>Gives opinion like an internet person >Backs it up with some reasons like an english teacher >Is interested to see other people's opinions like a good learner Love it!
Same here, but partly because I also play a lot of other weapons of vastly different styles but either way I'd hate it because I need variety of both modes and weapons
I like playing Splat Zones for its simplicity but wanting to ONLY play it sounds wild, lmao even before the discussion on the good and bad of each mode thats like wanting to play only Final Destination in Smash: it gets boring very quickly
Honestly that's one of the reasons I stopped bothering with Smash's competitive scene (years ago)... I remember Mew2King explaining how and why allow more stages that could work, but sadly it didn't get enough attention - specifically stages with smaller blast zones allows heavy characters to perform better (if my memory isn't betraying me).
@@_SereneMangoyeah I'm still kinda bummed that they voted for Pokémon stadium to be formless. Sure the transformations added a randomness factor to it, but as a spectator, it's mad entertaining.
That's a very good example because some characters do better on long, flat stages than those with platforms, similar to how some weapons would simply do better in Zones-only rulesets.
It’s not just FD, but the whole competitive smash system(also a retired player from years ago). Most stages on competitive smash are flat and are nearly identical to each other, with strategies only slightly changing depending on platform positions. But even then, it’s not enough to really change how a character plays nor does it change the meta for specific stages. Smash is a game that offers thousands of variations in how it can be played, but they only emphasize one mode, and arguably the most boring one. Everything else is always a “side mode”. From what I’ve witnessed in the modern community, people are advocating to ban characters because they are so damn stubborn to try and incorporate new modes. Steve, being one of the characters people would want to ban, would not do nearly as well in scenarios where he’s not allowed to camp, such as in items match or if there is any objective that incentivizes movement. But our system primarily benefits characters that have obnoxious neutral game and are difficult to kill. New modes would allow that to change, but Smash players are too damn conservative to even give it a try. I just wish Splatoon players could value their variety, since it seems like all of the modes give advantages to other weapons.
single-mode tournaments (mode cup, minnow cup) are cool, but zones only shouldn't be the norm for most tournaments i feel like the point here shouldnt be "we should stop playing all modes" but instead "we could do with more tournaments of all kinds"
The "Zones Only" take gives off "No Items, Fox only, Final Destination" vibes, which is especially egregious when you consider that this series is arguably at its most diverse meta moment currently.
It's also good to remember that Zones puts the defender's advantage onto the team that is already scoring, which is just not what happens in any of the other modes.
@@tiesvanleeuwen3280 Special advantage is not the same as defender's advantage. The tower is going into enemy territory and it's much harder to maintain the tower than to attack it.
As someone who really only likes zones I cannot overstate how this is literally the opposite of the truth. In all three other modes it's way easier to snowball your progress and completely overpower the other team, in Zones you are forced to stay closer to mid for the objective, which almost entirely eliminates spawn camping when skill levels between teams are reasonably close.
@@SnoFitzroy Nah. There are only a couple of maps where staying mid is viable and those are ones where the distance between spawn and mid is so tiny that it's not worth advancing much. Every other map has the benefit of taking control of the enemy's side of the map and some outliers, like hammerhead, pretty much guarantee a lockout. Staying mid is tactically disadvantageous, simply put. As for other modes, snowballing really only depends on the map design. Like, yeah, defending against a push in TC on scorch is hard af because the map is terribly designed, but that's a lot different from the mode itself just being like that.
1:50 "...in Zones, you just have to prevent something from happening, stall the enemy team, waste their time..." ...Sorry I still have to watch the rest of the video but I just found it hilarious... Because it reminds me of Splatoon 2's end meta lmao
Zones only sounds like it would be boring overall, both to play and watch, not to mention we saw triple shot pencil for certain zones maps (edit: brinewater only sorry for possible misconceptions/misinformation), which I believe means zones only would absolutely kill weapon diversity
The 3x shot pencil thing didn't see use on more then brine. Which even then doesn't see use, even double shot saw 0 use in zones only. Secondly Zones has statistically the most weapon diversity in the game. There's 2 weapons that see notable increase in use on non zones modes (96 deco and Blaster) but both of these see use in zones too (especially now that cblaster is in the game) Some of the most recent zones only events had stuff like range, roller, dualie, carbon deco, and slosher, and tent (both) in grand finals of different major SZ only events in west and japan just in the last 2-3 months.
@@ProCharawere those recent zones only events before or after the recent balance changes? Did the ranged blaster paint buff make a difference or was it a general meta shift?
I believe that all competative gamemodes should be played in S3, so I've been forcing myself to play more clam blitz (my least favourite) even at the cost of my rank lol.
I was a certified Clam Blitz hater before I formed a team and started playing it in organized settings fr, solo clams is so awful but nothing will beat winning in overtime from making a last minute push and tossing 3 balls in at once
@@Alphine_Agnitiothe lack of VC is why Clams is so terrible. I think it could be okay if it was possible to form actual team dynamics instead of the “over here” and “yay” that the game actually has.
Zones used to be my favourite mode when I first started the series (splatoon 2). I liked it because it was the simplest of all the ranked modes and was a good way to learn the basics of ranked and team play. It was also the first mode I reached X in. That said, once I reached X, I completely switched off of it. I found it ridiculously boring which was only exasperated by the snowballing at top level. Either insta-winning, or insta-losing, with very little in-between. After about a month, everytime it was in rotation I would switch to Salmon Run or Hero Mode, or just flat out wouldn't play. Now in splat3, I can honestly say I've played less than 50 zones matches since launch. I didn't even know the Bluefin zone moved til this video. If people like zones that's great, but from my individual perspective it's not fun to play and and even less so to watch. If all tourneys switched to zones only i feel that would alienate and bore a lot of fans/viewers. Rather than change all current tourneys, why not make tourneys that cater to the specific modes?
