap, or ‘the tactician’ who keeps an eye on the changing state of play and tries to direct people accordingly.

Of course, there will always be people who just ignore the pings altogether. Like the other members of your team who have been boxed in to your base by the enemy team and haven’t noticed that you’re right next to the enemy base, telling them to jump to you where it’s safe and you can start mounting a comeback.

#2: Seasonal Variations

I think we can all agree that the game was released in early summer, has been getting regular summer-themed updates, and has a very summer-sporting-event theme to the whole thing.

The thing about sporting events is that major ones tend to have Winter variants.

So what I’d like to see in the run-up to Halloween/Christmas this year is some autumn- and winter- season changes to the game. Such as:
Brown leaves on trees/bare trees and snowfall on the ground. Just a minor graphical change to the current stage lineup, giving them a more ‘current season’ feel. If the devs feel like having a bit more of a challenge they could even have small alterations to the stages during certain seasons, like snow piled up in specific areas creating new shortcuts.
New stages in the rotation/rotations for specific seasons. The former is a given, but combined with the latter means that we could expect to see ‘summer’ stages swapped out for ‘winter’ stages. I imagine something like the summer camp ‘Camp Triggerfish’ being swapped out for a Lapland-style ‘Squidmas theme park’, as an example. Or perhaps the hip inklings stop hanging out at Blackbelly Skatepark during winter and instead prefer to go to fishpun Ski Resort? Of course indoor stages and not-really-limited-to-one-season stages would still be in the rota: stages like Walleye Warehouse, Arowana Mall, Saltspray Rig, et al would still be playable.

I’ve read somewhere that the Animal Crossing team worked on the game, if this is true then surely we must expect to have something special happen during certain seasons?

Closing Thoughts

Well, those are my ideas anyway. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas of your own. Criticisms are welcome!

In case you’re wondering, I’m no longer a religious roller-user. After getting sick and tired of constantly losing during one Splatfest (I think it was EatingVsSleeping) I switched from the standard Inkbrush to the N-ZAP ’85, a weapon I hadn’t used since it was added to the game. Every resulting game was a win. I decided from then on that the ’85 was my new favourite weapon. I was mildly disappointed when the ’89 model was added, only to have the exact same sub/special combo as the standard inkbrush.
I also no longer view the Aerosprays as broken. They’re definitely top-tier for turf wars, but they can be beaten rather handily by most weapons I’ve used – it just depends on how you play. Nowadays I’m having more trouble with Gal-type weapons and the Slosher. The Heavy Splatling is absolutely awesome, BUT only at range – if an enemy gets too close, you’re a goner (also, I don’t like to rely on its sub because it uses up too much ink).

I’ll try and get up another figurine unboxing soon.

Staaaaayyyy Fresh!