The literal night after this came out more challenges got announced for August including a separate triple repeat, meaning August will have a fair bit more challenges. If this is going repeat for the end of every season then I guess 1/3 months will have a decent quantity, it's not a fix but its an improvement: twitter.com/Ethan_ThisGuy/status/1685852674376278017
This isn't the devs' fault. This is a management decision telling the devs how to make the game. It would make sense why most of the dev team turned over. Bad management kills projects. *Always.*
Personally I feel like developers should know when to just stand up and do something anyway even if they weren't told to, but I also understand that the work culture of Japan is built around rolling over and being submissive so I guess I just don't expect much from them at this point
Yeah. I think we often forget that these kinds of things are often decided not by a massive team and their combined wisdom, but by one or two people sitting at a desk somewhere who are not fully in touch with all interested parties, including the userbase. Nevertheless their opinion stands thanks to their rank. For an extreme example see Elon Musk.
i feel honestly this is the devs decision. This is the same team that makes the animal crossing games, and once you realize that alot adds up. Animal crossing is basically built on playing at specific times. Only difference is that you cant change your system clock to get the content.
I really think that the fear of missing out is backfiring, at least in my personal experience. I’ve grinded so much in only the first two seasons that I cannot go back to the game, even now, from extreme burnout.
Yeah, I got extremly bored grinding the catalog this season, only to find out that the new season doesn't start in august lol (thought it was august because game got pretty stale for me= "damn that last update must have been long time ago")
Same!! I was so hyped and didnt wanted to miss out on the catalogue stuff that I grinded a lot the first 2 seasons until getting extremely burnt out because splatoon 3 unirocally is way worse than it's two predecessors as it is much more repetitive and unbalanced both within weapons/maps designs and with online matchmaking and stability. At least it was at launch, cant say for the current state since, well, I stopped playing entirely ever since December last year. And it sucks seeing they actively sink into the wrong decision making
Challenges have been such a big missed opportunity for no good reason. The FOMO aspect has backfired for me too. Challenges are available so infrequently and are so often something uninteresting that I've stopped keeping track of when they are even happening now.
Another thing I don't like about the challenges is now that we're getting reruns of them, they didn't even change the maps. I could see the argument for why the mode might be important for the balance/fun of some challenges, but there is no good reason they couldn't change the maps to at least provide some variety with the same challenge.
The 2hr cycles are the most confusing part about this, it makes it super hard to coordinate with friends in different time zones If they are adamant about keeping the events limited time, why not have it for a 24hr period? Nintendo just makes the strangest decisions to disrupt their own games
My big tinfoil hat theory behind why Splatoon has so many time restricted events is that the devs are hyper fixated on wanting to make the game feel like it’s own living, breathing world that they make it so only specific modes and events like Splatfests, Challenges, Big Run, and even Salmon Run as a whole in 2 happen at specific dates and times. Considering that this is the same dev team behind Animal Crossing, I feel like this might be the case to some extent.
But they could - and should - do all that “living world” vibe through the NPCs. Having shop keepers or Deep Cut talk about this weeks newest limited time events or their favourite challenges WOULD make a “living world” which limited time events in OUR world don’t…
Honestly I agree. I'm a busy person and I can't even do some of these challenges because of my busy life. They should at least try to make them more frequent, like monday through tuesday then saturday through sunday type of stuff.They should also make it at least 3-4 hour cycle so more players could have a chance on playing.
I personally want to see challenges in splatfests. They'd help with the special event feel, and they'd make for a decent way to add in ranked modes if they're not gonna do that normally
I think there are two possible reasons for why challenges are the way they are 1) It’s possible the devs don’t want to split the player base among like 5-6 modes frequently, so they make them condense and short to allow other modes to be played (still not a good reason imo) 2) This applies moreso to the entire game as a whole, but when you look back at the update cycle of Splatoon 2, you realize just how chaotic and drastic updates were, especially with how frequent they came, basically reinventing the meta every like month or so It’s possible the devs want to avoid doing that again, but overturned it, making the updates too slow and too infrequent, much like challenges. Perhaps they have yet to find that middle ground of frequency and availability And while I think there are a LOT of things in the game that are less than ideal, I feel it’s also important to mention that there are still good things they added, maybe a little late, (switching weapons in open) but hey, they’re fixing things, they are making steps forward, just at an explo baller pace, but still forward nonetheless. It’s only been a year, challenges have only been here for less than a season, so hopefully year two is much MUCH betted
i think you hit the nail on the head with the splitting the player base idea. a lot of the decisions seem to be rooted in that idea. idk if it’s the main reason but i agree that it’s a major one
Reason 1 makes no sense. I play Overwatch, a game where there's 4 quick play modes, 2 ranked modes, around 7 rotating arcade modes, and a full giant lobby of custom games. They don't need to worry about splitting players between modes. edit: and there's vs AI
The most frustrating thing to me is that the Devs said in an interview they don’t want to introduced a new Anarchy mode because it would confuse players… they’re acting like we don’t WANT to learn a new mode when most of the player base would come back to the game for it
I feel like the mode really needs some fun goof-off achievements, like “Splat 3 players with the Trizooka in a match”. Challenges could be a great casual experience for modes like Tower Control and Clam Blitz that you normally only get in ranked, but the reuse of the same competitive Power ranking system holds it back imo
I think that would be pretty interesting, having each Challenge mode variant have specific "Challenges" it tasks you with completing for say a bunch of bonus points towards your catalog as it's reward, would make the mode more appealing especially for those people who don't have time to play enough to usually get very far on or complete their catalogs and for those who always do complete theirs its likely they'd try to play the mode anyway just for the changes in the mode and just to complete the "challenges" for the bragging rights or simply to test themselves.