From day 1 (Splatoon1 release of ranked) I have hated Splat Zones. I heavily disliked how it was basically just a "campfest" (How I like to call it). How the enemy team is not getting forced into a more dangerous situation (like you said in the vid) I really dont understand why ppl want zones only. Sure the other modes can be cheesed but aside from Kraken in CB there are smart ways to deal with it. Also I like how in other modes a single player can have heavy impact on objective. Honestly if a single player pulls that off its on the opposing team.
zones only for everything is WILD and it’s basically like playing 5 minute match splatfest honestly. you love it a little bit, you have fun, but you don’t want it everyday every week
I’ll go as far as to say Zones is my least favorite mode. I find the modes where you have to push into the enemy team’s base way more engaging than fighting over a central zone. I think those modes generally encourage more variety. I mean, I just think about the reason why we have a term known as “Zones cheese” which has been used a lot for things like Reef, Splashdown and stuff. Other modes don’t let you cheese as much. Maybe Bubble with TC but even then, Bubble is specifically nerfed when used on the tower. Zones doesn’t do anything of the sort, and it is the mode where it is far more likely things will end up in a KO when playing with randos.
Hey Gem. Long time watcher (relatively speaking), 1st time commenter. Here’s my opinion as a bottom level comp player: I agree that all 4 modes should be the norm for tournaments & comp as a whole. I wouldn’t mind Zones only for a few tournaments like Area Cup, but those wouldn’t be tournaments I’d want to attend. It’s way more fun & interesting to play & watch a variety of modes. 1 of the changes Sendou Q recently implemented this season was mode preferences other than all modes or Zones only. While the concept is nice, in practice, I’ve played more sets this season where at least 1 mode is absent than I ever played Zones only last season.
Rainmaker is my favorite mode in Splatoon because it has more of the maps be used and since the routes are so spread out and varied it allows for times where you can feign a push and catch the enemy team off guard to go the opposite direction. The issues with alot of the modes is maps, the modes are really well designed
The thing I love the most about Splatoon Ranked is that there is various modes, which means: More diversity and more different strategies. It doesn't feel like: *"Oh yeah just... ink and camp the enemy spawn for every game"*
I agree with everything stated. Splat Zones is my least favorite mode just for the fact the objective never moves and the zone ownership seems inconsistent sometimes. They should change the mode to enable a second zone closer to the enemy team once they are get down to 30. I also dislike the fact if the other team gets the zone for a nanosecond you get a huge punishment on time. While other modes, if the team gets the objective for 1 second and you take it back, you can continue where you left off without a huge punishment. Tower control is my favorite for the exact reason reason you said and check points
Im genuinely curious why anyone thought zones only was a good idea or argument. Not trying to sound spiteful, im genuinely wondering what the point they were trying to make is, like, WHY would anyone want to kill variety so much that only one of 4 game modes are run? and more specifically why they think any arguments for it are bigger than those against it.
I think because people are and can be very defensive of their taste. People can use it as an argument and find any reason to justify it being a norm. Zones is the most played ranked mode. Zones is best mode for defending since you dont have to push the enemy base so much compared to other modes. Zones is a fast mode to win. more people like Zones. Japan loves more zones than other modes. (disclaimer, not here to prove those arguments are true or not, mostly to mention defending the supremacy of amode doesnt make it a tournament only choice) It is not a matter of the strenghts and weakness of the mode. It is a mix of "supply and demand" with what the TO's want their tournament to be about, freedom of choice. Nintendo makes their tournament and TW is the most played mode, but the finals are Ranked modes. If it is the most played mode, just make it all TW then. Logic is not what makes the final decision, it is what they want to do. people defending Zones only have all the right to express it, but not the right to enforce on others. Does it make sense?
The idea behind running zones only, is that the strategies and weapons needed for each of the four game modes is different. When you a run a tournament with all four game modes, players use weapons/strategies that work across all modes. Whereas if you run a tournament with one game mode, players use weapons/strategies that work in just that mode. If the community is regularly running one-mode only tournaments it encourages more niche weapons to be used and honed. Which increases weapon variety. Like for example at worlds, Japanese teams tend to dominate tower control. The weapons they choose are either very effective at attacking the tower rider, or have specials that are very good at defending the tower. Whereas the west tends to play Tower Control around a strategy of winning fights away from the tower and then stalling the enemy team from getting to the tower rider. Japanese teams for example have no qualms running double blaster in tower control, whereas in the West double blaster is seen as a liability due to low paint/special output. But because the west often treats the tower rider as deadweight, they're often not prepared when they go up against japanese teams who will often use specials to bruteforce the tower through the enemy base.
from what I understand, it's mainly an issue with the maps. there just aren't enough maps for other modes that are really good. I think that's why prochara started pushing for zones biased tournaments where you would play all modes but play zones more, so that you could reduce the map pool of the other modes to only include some of the better maps
i definitely saw a lot of cognitive bias when they said that no one has ever praised TC/RM/CB. i guess there's a chance we're just out of the loop though.
Moving to a SZ-only format is phrased in the original tweet as "progressing" in the same way Melee players used to jokingly talk about "20XX", the hypothetical moment where everyone is so good at the game that nobody plays anything but Fox. I hate this with a passion, because as someone who wants to get into the competitive scene, nothing makes me feel like that goal is further away than competitive players moving the goalposts away from the parts of the game that I find the most fun. Just like when a kid won a Smash Tournament and then everyone started yammering about banning the character that kid played, people acting in bad faith hide behind "the meta" whenever something new happens to the game they're already good at. I have on multiple occasions taken a break from Splatoon because people in the scene that I respect routinely made jokes that "if you play X weapon you might as well stick to turf war and give up on playing comp". The suggestion that we should cut out 3/4ths of the videogame from tournament formats, and then saying "I haven't heard a good argument for keeping TC, RM, or CB" is just as disingenuous as top players quaking in their boots going "Whoa, maybe we should ban Isabelle. I can't think of anyone who even likes playing against her, so..." This is gatekeeping. The original tweet is gatekeeping. I struggle to see it any other way.
Zones was my favorite mode when I first got into ranked since it's the easiest to grasp, but it has slowly slipped to my least favorite over time. It's still ok to play/watch, but even as a spectator I prefer the alternatives.
I think that zones is one of the most boring modes to play casually because of how much cheese it has since it’s specifically paint. A person can do almost nothing but paint with a weapon or special and win. Sure kraken cheese on clam blitz might be annoying, but it’s a strategy reliant on tacticooler’s spot and can easily be fixed by preventing jumps while holding clams. Meanwhile, here’s what’s able to be zones cheese: - Explosher: able to sit safely and fire over walls to paint zones, sometimes instantly contesting them too if it’s a dual small zones. - Bloblobber: paints incredibly safely and consistently becomes an annoyance when trying to contest. - Snipewriter: Can insta cap zones on very thin zones maps and lays down incredibly high amounts of paint quickly. - Reefslider: Can insta cap zones - Ink Vac: Max shot can insta cap zones - super chump: lays down a lot of paint and is incredibly annoying to get rid of when double of it is ran (which I see way too much when playing zones) - Tri strike: can insta cap zone with all 3 strikes - booyah bomb: contests zone almost just as well as strikes, though I don’t see it capping bigger zones that much since its able to be painted over much easier. Not to mention that LDE is very prevalent on this mode and with some weapons being able to rely on sub saver for bombs, it can quickly also devolve into bomb spam as well.
TC and RM are also very fun modes to me, not only because as mentioned previously they allow for much more weapon diversity (I love to play tri-stringer, but it's terrible in Zones because of how abysmal its paint is) but also another factor is the difficulty increases as you get more points. As you push further and further into the enemy base, it's usually an uphill battle, moving more and more into their favoured territory where they have better defensive positions and can come back faster after a respawn. Splat Zones is always stationary, the mode never gets more difficult as you gain more points its always the same pretty much... once again with Bluefin being the exception loool (can't lie though I do like bluefun lol sorreeeee)
You summarize perfectly why Rainmaker is my FAVORITE mode in ranked. Splatzones is the second least to me because I don't like how I'm forced to play a specific way I dislike especially when the maps are actually garbage in zones (except for 3 of them but it's my personal opinion) Clam Blitz isn't really good because it's very hard to strategize with randoms and Kraken kinda break the mode when used correctly Tower is active and honestly that's a great positive to have. Zones is really favorable to have a campy playstyle and a lot of people dislike this kind of strategy. And that's personally why I would not like this change either in my opinion. If you want to do competition this would limit the creativity you have and if you watch that said competition this is really not a great way to encourage people to keep the scene going
Zones is one of my least favourite modes, in general. So much so that I've started consistently preferring Clam Blitz over it, which is a sentence I never thought I'd type about Clam Blitz, lol. If I had to pick ONE mode to only get played, it would absolutely be either TC or RM and it's not even close, so this whole conversation is just confusing to me.
Id agree. I'm a massive fan of the other modes, with CB being my favorite, and zones doesn't mesh well with some of the games biggest strengths imo. Despite being a mode about painting an area, the coverage of the map as a whole matters less, and the static objective really hurts it. Being a static objective just takes the energy out of team fights and pushes, and takes the thinking down a notch. Movement mechanics are also far less valuable in it, since you necessarily need to move less on average, and duels will often fall in semi repetitive areas. Just not a fan of zones, and am surprised by some of the adamant zones best and only I see.
Nah, while Zones does have some of the weakest map-mode combinations like on Scorch Gorge, it also has some of the best map-mode combinations like on Mahi-Mahi. Towers is the weakest mode overall, it hardly feels good to play on and Gem himself ranked a lot of TC maps lower than when he ranked Splat Zones when he made his map-mode tier lists.
It's so strange, because switching modes feels a lot like switching maps to me. If your team has a player who's really good with E-Liter and the opposing team has a player who loves Carbon, you both have the option to counterpick maps to give yourselves an advantage depending on who's winning. If the other team is way more skilled, they'll still win. Being able to say "We're gonna make you play Tower Control" just fits in with that. And while I think a lot of the modes need work in some way, I just feel weird about the idea of "We're one of the best teams in the world! Uh, no, we've never learned Rainmaker."
Even though I'm a bit late, I totally agree with you and I'm so glad a comp player sees the game how I see it! Zones only would just get... stale.. boring... and the other modes are so cool! Thanks for making this
Another quirk of Zones that makes it work very differently than the other modes (Rainmaker and Towercontrol especially) is the way the penalty(is that what it's called?) works, flipping the zone for a split second can be enough to set the opposing team back by over a minute. Even in Clam Blitz, the only other mode with a penalty(?), the scoring team can plan around bursting through the penalty by stocking up on clams before going in. Zones is also interesting, in that if you're scoring you want to not be near the objective, rather fighting in front of it. While for the other three modes, your play always focuses on the objective to some degree. P.S. When the subject of which weapons are good for which modes came up, I realized how nice the Tri-Stringer is as a jack-of-all-trades weapon, good for painting, good for AoE vs the tower, good for engaging the rainmaker at long range when it tries moving forward, and pretty mobile for Clams. Makes me appreciate my Main even more.
zones was always my least favorite game mode by far (excluding turf war), it just always felt boring but when people asked me why i felt like that about this game mode i couldn't always find the reason or a way to express those reasons, this video explained exactly everything i hate about this game mode and i'm very grateful for that.