I think as you said the devs are scared to be daring or different as maybe the times are to try and keep them "special" to the player rather than keeping challenges to a normal rotation but lack-luster modes combined with extremely limited time-frames removes the "special" and just makes them more tedious or yet another grind for the more boring modes.
Honestly, they could remove Pro Battles and replace it with Challenge Battles and I feel like it'd still be an upgrade. At least then people would actually participate in something other than Open.
I'm sensing a theme here: The challenges that garner the most interaction are the ones that are actually unique and not glorified anarchy open. That and the weird timeslots, which why don't they have them available all day?
I really hope someone at Nintendo realizes they need to dial back the FOMO. I get, when the game first comes out, they want all the players to be as engaged as possible with it. But I am becoming resentful of a game that demands me grind out the catalog every season and look at a schedule to find out which 2 hours I can play the cool challenges. Instead of being an easy-going fun chill-out game that people can approach at their leisure, they're making Splatoon 3 into a nagging friend that doesn't want me to play anything else. I would like to play their Challenges but I don't want to engage in their bullshit hoops to jump through
Without hearing your theory on why it's limited, this is my thought: Tri-color suffers the same fate of being locked in the half end of the weekends for Splatfest time, it was originally meant to be a comeback mechanic so it becomes such a special thing. To have something really cool only accessible limited time will make it even more special than Salmon Run now it starts to feel bland (for few players) that they know they could just access it anytime. Same goes to Challenges, make it available to play but rare enough so it feels special. But it basically gives a backlash of people not having enough fun/play time in it and it felt like they expect you to be available 24/7 to play 6 hours total of a challenges or they only allow you to play 2 hours and no more. That is a huge backlash of trying to make something too special it becomes a disappointment.
They've eventually got to make the gimmicks of Challenges be available to Private Rooms. These mode would be freaking fantastic to communities of friends who just want to horse around in their own space and time!
I feel like Nintendo COULD be testing out everyone's reaction and interest for challenges, and maybe they'll make them have better time slots in the next season!
As someone who has been getting more work shifts during this season (because of staffing issues), I sometimes miss out on an entire challenge or have to decide if I'll get less rest to play from midnight-2 am. Heck, sometimes when the challenges are 10-midnight, I just go til 5 wins
as a very casual player who plays once every few months or so, i've only made it to one challenge ever, and thats just because it happened to be on when i was playing. it was the duo one, and as a squiffer main, i had a ton of fun terrorizing my enemies. wish i could do it more often
I managed to catch the last ten minutes of a window of the two-players-a-team challenge. I found it really fun, and it was quite disappointing that I only got to play three matches. I didn't know there was a challenge that day when I opened the game - it was sheer luck I happened to boot it up while the window was open.
I think they are being cautious of splitting the playerbase into many queues, if we have people spread out over X, anarchy, salmon run and challenges there will be longer queue times overall which may reflect negatively on the game, hell it's already a problem in high X-powers.
They need two challenges: -Side Order Scrap (Choose 5 chips to add to your main weapon) -Mr. Grizz's Show-Off (Big Run versions of maps, you can use the Grizzco weapons, all weapons are buffed to their Grizzco Variant)
When Challenges was announced, I was hoping it would be a "For Fun" mode of Splatoon where you could either set up your own room with custom rules with either randos or friends OR have the game offer a preset rule for everyone to play at a similar time distance as say Splatfest or Big Run. And yeah, I'm highly disappointed in how poorly executed challenges came out to be, especially with the strict time limit
Yeah I've literally never been available for any of the challenges, except for the (IMO) boring leaderboard ones. Really disappointing. I think that the devs are scared of having too many modes available at any given time stressing the matchmaking by spreading players too widely.
I think this game has just way too many modes and filler. Table turf adds nothing to the overall core of the game and didn't really need to be as robust as it is. I would rather they just bring back those minigames from Splatoon 1 and make them playable while waiting for matches. I'd rather put more time and money into making better maps and more kits than designing new catalogs and table turf cards. I'd also cut down on the amount of limited-time events and make challenges and eggstra work 24/7. The only limited-time events should be Splatfests and maybe Big Run, but that's about it.
Really nice discussion - my ONE note is that Extreme Jump Battle was literally broken before a fix implemented in 4.1.0, so that's the main reason we haven't seen it yet ;P
“I think this game really tries to use the fear of missing out so much” OH MY GOD YOU JUST VERBALIZED ALL MY PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME IN ONE SENTENCE. THIS IS WHY THIS GAME GIVES ME ANXIETY. THANK YOU Edit: I don’t play anymore I get so anxious lmao so this isn’t working for me personally
I didn't think of fomo being the reason the devs restricted challenges so. You're probably right. That being said, I think it may be a case of them fearing things being *too* different, despite the theme being chaos, despite splatoon being one of the more unique shooters out there. If they're trying to bring in and keep newer players, they may be afraid of alienating them by changing too many things at once. Regardless, it's exhausting to see so many fun things being restricted by odd hours and such. They at least acknowledge our complaints a lot, so I think if we keep pressure on, there's a good chance we could see some change
another fomo feature of splat3 is the catalog, like sure we can get some of the things from the catalog afterwards via shell out (that's super unbalanced currently in terms of reward weights) but it's still a Timed Thing. the monthly salmon run gear too. there's SO much fomo junk in splatoon, its like they're taking the pages from other FPS games and just throwing them into splatoon and expecting people to *like* that
The whole theme with these challenges is that they are events. This is symbolized by the circus icon. The two problems with these events is, unlike Splatfests and Bigrun these events have three different 2 hr playtimes instead of just lasting about 48 hr. If they functioned like Splatfest playtimes they would be available to everyone at more comfortable times. The other problem is some of the unique features themselves. Some do not seem game shaking enough to a lot of players. Maybe the reason for these super short play times is to prevent Challenges from overshadowing regular gameplay modes.