I think if the original tweet took a step or few back, the idea of *blank*-only tournaments would have a suited place in competitive Splatoon, if they already aren't common. Like a "best-of-the-best" tourney of those greatly skilled & adoring of the one mode. but picking one mode out of 4 or 5 (if Turf is allowed) & advocating it as the only way competitive should be played is probably the worst take I've heard yet for Splatoon. There's so much nuance to every mode, weapon, set, stage, comp, everything that a single mode will all dumb-down & restrict.
I think people like Splat Zones so much because it’s an easy gateway to anarchy modes from Turf War, because in both modes painting is the objective-just that in Splat Zones, the key area to paint is one or two specific places All the other modes are different from Turf War significantly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if casual players had a harder time getting into them and just never got over their initial disdain
Zones cheese doesn't snowball an insanely huge lead in the losing team's favor. The cheese just stalls the timer and closes out winning games, so even if it's not great, it's not as badly designed.
@@SorellaKez This, omg. I'd go so far as to argue that "literally every special cheezes zones" is flatly wrong, becuase almost none of them do that. Saying this as a Zones main: No, the specials don't cheeze it unless you specifically pick a combination of specials specifically intended to do so. Just HAVING an ink storm user isn't gonna cheeze much. Bring three ink storms and have their activations on a coordinated stagger? That's not really cheeze either, that's just a valid strategy!
I really like this video. I've been almost exclusively playing splat roller since S2, and Zones is really not a mode I enjoy. Rollers are terrible at brute forcing and 1vs1, and I feel like Zones is the only mode that demands that. Flanking and sharking are not at all effective in SZ.
I appreciate all your arguments for the pros of each mode and fully agree with every point you made except perhaps that Zones inherently reduces weapon diversity (it is by far the mode that allows the most diversity). However, I do think it is unfair to make this argument without discussing the flaws in the other modes. Tower Control rewards the pushing team with huge special advantage, and has very, very few maps where the tower path is well-designed. Many maps give the pushing team a positional advantage over the defenders. There are many maps where the first team to get out of mid immediately KOs, and if they fail, the other team's special advantage for being behind gives them a KO on the response push. Rainmaker has many, many games where a team immediately makes a break for sub-10 points, then drags the rainmaker into the corner and stalls for literally four minutes without moving. Clam Blitz meta is hugely dominated by Kraken cheese, where the only point of interaction is whether a team can pick up enough clams to form power clams before they get an unpreventable jump to the enemy basket and score 40-60 points.
these are my major gripes with the non-SZ modes and I think Gem should have discussed those more specifically. there is also more map diversity, not less, in SZ than the other modes because the concept is simpler vs having horrible tower/RM pedestal layouts, for example. and even in low div teams, kraken cheese is a serious problem. it's not that SZ is inherently the best, it's that map design and development as well certain special misuse makes the other modes less viable.
can you explain to me how SZ allows for more diversity? i'm honestly curious, since i always see shooters and painting weapons when i do solo queue. plus, sometimes the other team has one more weapon that paints the best and even when we're attacking and winning interactions, they can just outpaint us.
@@Rose-df4ep Because Zones is largely a mode about slaying. You need some paint, for sure, because otherwise you can't take zone when you're a player or even two players up, and the zone flipping against you becomes a huge mobility issue for the team. But every single weapon class and role can work in this mode, because you can accomplish the goal of the mode by removing the enemy team from the area around the zone. Slow backliners work, aggressive backliners work, aggressive midline weapons work, defensive midline weapons work, aggro weapons work, paintbots work. You can play tent comps, you can run a bunch of AoE, you can play with or without cooler, you can spam zooka or crab or tristrike, you can pick crazy aggro mains like wiper, zip stamper, tetras, or enperry and be super disruptive. The only stuff that really doesn't work is the stuff that's just generally bad and can't take/hold space, like all the crappy shooter kits without bombs or range like neo sploosh and aerospray RG. Now, the meta will naturally condense to only the best weapons showing up on top teams, so weapons like Flingza and Zap '89 that are "okay" but have better options in slot generally don't get picked, but there is still a pretty crazy amount of variety that we've seen in top tournaments in the last few months despite that.
@@celestialspark5697 isn't this true in basically all the modes though? if you slay the people around or in front of the objective then they can't get to the objective. if anything, i would say Clams is inherently the mode designed best for weapon variety since weapons don't directly interact with the objective at all. and i know you said kraken is all that's run in this mode, but afaik there's tons of top teams who don't even run it (i cant remember the last time jackpot ran it for example, and I want to say Starburst too but I don't recall for sure since i've mostly only seen them on zones recently). Rainmaker and Tower Control (and to a smaller degree CB) do have very big flaws on these maps and especially in this meta right now, but from an inherent design standpoint SZ is the one that interacts directly with weapon choice the most--and in CB, weapons/specials don't interact with the objective at all (except for kraken ig), so i don't really understand how SZ would be better for variety. Even in your examples: Tent comps? jackpot was running them in CB. AoE comps work just as well for holding areas behind the basket. You absolutely cannot play without cooler in this meta on any gamemode, and SZ is probably the worst for playing without cooler to the degree (AR even won Mode Cup(?) with double cooler on SZ not too long ago). And if you take a look at the recent SendouQ major, both finals teams were generally playing to spam Zooka/Crab/Tristrike, with cooler allowing slayers to keep their strikes/zookas and Splash/Pencil being permapick in every map on finals.
The argument was never “Splat Zones is more flawed than other modes and thus we shouldn’t play Zones only,” it’s “Splat Zones is not a flawless mode that is significantly better or more competitively viable” Other modes do still have flaws and they always will, because that’s just the nature of having to design maps that have to be played in five distinct modes The point Gem is making isn’t that all the other anarchy modes are necessarily better, but rather that they are *not* nearly bad enough to justify never playing them
something else wrong with zones that I have literally never heard anyone mention is the penalty timer in the mode is complete BS. In clams it adds 50% of the points you earn which is fair. In zones it adds 80%. This creates situations where the team who is in control the vast majority of the game can still lose if the other team cheeses the zone at the right time repeatedly It's just as much of a scam as any other mode for this reason.
I hate zones the most 😂 all the other modes make you have to do more than “have good aim” or “control space”. Everything you said was spot on, and the reasons I love playing this game Also if you hate clam blitz, get to S rank, solo queue gets better, I promise! lol
Agreed on CB. It's so immensely satisfying when you play an s lobby and your teammates silently coordinate and understand macro objectives. Being able to just, understand, people and goals in clams, then act on them, and watch it work like a well oiled machine, is one of the things that keeps me coming back
I know some people I talk with regularly favor zones only because they feel it mitigates the effects of cooler that they dislike. They feel that in other modes, cooler makes it too difficult to push and get anything done. I’m not sure I agree with them on their thought process, but I thought I would share in the interest of adding additional viewpoints to the conversation.
No matter how it’s explained to me, I can’t get behind only wanting to play Zones. Especially when some of the worst modes on a lot of maps are Zones imo.
i'm no competitive player but i despise zones and, even if i'm not directly in the competitive community, i'd hate to see something like this happen to it. plus i've been wanting to join the competitive side for a while, even though i'm not too great at the game yet, and zones is my worst mode. most of my matches on zones have me with more deaths than kills and very little points, since you're basically only in the middle of the map and it's difficult being unable to move around much.
In a solo queue environment, I like to see Zones come up because the high chance of knockouts increases the EV of the game session. I also seem to win it more since it's the only gold badge I've earned thus far, which makes sense given the higher EV. For people like me, who are trying to level every weapon to at least 4 stars, if not 5 eventually, high EV is really appealing and might make the mode more liked. But for me, it's still not my favorite mode, and I do prefer variety. Those moments in SZ where you're locking the enemy out and suddenly the game is over before you know it because you were focusing on a fight and haven't looked at the score in a minute, feel very anticlimactic. Pushes in every other mode feel so much more hype. I personally think tournaments would become stale to watch.
@patricktanoeyjaya4430 Expected Value. When you play a game where you can earn something over a long period of time, it has an expected value that's determined by the various factors that go into playing it. In this case, the EV is a product of the following: * time it takes to play the game * queue time * win rate And the value you're trying to generate is up to you. For me, it's weapon freshness. It could also be cash or levels. Because winning (or losing) by knockout reduces the game time, it increases the expected value. So if you see more knockouts, both your own and your opponent's, in one mode over the others it has a higher EV which means over the same stretch of time you'll earn more from playing it than the other modes.
@@RedOphiuchus wow, this is very clear and informative. You work as game designer or something? Also thanks for explaining it and not banishing me to Google. (I don't think I could've found it anyways)
Btw, I went back to your map-mode tier lists to see your tier lists and noticed that you forgot to make the tier list for Clam Blitz (also your map-mode playlist needs to be updated)
Zones is so boring though. . . especially where we have so many maps you can literally lock out the opposing team from getting near the zone (Looking at you Hammerhead as an example). Clam Blitz was my LEAST favorite mode in S2. . . I jumped into a fairly casual league for team play when S3 came out and. . . Clams is my hands down favorite mode in the game at this point. The maps Clams generally is trash on. . .are all maps that rarely have a better mode. Zones also just feels the worst to lose at. . . when you're literally a percentile from flipping the zone at the end and could absolutely easily hold your overtime. Half the time it feels the zone just doesn't neutralize when you think it should be. Rainmaker/Tower/Blits all are much easier to define a 'push' on where Zones you can literally sit good painting weapons in spots hard to reach and just outpaint for the last ten seconds with no actual contest. The other maps you're always in contest with the other team.
There have been so many times I have been playing zones and I got a KO, and I’m like “huh it’s over already”. I love zones but I do feel like it can be too quick if there’s a huge skill imbalance between teams.
Honestly the zones only take makes sense coming from a meta slave zap main 💀 If this is what our top players are like then I'm extra motivated to overpower them one day and show them the beauty of not only diverse weapon comps, but also the better three modes that require actual skill beyond just winning the first mid fight.
All ranked modes are kinda flawed. Zone’s problem being it doesn’t really allow any weapons other than zone-cheese or painting weapons. RM’s being the maps. TC’s isn’t even about the maps, it’s just that staying on a block, maybe rectangle, isn’t fun. CB’s problem is the fact that nOnE oF mY tEaMmAtEs lIsten. yeah nah it’s just nintendo not implementing actual communication other than that weird vc and the “This Way!” or “Booyah!” callouts.
Speaking from a more casual perspective but when I can find zones the most boring to play by far (especially when you can't rely on solo teammates to make up for any bad painting weapons so I HAVE to go a painter weapon), I don't want to learn how boring it is to watch. Also as you say, knockouts are hype! In zones, a knockout is often predetermined if the points tick down to
I’m gonna say this as a guy who retired from competitive Smash Bros years ago: Keep the variety in modes. The modern smash scene is fucked because there is no breathing room for variety in a Singles-only ruleset, and it’s forcing everyone to work with a bad system. The stage list is pitiful(like come on, only 6 out of over 100 stages being legal is absurd), and the stages we picked are benefiting playstyles that the community considers “lame”. This causes the baby mindset of: “We need to ban [insert character here]!” and then leave when that is not fulfilled. The thing is, I feel that not every character thrives in every mode, and that’s something that should be explored from the competitive point of view; same applies here. You guys got it good, where you at least have some chance of variety in gameplay. Some weapons are strong in all modes, sure. But if Splat Zones was the only mode people ever played, some weapons will never see the light of day again, and people will also probably want to ban certain weapons or comps. Remember, the systems of competitive play are not built by the devs, but by you guys. The devs just wanted to make a funny squid game, just how Sakurai wanted to make a chaotic fan fiction factory that was controllable by people everywhere. Take what the game has to offer, and use it. It will create some unforgettable stories.