I think their reasoning is likely that they're worried about splitting up the queues too much? Which I think isn't very good reasoning at all, since the matchmaking system seems to suck at finding you matches in the first place, which is another problem that needs to be addressed
It's a vicious cycle at this point. New cool thing gets announced for the season, said cool thing starts building up hype, Nintendo reveals it's another limited time mode, people are inevitably disappointed, mode gets forgotten, rinse and repeat. This game is going through the shitter right now and it's so depressing to see.
Literally all of my feelings about Challenge mode. I’ve missed out on ones that I’ve wanted to play just because of my life and work schedule. Thank you for making this video!
Weaponizing FOMO is spot on for how this game functions. Down to the seasonal catalogs that take hours to complete, where we weren't even sure in the first few seasons if these items would be available after the catalog is retired.
I compare Splatoon all the time to Call of Duty, my favorite being Black Ops II. In this game there's a section called "party games" which features game modes like Gun Game where you get a new gun after every kill. Sharpshooter where everyone gets the same gun with a 1min timer. And One in the Chamber where you only have 1 bullet. What I find funny about this is that these came out on launch day and were available 24/7, I could hop in a lobby right now on Xbox and have a blast. What really kills me though is that this game launched in 2012. Yeah that's right 2012. TEN YEARS AGO. And Nintendo wants to give us things that are obnoxiously limited in 2022/2023. I'm not just talking about challenges, this goes for the game as a whole. I don't get how Nintendo gets away with making things so limited when other companies made their games feel like they have no limited.
It really gets me that they're doing the Trizooka challenge with the SAME MAPS AND MODE AGAIN. At least do SOMETHING different, goodness. Let's all agree that the Sheldon Sampler challenge was the best one. Hopefully we get it more with a variety of modes and maps. Edit. Just checked. It's the SAME. MAP MODES. AGAIN. WHY. I mean they ARE good Zones maps, but STILL.
Okay but can we talk about the quality off the video? You have grown so much as a creator and since I've been following since early days I feel kinda proud in a way. I don't even play Splatoon that much anymore, at this point I only watch the videos because they're good and interesting
I almost wish they merged challenges with splatfests, like making it so each splatfest had a unique challenge that came with it. I think that would help splatfests become more interesting and help the timing problem a bit more
Random weapons sounds so fun, I used to randomly pick my weapons in 2 for a bit because otherwise I'd literally only play 3 weapons which gets stale after a year. I should start doing that again tbh
Agreed! I'd honestly love to see them just add it as another 24/7 mode alongside turf war & anarchy battle, especially when some of the challenges serve as a good way to bridge the gap for some casual players that might end up trying the ranked modes more.
I would suggest to have a challenge modifier rotation every 10 hours in turf war and anarchy open so people could play them casually. You could play them pretty often or you can schedule to avoid them as well, and it being 10 hours means it will cycle to different times of the day.
I think fomo is a huge reason why they are limited. However one thing I remember is that in COD cold war in like season 3 or 4 of the game(simaler to where we are now in Splatoon) they started experimenting with limited time playlists and modes like only mele weapons or snipers only. They also added new modes like outbreak to the side modes of the game(zombies). Nintendo could be doing this to see what modes people like the most and then add them permanently which is something they ended up doing in cod. Whatever ones the community liked the most ended up being added more frequently
also with the 2 hour slots it means it is often just not possible to play a challenge. one in school, one at 3am and one when i'm out in the evening. if they were for a whole day, i'd definetly have time to give most of them a go, but so far i've missed all the cool ones
6:30 The only thing I can think of is that the devs don't want people practicing a mode and getting good at it. They want to capture a more raw challenge power. If everyone has to adapt to something unfamiliar, maybe that captures challenge power better. If there are, for example, 12 hours to play a Challenge then the most dedicated players will master the gameplay and inflate their peak power even higher.
Favorite challenge so far has been Sheldon Sampler, had to stay awake almost 24 hours just to make it. I really really enjoyed it and found a lot of new weapons that peak my interest, but it was awful having to stay up that long. Literally just "Ah yes I love nuking my sleep schedule in exchange for 2 hours of splatoon" I'm glad it was worth it but my god nintendo please fix this
I remember really enjoying the 2 v 2 tower control for how ridiculous it was. But sadly, I only have time for one of the three rotations. It’s also hard to play for too long when the only incentive is a token and bragging rights.
the specific times is so annoying because, where i live, its either 11pm-1am (too late), 3pm-5pm (im working usually), or 7am-9am (too early). i can like literally never play unless im free at specifically 3-5 or are willing to stay up late
As a casual player who absolutely doesn't have nearly as much time to play as a lot of people active in the fanbase, I've managed to participate in a grand total of... one challenge. Unless you have a lot of free time and keep a close eye on the challenge schedules to know when exactly they're going on, you're basically guaranteed to miss a lot of the time slots for them. It's ridiculous. It's especially disappointing for me, as I was hoping they would motivate me to play the game more often. Updates feel a lot less common than in the previous games, and that means I experience everything new within two weeks, and then haven't got anything truly new to look forward to for around 3 months. So I was hoping that challenges would add new unique twists that would encourage me to play more... but they run on such a bad schedule I can't anyway. It really does feel like this game works on FOMO quite a bit, especially with this and the catalogues, and it's such a strange choice? I don't even think it's working too well, it's actively making it harder for me to experience unique things that would make me actually want to play more
I'm fine with challenges being limited-time events (though obviously they should be 24 hours instead of the extremely weird split six hours), but I wish their schedule was more frequent and consistent - like two per week or something. The monthly challenge is very lame, but I think the New Season Challenge actually makes a lot of sense - if anything, it should have gone further and locked you to new weapons to make a "new content only" playlist. I definitely wanted to try the new maps right away so having a playlist that was only those maps was pretty nice.