While I never played a lot of splatoon due to shaky hands, I've always been so jealous of how many good modes you guys got. Looking in from the outside, the only mode I can argue is contradictory to the game's design is turf war (needs something more permanent to count towards the results that isn't just decided within the final fight), and even then you only have to deal with it once every few months when splatfests are forced upon you.
If anything we should go CB only I do think that for testing a teams overall abillities its the best mode, the only downside it has is that its the hardest mode to understand. Wich is prolly SZ biggest strength .
i enjoy playing zones enough, it has really solid maps and stuff, but zones is the most boring mode to watch imo. the most exciting moments tend to require pushing into the enemy bases and higher team mobility, which imo clam and rainmaker are the best for.
Having strict pairings of maps and modes seems more righteous to me. Would be interesting to see a breakdown of best maps for each mode for tournament play, and why.
I might be preaching to the choir because idk if you’re in the competitive scene or not, but you’re absolutely correct about it being more righteous, because it’s something every tournament already does-like Gem said, Scorch Gorge is loved for Rainmaker and Clam Blitz but *hated* for Zones, and justifiably so Every map in the game has to be designed in a way that it can be played in five very different modes, and so it’s just the nature of things that each map is more competitively viable on certain modes-or in the case of something like Wahoo World, not competitively viable at all And that’s not a bad thing! Splatoon is, at its heart, a silly little casual game about squid kids throwing paint at each other, and having more casual maps and modes makes the game accessible to more people, but in a competitive setting we should make the most of everything there is to offer instead of pretending that 75% of the anarchy modes don’t exist
As someone who ratio on zones is pretty good on all maps compared to other modes I love zones. But the other modes are what keeps me coming back and wanting to get better. The challenge is more of a draw than just being good.
I just think it's limiting I mean what's next? Everyone has to wear the same shoes because some shoes make your character slightly taller or shorter? like I know it's competitive but still try to have fun with it, maybe just have varying rules that are announced beforehand like "this tournament is Tower Control only" or "Clam Blitz and Rainmaker only" etc,
Most Zones maps should have one zone closer to each base, so it's not a king-of-the-hill stallout and you have to push out of mid to start scoring. I imagine whichever team holds more zones (whether out of 2 in a longitudinal line or 3 in a latitudinal one) scoring points over time.
@@1unar_eclipse Don't see that anywhere except Port Mackerel and Moray Towers. You would have had to push as far as you would in Clam Blitz to actually earn points, and stalling is less likely to push your lead any further (not _farther;_ this is a cumulative objective). This can also incentivize controlling space to protect against enemies "diving" towards your base to cap the nearer zone (stopping that isn't too hard, since the characters are all glass cannons). Could you please explain why that made the mode worse? I'd love to hear any reason for it to have been changed (hopefully besides maintaining a King of the Hill structure, which I actively oppose).
also as a low level player, excluding all but 1 mode WILL put off new comp players from getting into comp. Personally, zones is my least favourite mode to play and i can imagine for a lot of others their fav mode isn't zones, just cuz there's 3 other modes. And ofc, for ppl watching tournaments, only zones forever will get so stale - this would just box out so many new players and spectators from the game imo.
As a Dynamo main that’s been playing Splatoon since they introduced Splat Zones into Splatoon 1, I love Splat Zones, it’s my favorite mode. However, for the competitive scene to just be solely SZ? That wouldn’t be healthy to the scene. Different modes use different weapons, and that diversity is what helps a game to survive longer. Just because I don’t like playing the other comp modes doesn’t mean I think they are bad either, they just require different skill sets sometimes, and that’s what makes them more interesting for the competitive scene!
Zones only sounds like hell, like even to me who doesn't play competitive, i just dabble in the ranked modes. don't get me wrong, it's fun if both teams get back and forth over the hill, but splatoon isn't Team Fortress 2 with teleporters and engi bases or explosive jump rollouts and super fast scouts to keep the pressure on the hill.
As a zones/tower main, I would hate zones-only. Variety is everything, from mode to weapon comps! It's a defining trait for Splatoon. Also, zones cheese is real and I am lactose intolerant
Zones in my opinion feels the most bland. it's very easy to get steamrolled with the enemy team physically blocking the path to the one Objective while they have control. even though I rarely play CB,I'd prefer it to Zones.
I hate to be that guy but...competitive rule sets are generally made to be boring by design. A trade off you make when the focus is on winning, not having fun. Though honestly, I agree with zones--partly because Splat 3's map designs are really bad when it comes to SZ. Too many specials basically being "win buttons" really doesn't help.
Zones is my favourite mode but if it was all anyone played it would become terrible and repetitive to watch and to play. Rainmaker is so much fun that if nobody played it at a high level I would recreate the rainmaker itself out of solid gold just to show up to every major tournament and bash down the door with it in protest (the explosions come from my rent-a-ninja's throwing hand grenades that we acquired legally from the catholic church)
I believe zones only rule sets are more for the players than the spectators, specifically the top level players. At top level, I’d assume that they’d be able to see many non-enjoyable aspects of modes be exploited or highlighted, where in lower levels the game isn’t as optimized. Some things that come to mind is tower special advantage, rainmaker stalling, kraken cheese, lack of good map modes, and cooler. Me personally I think non-zones modes are cool, and they can be really hype. BUT I understand that there’s obviously a reason some top players may want zones only, this being my best guess as too why.
I'd be perfectly fine with turf wars and zones only tournaments. I'm not really advocating or suggesting that tho, I don't know if its something the community would widely enjoy that. But Grey is gonna be streaming the discussion so I guess you could participate in that.
as an outside observer, I do agree that I would prefer to see all modes played, but I do understand why so many competive players are pushing for zones only. from what I gather, the main reason why people want zones only is because other modes just don't have enough good maps. like in my opinion, there isn't a single tower control map that I would consider "great" (ramen might be but I haven't gotten to play ramen tc yet). wheras zones has maps like mahi and mako mart. overall seems like more of a map issue than anything else
i definitely don't want to see zones only cause i don't like how it's played, i prefer the back and forth of other modes than the more passive defense of zones, other modes require the enemy to push into your base, so it always feels like you have a chance to turn things around, zones just feels hopeless if you can't cheese it.
Zones is my least favorite mode to play, but I think something this video misses is the difficulty to give other modes as much representation in maplists as zones. There are simply more zones maps in the game currently that are balanced well for both attackers and defenders, and I’m personally in favor of seeing and playing the best map/mode combinations the game has to offer. Basically, while I think zones only isn’t something I would like to see become the standard of play, I do think there is validity to having more zones be played than other modes (at least until we get some more excellent rainmaker and tower maps).
>Gives opinion like an internet person
>Backs it up with some reasons like an english teacher
>Is interested to see other people's opinions like a good learner
Love it!
>appreciates video and makes a good comment.
>gives reasons why like video and youtuber.
>supportive and not fake
Love it!
As an explo player that would benefit a lot from zones only i’d hate zones only
based explo
Same here, but partly because I also play a lot of other weapons of vastly different styles but either way I'd hate it because I need variety of both modes and weapons
@90damagebrella-gg6rf tbh it's Base kit is really good. Good synergy and a decent special that's not common on top weapons.
@90damagebrella-gg6rf I hope It's kraken. God I miss the Exlpo-into-Baller-tap instant kill combo
As a fellow explo player I have way more fun with the weapon on tower so having zones only would SUCK
I like playing Splat Zones for its simplicity but wanting to ONLY play it sounds wild, lmao
even before the discussion on the good and bad of each mode thats like wanting to play only Final Destination in Smash: it gets boring very quickly
Honestly that's one of the reasons I stopped bothering with Smash's competitive scene (years ago)... I remember Mew2King explaining how and why allow more stages that could work, but sadly it didn't get enough attention - specifically stages with smaller blast zones allows heavy characters to perform better (if my memory isn't betraying me).
@@_SereneMangoBut they only allow the flat stages because “it’s too big…”
@@_SereneMangoyeah I'm still kinda bummed that they voted for Pokémon stadium to be formless. Sure the transformations added a randomness factor to it, but as a spectator, it's mad entertaining.
That's a very good example because some characters do better on long, flat stages than those with platforms, similar to how some weapons would simply do better in Zones-only rulesets.
It’s not just FD, but the whole competitive smash system(also a retired player from years ago). Most stages on competitive smash are flat and are nearly identical to each other, with strategies only slightly changing depending on platform positions. But even then, it’s not enough to really change how a character plays nor does it change the meta for specific stages.
Smash is a game that offers thousands of variations in how it can be played, but they only emphasize one mode, and arguably the most boring one. Everything else is always a “side mode”.
From what I’ve witnessed in the modern community, people are advocating to ban characters because they are so damn stubborn to try and incorporate new modes. Steve, being one of the characters people would want to ban, would not do nearly as well in scenarios where he’s not allowed to camp, such as in items match or if there is any objective that incentivizes movement. But our system primarily benefits characters that have obnoxious neutral game and are difficult to kill.
New modes would allow that to change, but Smash players are too damn conservative to even give it a try. I just wish Splatoon players could value their variety, since it seems like all of the modes give advantages to other weapons.
single-mode tournaments (mode cup, minnow cup) are cool, but zones only shouldn't be the norm for most tournaments
i feel like the point here shouldnt be "we should stop playing all modes" but instead "we could do with more tournaments of all kinds"
The "Zones Only" take gives off "No Items, Fox only, Final Destination" vibes, which is especially egregious when you consider that this series is arguably at its most diverse meta moment currently.
It's also good to remember that Zones puts the defender's advantage onto the team that is already scoring, which is just not what happens in any of the other modes.
TC gives special advantage to the team that has the control over thetower
@@tiesvanleeuwen3280 Special advantage is not the same as defender's advantage. The tower is going into enemy territory and it's much harder to maintain the tower than to attack it.
As someone who really only likes zones I cannot overstate how this is literally the opposite of the truth. In all three other modes it's way easier to snowball your progress and completely overpower the other team, in Zones you are forced to stay closer to mid for the objective, which almost entirely eliminates spawn camping when skill levels between teams are reasonably close.
@@SnoFitzroy Nah. There are only a couple of maps where staying mid is viable and those are ones where the distance between spawn and mid is so tiny that it's not worth advancing much. Every other map has the benefit of taking control of the enemy's side of the map and some outliers, like hammerhead, pretty much guarantee a lockout. Staying mid is tactically disadvantageous, simply put.
As for other modes, snowballing really only depends on the map design. Like, yeah, defending against a push in TC on scorch is hard af because the map is terribly designed, but that's a lot different from the mode itself just being like that.
1:50 "...in Zones, you just have to prevent something from happening, stall the enemy team, waste their time..."