I know this wasn't the main focus of the video- which I wholeheartedly agree with -but god damn that inkling swimming at supersonic speeds was hilarious XD
This video really touches why I haven't been able to get super into Splatoon 3 much, it's the whole limited time/FOMO aspect. It just makes the game feel like a chore at times (catalog grinding) and the actually interesting stuff like challenges are extremely limited
the schedule is the worst especially when you dont play often. my cousin texted me during the dynamic duos challenge asking if i wanted to play but it was like 9 am and i was in the shower and didnt see it until the challenge was already over :|
I never even got to play any challenges due to work. When I get home it's already half way over and after work i don't immediately think about play Splatoon.
Almost all of the challenges have this pattern for me - Too early in the morning which I won't wake up for - In the middle of a day, oh no wait it's a weekday so I'm at school - Too late at night that I can't really stay up for
It would be less of a blow if challenges were an offspring of League. Like eggstra work to salmon run. So there would be league but every so often league would get replaced with challenges. And if league had specific league modes (team death match and 8 ball) WITH the other 4 modes making it a completely new experience with challenges
Few things I Wana say 1: FOMO is def real in 3, especially with the stuff u listed, plus the season catalog which, if you don't complete, have to gamble for the emotes/banners/titles etc. 2. The monthly challenges and new season ones are by far the least played on a casual side. It takes about 30 sec for me to queue up, rather than in Trizookas where it took like 5 secs. 3. I forgot the other thing
random weapons zones was the most fun i'd had in the game and taught me how to use splatlings, it should be playable somewhere between all the time and every week.
I forget about challenges and am reminded of their existence once every three weeks or so because of how little I get to play them. I've done 2 challenges total.
I really hate how Nintendo constantly tries to make the game feel like an obligation, I’m not playing this to have fun not to have another job. I feel like the bare minimum for an event should be 24h.
I literally haven’t been able to play any of the challenges because of work, life getting in the way, or simply just not knowing that there was a challenge going on. Something needs to change
My thought here is that they're slow to roll out these challenges because they want to ensure they they're fun. I suspect that next season they're going to pad out more time slots with redos of previous challenges. We're already seeing some this season. And it's going to probably be somewhere between 1.5x and 2x as many challenges. And it'll gradually get more as there become not challenges to redo. That doesn't change anything about how they could have given us more time with each challenge in a single day. And hopefully they do change that. But I think they chose a slow start for what they're planning to be a lot more reasonable by the end. When there's like 3 or 4 challenges a week because of so many redos it won't feel nearly as rare.
I dunno what devs expect people to do about it. I haven’t played salmon run in Splatoon 2 because of the timetable thing, but I do from time to time in 3. I haven’t played ANY challenges so far. I have other games to play, it’s not like I WANT TO PLAY A SPECIFIC MODE IN A SPECIFIC GAME THIS MUCH to time my day around it. Lol.
Even if challenges were only available for half a day it would already be soo much better than what it is now, I've missed like 5 challenges because the windows are soo freaking tiny
yeah my biggest issue I have challenges is the schedule and I feel (especially with the changes to open) the climb for a high challenges feel kinda pointless and take up slots for other challenges (ngl I think a super high swim or walk speed challenge could be stupidly fun) at least for me So far my fav challenge has been the random weapon one and the trizooka one was also really fun (do kinda wish that you could use any weapon and it wasn't limited to just the weapons that already had zooka as a special)
The literal night after this came out more challenges got announced for August including a separate triple repeat, meaning August will have a fair bit more challenges.
If this is going repeat for the end of every season then I guess 1/3 months will have a decent quantity, it's not a fix but its an improvement: twitter.com/Ethan_ThisGuy/status/1685852674376278017
We’re finally getting extreme jump challenge
I feel like challenges would be so much better if they were available most of the time and not on a weird 2hrs cycle
I think everyone does.
Making them available as week-end event would make them way better
me whom missed almost every challenges becuz of daily work schedule wholeheartedly agree to this.
@@YipeekayHarasholol same 😢
@@TorayNix true
This isn't the devs' fault. This is a management decision telling the devs how to make the game.
It would make sense why most of the dev team turned over. Bad management kills projects. *Always.*
Personally I feel like developers should know when to just stand up and do something anyway even if they weren't told to, but I also understand that the work culture of Japan is built around rolling over and being submissive so I guess I just don't expect much from them at this point
They turned over? When did this happen?
Yeah. I think we often forget that these kinds of things are often decided not by a massive team and their combined wisdom, but by one or two people sitting at a desk somewhere who are not fully in touch with all interested parties, including the userbase. Nevertheless their opinion stands thanks to their rank. For an extreme example see Elon Musk.
i feel honestly this is the devs decision. This is the same team that makes the animal crossing games, and once you realize that alot adds up. Animal crossing is basically built on playing at specific times. Only difference is that you cant change your system clock to get the content.
@@dorf7219most specific time animal crossing things either last 1 WHOLE day or a MONTH though
my least favorite part is that by now the "get the highest score" challenge has been played TWICE before the "higher jump" challenge even happened
They're going to do that once a month by the sound of the pattern.
I hate the fact thay we're already getting reruns of previous challenges, and not a clue when extreme jumps will happen
yeah and too many trizookas is about to be repeated as well
So they were going to add it but, it was glitched, so they didn't run it. They did patch it in the 4.1.0 patch, as dataminers have discovered.
I really think that the fear of missing out is backfiring, at least in my personal experience. I’ve grinded so much in only the first two seasons that I cannot go back to the game, even now, from extreme burnout.
Yeah, I got extremly bored grinding the catalog this season, only to find out that the new season doesn't start in august lol (thought it was august because game got pretty stale for me= "damn that last update must have been long time ago")
Agree. I'm so burnt out I haven't played since june
I grinded for max catalog during the first season and got so burnt out I haven't properly played the game since
oh my god, same! i thought i was the only one
Same!! I was so hyped and didnt wanted to miss out on the catalogue stuff that I grinded a lot the first 2 seasons until getting extremely burnt out because splatoon 3 unirocally is way worse than it's two predecessors as it is much more repetitive and unbalanced both within weapons/maps designs and with online matchmaking and stability. At least it was at launch, cant say for the current state since, well, I stopped playing entirely ever since December last year.
And it sucks seeing they actively sink into the wrong decision making
Challenges have been such a big missed opportunity for no good reason. The FOMO aspect has backfired for me too. Challenges are available so infrequently and are so often something uninteresting that I've stopped keeping track of when they are even happening now.
Me too! Otherwise, I'd be so much more frustrated, and why? Because I missed a slot in a paintball simulator??
Bold of you to assume I paid attention to when they happened in the first place
I honestly think extreme jump could become it’s own subset of competitive once it gets added to pb’s
IF they add it because as far as I've they aren't going to do that
@@Bowser6495it's literally existing content and putting it in PBs would do so much for the game it's a no brainer
@@the_legendary_fire here's my counter argument has Nintendo done anything smart with this game?
@@the_legendary_fireomg Niko
@@Bowser6495NOPE!
Another thing I don't like about the challenges is now that we're getting reruns of them, they didn't even change the maps. I could see the argument for why the mode might be important for the balance/fun of some challenges, but there is no good reason they couldn't change the maps to at least provide some variety with the same challenge.
The map rerun was the worst part for me besides the awkward timeframes
The 2hr cycles are the most confusing part about this, it makes it super hard to coordinate with friends in different time zones
If they are adamant about keeping the events limited time, why not have it for a 24hr period? Nintendo just makes the strangest decisions to disrupt their own games
My big tinfoil hat theory behind why Splatoon has so many time restricted events is that the devs are hyper fixated on wanting to make the game feel like it’s own living, breathing world that they make it so only specific modes and events like Splatfests, Challenges, Big Run, and even Salmon Run as a whole in 2 happen at specific dates and times. Considering that this is the same dev team behind Animal Crossing, I feel like this might be the case to some extent.
But they could - and should - do all that “living world” vibe through the NPCs. Having shop keepers or Deep Cut talk about this weeks newest limited time events or their favourite challenges WOULD make a “living world” which limited time events in OUR world don’t…
2:49 just in case you aren’t aware, “subs off” means sub abilities on gear, not main weapons
Honestly I agree. I'm a busy person and I can't even do some of these challenges because of my busy life. They should at least try to make them more frequent, like monday through tuesday then saturday through sunday type of stuff.They should also make it at least 3-4 hour cycle so more players could have a chance on playing.
I personally want to see challenges in splatfests. They'd help with the special event feel, and they'd make for a decent way to add in ranked modes if they're not gonna do that normally
I think there are two possible reasons for why challenges are the way they are
1) It’s possible the devs don’t want to split the player base among like 5-6 modes frequently, so they make them condense and short to allow other modes to be played (still not a good reason imo)
2) This applies moreso to the entire game as a whole, but when you look back at the update cycle of Splatoon 2, you realize just how chaotic and drastic updates were, especially with how frequent they came, basically reinventing the meta every like month or so
It’s possible the devs want to avoid doing that again, but overturned it, making the updates too slow and too infrequent, much like challenges. Perhaps they have yet to find that middle ground of frequency and availability
And while I think there are a LOT of things in the game that are less than ideal, I feel it’s also important to mention that there are still good things they added, maybe a little late, (switching weapons in open) but hey, they’re fixing things, they are making steps forward, just at an explo baller pace, but still forward nonetheless.
It’s only been a year, challenges have only been here for less than a season, so hopefully year two is much MUCH betted
i think you hit the nail on the head with the splitting the player base idea. a lot of the decisions seem to be rooted in that idea. idk if it’s the main reason but i agree that it’s a major one
Reason 1 makes no sense. I play Overwatch, a game where there's 4 quick play modes, 2 ranked modes, around 7 rotating arcade modes, and a full giant lobby of custom games. They don't need to worry about splitting players between modes.
edit: and there's vs AI
The most frustrating thing to me is that the Devs said in an interview they don’t want to introduced a new Anarchy mode because it would confuse players… they’re acting like we don’t WANT to learn a new mode when most of the player base would come back to the game for it
I feel like the mode really needs some fun goof-off achievements, like “Splat 3 players with the Trizooka in a match”. Challenges could be a great casual experience for modes like Tower Control and Clam Blitz that you normally only get in ranked, but the reuse of the same competitive Power ranking system holds it back imo
I think that would be pretty interesting, having each Challenge mode variant have specific "Challenges" it tasks you with completing for say a bunch of bonus points towards your catalog as it's reward, would make the mode more appealing especially for those people who don't have time to play enough to usually get very far on or complete their catalogs and for those who always do complete theirs its likely they'd try to play the mode anyway just for the changes in the mode and just to complete the "challenges" for the bragging rights or simply to test themselves.
I think as you said the devs are scared to be daring or different as maybe the times are to try and keep them "special" to the player rather than keeping challenges to a normal rotation but lack-luster modes combined with extremely limited time-frames removes the "special" and just makes them more tedious or yet another grind for the more boring modes.
They should make splatfests challenges that swap every 2 hours to actually make splatfests interesting
Like instead of turf war, make it random challenges like duos or Sheldon sampler
Honestly, they could remove Pro Battles and replace it with Challenge Battles and I feel like it'd still be an upgrade. At least then people would actually participate in something other than Open.
@@Gardivanyththis and making it so now or never DOESN'T play during the last 30 seconds would make splatfest just about perfect id say
YES
omg imagine, it fits perfectly with the chaos theme!!
I'm sensing a theme here:
The challenges that garner the most interaction are the ones that are actually unique and not glorified anarchy open.
That and the weird timeslots, which why don't they have them available all day?
I am so looking forward to that zipcaster challenge but at the same time I’m terrified of the mode being playable when I’m not available.
9:46 I WAS LAUGHING SO HARD AT THIS
I really hope someone at Nintendo realizes they need to dial back the FOMO. I get, when the game first comes out, they want all the players to be as engaged as possible with it. But I am becoming resentful of a game that demands me grind out the catalog every season and look at a schedule to find out which 2 hours I can play the cool challenges. Instead of being an easy-going fun chill-out game that people can approach at their leisure, they're making Splatoon 3 into a nagging friend that doesn't want me to play anything else. I would like to play their Challenges but I don't want to engage in their bullshit hoops to jump through
Without hearing your theory on why it's limited, this is my thought:
Tri-color suffers the same fate of being locked in the half end of the weekends for Splatfest time, it was originally meant to be a comeback mechanic so it becomes such a special thing. To have something really cool only accessible limited time will make it even more special than Salmon Run now it starts to feel bland (for few players) that they know they could just access it anytime.
Same goes to Challenges, make it available to play but rare enough so it feels special. But it basically gives a backlash of people not having enough fun/play time in it and it felt like they expect you to be available 24/7 to play 6 hours total of a challenges or they only allow you to play 2 hours and no more. That is a huge backlash of trying to make something too special it becomes a disappointment.
They've eventually got to make the gimmicks of Challenges be available to Private Rooms. These mode would be freaking fantastic to communities of friends who just want to horse around in their own space and time!
One challenge that I think could solve everyone’s problems with splatoon 3’s maps is a challenge that makes every surface on every map inkable.
7:38 Look Gary there I am!!!
I feel like Nintendo COULD be testing out everyone's reaction and interest for challenges, and maybe they'll make them have better time slots in the next season!
As someone who has been getting more work shifts during this season (because of staffing issues), I sometimes miss out on an entire challenge or have to decide if I'll get less rest to play from midnight-2 am. Heck, sometimes when the challenges are 10-midnight, I just go til 5 wins
as a very casual player who plays once every few months or so, i've only made it to one challenge ever, and thats just because it happened to be on when i was playing. it was the duo one, and as a squiffer main, i had a ton of fun terrorizing my enemies. wish i could do it more often
The only fun challenges are actually ones that add something new, like fog and jump battles
I managed to catch the last ten minutes of a window of the two-players-a-team challenge. I found it really fun, and it was quite disappointing that I only got to play three matches. I didn't know there was a challenge that day when I opened the game - it was sheer luck I happened to boot it up while the window was open.
I think they are being cautious of splitting the playerbase into many queues, if we have people spread out over X, anarchy, salmon run and challenges there will be longer queue times overall which may reflect negatively on the game, hell it's already a problem in high X-powers.
This is a really good take. That being said, they can double the amount of time challenges are available and it wouldn’t affect it that much.
They need two challenges:
-Side Order Scrap (Choose 5 chips to add to your main weapon)
-Mr. Grizz's Show-Off (Big Run versions of maps, you can use the Grizzco weapons, all weapons are buffed to their Grizzco Variant)
When Challenges was announced, I was hoping it would be a "For Fun" mode of Splatoon where you could either set up your own room with custom rules with either randos or friends OR have the game offer a preset rule for everyone to play at a similar time distance as say Splatfest or Big Run.
And yeah, I'm highly disappointed in how poorly executed challenges came out to be, especially with the strict time limit
Same, literally every other multiplayer game has for fun settings available in their private battles, but nope, Nintendo has to be Nintendo…
They somehow managed to out do my annoyance at salmon run being a sometimes only thing in S2 with challenges being a sometimes only thing in S3
The reason that it's time limited is most likely to keep que times low, as it's much easier to get a match if everyone plays at the same limited time
Yeah I've literally never been available for any of the challenges, except for the (IMO) boring leaderboard ones. Really disappointing.
I think that the devs are scared of having too many modes available at any given time stressing the matchmaking by spreading players too widely.
I think this game has just way too many modes and filler. Table turf adds nothing to the overall core of the game and didn't really need to be as robust as it is. I would rather they just bring back those minigames from Splatoon 1 and make them playable while waiting for matches.
I'd rather put more time and money into making better maps and more kits than designing new catalogs and table turf cards.
I'd also cut down on the amount of limited-time events and make challenges and eggstra work 24/7. The only limited-time events should be Splatfests and maybe Big Run, but that's about it.
I like your icon!
9:47 minecraft baby zombie mfs be like:
Really nice discussion - my ONE note is that Extreme Jump Battle was literally broken before a fix implemented in 4.1.0, so that's the main reason we haven't seen it yet ;P
5:32 I feel called out ^v^"
0:27 so cool editing
Even now G's theme is still super catchy
“I think this game really tries to use the fear of missing out so much” OH MY GOD YOU JUST VERBALIZED ALL MY PROBLEMS WITH THE GAME IN ONE SENTENCE. THIS IS WHY THIS GAME GIVES ME ANXIETY. THANK YOU
Edit: I don’t play anymore I get so anxious lmao so this isn’t working for me personally
I didn't think of fomo being the reason the devs restricted challenges so. You're probably right.
That being said, I think it may be a case of them fearing things being *too* different, despite the theme being chaos, despite splatoon being one of the more unique shooters out there. If they're trying to bring in and keep newer players, they may be afraid of alienating them by changing too many things at once. Regardless, it's exhausting to see so many fun things being restricted by odd hours and such. They at least acknowledge our complaints a lot, so I think if we keep pressure on, there's a good chance we could see some change
another fomo feature of splat3 is the catalog, like sure we can get some of the things from the catalog afterwards via shell out (that's super unbalanced currently in terms of reward weights) but it's still a Timed Thing. the monthly salmon run gear too. there's SO much fomo junk in splatoon, its like they're taking the pages from other FPS games and just throwing them into splatoon and expecting people to *like* that
The whole theme with these challenges is that they are events. This is symbolized by the circus icon. The two problems with these events is, unlike Splatfests and Bigrun these events have three different 2 hr playtimes instead of just lasting about 48 hr. If they functioned like Splatfest playtimes they would be available to everyone at more comfortable times. The other problem is some of the unique features themselves. Some do not seem game shaking enough to a lot of players. Maybe the reason for these super short play times is to prevent Challenges from overshadowing regular gameplay modes.
it was so sad how hyped we were to then be the biggest disapointment of splat 3
I’ve missed every challenge except for Too Many Trizookas because they always take place during my work hours.
I think their reasoning is likely that they're worried about splitting up the queues too much?
Which I think isn't very good reasoning at all, since the matchmaking system seems to suck at finding you matches in the first place, which is another problem that needs to be addressed
Man I remember back in splatoon 1 we just had a rotation of stages for the main modes and splatfest.
It's a vicious cycle at this point. New cool thing gets announced for the season, said cool thing starts building up hype, Nintendo reveals it's another limited time mode, people are inevitably disappointed, mode gets forgotten, rinse and repeat. This game is going through the shitter right now and it's so depressing to see.
Literally all of my feelings about Challenge mode. I’ve missed out on ones that I’ve wanted to play just because of my life and work schedule. Thank you for making this video!
The most fun I had in this game was 2 v 2 tower mode. I want it to be a permanent mode.
I’m kinda surprised there’s not a As A Duo tab alongside the With Friends tab in Anarchy Battle
Weaponizing FOMO is spot on for how this game functions. Down to the seasonal catalogs that take hours to complete, where we weren't even sure in the first few seasons if these items would be available after the catalog is retired.
I compare Splatoon all the time to Call of Duty, my favorite being Black Ops II. In this game there's a section called "party games" which features game modes like Gun Game where you get a new gun after every kill. Sharpshooter where everyone gets the same gun with a 1min timer. And One in the Chamber where you only have 1 bullet.
What I find funny about this is that these came out on launch day and were available 24/7, I could hop in a lobby right now on Xbox and have a blast. What really kills me though is that this game launched in 2012. Yeah that's right 2012. TEN YEARS AGO. And Nintendo wants to give us things that are obnoxiously limited in 2022/2023. I'm not just talking about challenges, this goes for the game as a whole.
I don't get how Nintendo gets away with making things so limited when other companies made their games feel like they have no limited.
It really gets me that they're doing the Trizooka challenge with the SAME MAPS AND MODE AGAIN. At least do SOMETHING different, goodness.
Let's all agree that the Sheldon Sampler challenge was the best one. Hopefully we get it more with a variety of modes and maps.
Edit. Just checked. It's the SAME. MAP MODES. AGAIN. WHY. I mean they ARE good Zones maps, but STILL.
The original name for this mode, in JP, is "Event Battles". Which is probably a way better representation of the mode than "challenges" are
Okay but can we talk about the quality off the video? You have grown so much as a creator and since I've been following since early days I feel kinda proud in a way. I don't even play Splatoon that much anymore, at this point I only watch the videos because they're good and interesting
I almost wish they merged challenges with splatfests, like making it so each splatfest had a unique challenge that came with it. I think that would help splatfests become more interesting and help the timing problem a bit more
Random weapons sounds so fun, I used to randomly pick my weapons in 2 for a bit because otherwise I'd literally only play 3 weapons which gets stale after a year. I should start doing that again tbh
i find it funny how the challenges thing is a circus tent because nintendo has became a clown
Agreed! I'd honestly love to see them just add it as another 24/7 mode alongside turf war & anarchy battle, especially when some of the challenges serve as a good way to bridge the gap for some casual players that might end up trying the ranked modes more.
I want that oh boy 3am patrick edit isolated so badly, it's my entire opinion on league in
I would suggest to have a challenge modifier rotation every 10 hours in turf war and anarchy open so people could play them casually. You could play them pretty often or you can schedule to avoid them as well, and it being 10 hours means it will cycle to different times of the day.
Ive only played like 2 rounds and they were the MONTHLY CHALLENGES where you dont even DO ANYTHING. These time slots are horrendous
I think fomo is a huge reason why they are limited. However one thing I remember is that in COD cold war in like season 3 or 4 of the game(simaler to where we are now in Splatoon) they started experimenting with limited time playlists and modes like only mele weapons or snipers only. They also added new modes like outbreak to the side modes of the game(zombies). Nintendo could be doing this to see what modes people like the most and then add them permanently which is something they ended up doing in cod. Whatever ones the community liked the most ended up being added more frequently
also with the 2 hour slots it means it is often just not possible to play a challenge. one in school, one at 3am and one when i'm out in the evening. if they were for a whole day, i'd definetly have time to give most of them a go, but so far i've missed all the cool ones
9:47 MURDERED ME
6:30 The only thing I can think of is that the devs don't want people practicing a mode and getting good at it. They want to capture a more raw challenge power. If everyone has to adapt to something unfamiliar, maybe that captures challenge power better. If there are, for example, 12 hours to play a Challenge then the most dedicated players will master the gameplay and inflate their peak power even higher.
Favorite challenge so far has been Sheldon Sampler, had to stay awake almost 24 hours just to make it. I really really enjoyed it and found a lot of new weapons that peak my interest, but it was awful having to stay up that long. Literally just "Ah yes I love nuking my sleep schedule in exchange for 2 hours of splatoon"
I'm glad it was worth it but my god nintendo please fix this
‘Super fast swimming form’ sounds hilarious and I love the idea.
They are treating these challenges like splatfests when they aren't as grand as grand or special as splatfests
I remember really enjoying the 2 v 2 tower control for how ridiculous it was. But sadly, I only have time for one of the three rotations.
It’s also hard to play for too long when the only incentive is a token and bragging rights.
the specific times is so annoying because, where i live, its either 11pm-1am (too late), 3pm-5pm (im working usually), or 7am-9am (too early). i can like literally never play unless im free at specifically 3-5 or are willing to stay up late
I'd love to play but I am either sleeping, working, or ...sleeping.
The shifty stations should be in the challenges!
I've never seen a challenge in my splatoon 3 game. Not even been an option and I've literally never witnessed it, so I'm convinced it's not real.
As a casual player who absolutely doesn't have nearly as much time to play as a lot of people active in the fanbase, I've managed to participate in a grand total of... one challenge. Unless you have a lot of free time and keep a close eye on the challenge schedules to know when exactly they're going on, you're basically guaranteed to miss a lot of the time slots for them. It's ridiculous.
It's especially disappointing for me, as I was hoping they would motivate me to play the game more often. Updates feel a lot less common than in the previous games, and that means I experience everything new within two weeks, and then haven't got anything truly new to look forward to for around 3 months. So I was hoping that challenges would add new unique twists that would encourage me to play more... but they run on such a bad schedule I can't anyway.
It really does feel like this game works on FOMO quite a bit, especially with this and the catalogues, and it's such a strange choice? I don't even think it's working too well, it's actively making it harder for me to experience unique things that would make me actually want to play more
I'm fine with challenges being limited-time events (though obviously they should be 24 hours instead of the extremely weird split six hours), but I wish their schedule was more frequent and consistent - like two per week or something.
The monthly challenge is very lame, but I think the New Season Challenge actually makes a lot of sense - if anything, it should have gone further and locked you to new weapons to make a "new content only" playlist. I definitely wanted to try the new maps right away so having a playlist that was only those maps was pretty nice.
I know this wasn't the main focus of the video- which I wholeheartedly agree with -but god damn that inkling swimming at supersonic speeds was hilarious XD
This video really touches why I haven't been able to get super into Splatoon 3 much, it's the whole limited time/FOMO aspect. It just makes the game feel like a chore at times (catalog grinding) and the actually interesting stuff like challenges are extremely limited
the schedule is the worst especially when you dont play often. my cousin texted me during the dynamic duos challenge asking if i wanted to play but it was like 9 am and i was in the shower and didnt see it until the challenge was already over :|
As an adult who works full-time and plays a lot of other video games I never played challenge mode and, if it stays so, I just can't afford to care!
I never even got to play any challenges due to work. When I get home it's already half way over and after work i don't immediately think about play Splatoon.
Almost all of the challenges have this pattern for me
- Too early in the morning which I won't wake up for
- In the middle of a day, oh no wait it's a weekday so I'm at school
- Too late at night that I can't really stay up for
It would be less of a blow if challenges were an offspring of League. Like eggstra work to salmon run.
So there would be league but every so often league would get replaced with challenges. And if league had specific league modes (team death match and 8 ball) WITH the other 4 modes making it a completely new experience with challenges
Few things I Wana say
1: FOMO is def real in 3, especially with the stuff u listed, plus the season catalog which, if you don't complete, have to gamble for the emotes/banners/titles etc.
2. The monthly challenges and new season ones are by far the least played on a casual side. It takes about 30 sec for me to queue up, rather than in Trizookas where it took like 5 secs.
3. I forgot the other thing
random weapons zones was the most fun i'd had in the game and taught me how to use splatlings, it should be playable somewhere between all the time and every week.
I forget about challenges and am reminded of their existence once every three weeks or so because of how little I get to play them. I've done 2 challenges total.
Until the challenges last at least an entire day, I'm not even going to bother remembering when they're on and adjusting my schedule for them.
I really hate how Nintendo constantly tries to make the game feel like an obligation, I’m not playing this to have fun not to have another job. I feel like the bare minimum for an event should be 24h.
I literally haven’t been able to play any of the challenges because of work, life getting in the way, or simply just not knowing that there was a challenge going on. Something needs to change
I’ve been so busy with work this summer that I haven’t even been able to play ANY of the challenges yet
Let’s just hope Nintendo sees videos like this and takes action.
My thought here is that they're slow to roll out these challenges because they want to ensure they they're fun. I suspect that next season they're going to pad out more time slots with redos of previous challenges. We're already seeing some this season. And it's going to probably be somewhere between 1.5x and 2x as many challenges. And it'll gradually get more as there become not challenges to redo.
That doesn't change anything about how they could have given us more time with each challenge in a single day. And hopefully they do change that. But I think they chose a slow start for what they're planning to be a lot more reasonable by the end. When there's like 3 or 4 challenges a week because of so many redos it won't feel nearly as rare.
I dunno what devs expect people to do about it. I haven’t played salmon run in Splatoon 2 because of the timetable thing, but I do from time to time in 3.
I haven’t played ANY challenges so far. I have other games to play, it’s not like I WANT TO PLAY A SPECIFIC MODE IN A SPECIFIC GAME THIS MUCH to time my day around it. Lol.
I would basically never leave a permanent 'sheldons sampler' queue.
Somehow, them intensely playing on the 'fear of missing out' has made me care even less about trying to get in.
Even if challenges were only available for half a day it would already be soo much better than what it is now, I've missed like 5 challenges because the windows are soo freaking tiny
yeah my biggest issue I have challenges is the schedule and I feel (especially with the changes to open) the climb for a high challenges feel kinda pointless and take up slots for other challenges (ngl I think a super high swim or walk speed challenge could be stupidly fun) at least for me
So far my fav challenge has been the random weapon one and the trizooka one was also really fun (do kinda wish that you could use any weapon and it wasn't limited to just the weapons that already had zooka as a special)
Ah man, imagine a "Always on tacticooler" challenge.
I like the idea of random weapons a lot! I wish it was a cathegory just for funsies