...Sorry I still have to watch the rest of the video but I just found it hilarious... Because it reminds me of Splatoon 2's end meta lmao
Zones only sounds like it would be boring overall, both to play and watch, not to mention we saw triple shot pencil for certain zones maps (edit: brinewater only sorry for possible misconceptions/misinformation), which I believe means zones only would absolutely kill weapon diversity
the meta's developed more, thats not an optimal comp anymore and we see a lot of weapon diversity in area cup
The 3x shot pencil thing didn't see use on more then brine. Which even then doesn't see use, even double shot saw 0 use in zones only. Secondly Zones has statistically the most weapon diversity in the game. There's 2 weapons that see notable increase in use on non zones modes (96 deco and Blaster) but both of these see use in zones too (especially now that cblaster is in the game)
Some of the most recent zones only events had stuff like range, roller, dualie, carbon deco, and slosher, and tent (both) in grand finals of different major SZ only events in west and japan just in the last 2-3 months.
@ProChara oh hello
@@ProCharawere those recent zones only events before or after the recent balance changes? Did the ranged blaster paint buff make a difference or was it a general meta shift?
@@goldenpear8713neither, just Jps playing what they’re good at
Rainmaker will always be my favourite even if it's potential isn't even nearly reached by the map design
I believe that all competative gamemodes should be played in S3, so I've been forcing myself to play more clam blitz (my least favourite) even at the cost of my rank lol.
I was a certified Clam Blitz hater before I formed a team and started playing it in organized settings fr, solo clams is so awful but nothing will beat winning in overtime from making a last minute push and tossing 3 balls in at once
@@Alphine_Agnitiothe lack of VC is why Clams is so terrible. I think it could be okay if it was possible to form actual team dynamics instead of the “over here” and “yay” that the game actually has.
I used to hate clams too. But I’ve been playing it with a friend and it’s so much more fun when you get to communicate with even one player
Zones used to be my favourite mode when I first started the series (splatoon 2). I liked it because it was the simplest of all the ranked modes and was a good way to learn the basics of ranked and team play. It was also the first mode I reached X in.
That said, once I reached X, I completely switched off of it. I found it ridiculously boring which was only exasperated by the snowballing at top level. Either insta-winning, or insta-losing, with very little in-between.
After about a month, everytime it was in rotation I would switch to Salmon Run or Hero Mode, or just flat out wouldn't play.
Now in splat3, I can honestly say I've played less than 50 zones matches since launch. I didn't even know the Bluefin zone moved til this video.
If people like zones that's great, but from my individual perspective it's not fun to play and and even less so to watch. If all tourneys switched to zones only i feel that would alienate and bore a lot of fans/viewers.
Rather than change all current tourneys, why not make tourneys that cater to the specific modes?
From day 1 (Splatoon1 release of ranked) I have hated Splat Zones. I heavily disliked how it was basically just a "campfest" (How I like to call it). How the enemy team is not getting forced into a more dangerous situation (like you said in the vid)
I really dont understand why ppl want zones only. Sure the other modes can be cheesed but aside from Kraken in CB there are smart ways to deal with it. Also I like how in other modes a single player can have heavy impact on objective. Honestly if a single player pulls that off its on the opposing team.
zones only for everything is WILD and it’s basically like playing 5 minute match splatfest honestly. you love it a little bit, you have fun, but you don’t want it everyday every week
I’ll go as far as to say Zones is my least favorite mode. I find the modes where you have to push into the enemy team’s base way more engaging than fighting over a central zone. I think those modes generally encourage more variety.
I mean, I just think about the reason why we have a term known as “Zones cheese” which has been used a lot for things like Reef, Splashdown and stuff. Other modes don’t let you cheese as much. Maybe Bubble with TC but even then, Bubble is specifically nerfed when used on the tower. Zones doesn’t do anything of the sort, and it is the mode where it is far more likely things will end up in a KO when playing with randos.
Hey Gem. Long time watcher (relatively speaking), 1st time commenter. Here’s my opinion as a bottom level comp player:
I agree that all 4 modes should be the norm for tournaments & comp as a whole. I wouldn’t mind Zones only for a few tournaments like Area Cup, but those wouldn’t be tournaments I’d want to attend. It’s way more fun & interesting to play & watch a variety of modes. 1 of the changes Sendou Q recently implemented this season was mode preferences other than all modes or Zones only. While the concept is nice, in practice, I’ve played more sets this season where at least 1 mode is absent than I ever played Zones only last season.
Rainmaker is my favorite mode in Splatoon because it has more of the maps be used and since the routes are so spread out and varied it allows for times where you can feign a push and catch the enemy team off guard to go the opposite direction. The issues with alot of the modes is maps, the modes are really well designed
The thing I love the most about Splatoon Ranked is that there is various modes, which means: More diversity and more different strategies. It doesn't feel like: *"Oh yeah just... ink and camp the enemy spawn for every game"*
Players be like "we want more modes" but then they go "only zones pls"
Splat Zones is like the Final Destination of Splatoon.
I agree with everything stated. Splat Zones is my least favorite mode just for the fact the objective never moves and the zone ownership seems inconsistent sometimes. They should change the mode to enable a second zone closer to the enemy team once they are get down to 30. I also dislike the fact if the other team gets the zone for a nanosecond you get a huge punishment on time. While other modes, if the team gets the objective for 1 second and you take it back, you can continue where you left off without a huge punishment.
Tower control is my favorite for the exact reason reason you said and check points
Im genuinely curious why anyone thought zones only was a good idea or argument. Not trying to sound spiteful, im genuinely wondering what the point they were trying to make is, like, WHY would anyone want to kill variety so much that only one of 4 game modes are run? and more specifically why they think any arguments for it are bigger than those against it.
I think because people are and can be very defensive of their taste. People can use it as an argument and find any reason to justify it being a norm.
Zones is the most played ranked mode.
Zones is best mode for defending since you dont have to push the enemy base so much compared to other modes.
Zones is a fast mode to win.
more people like Zones.
Japan loves more zones than other modes.
(disclaimer, not here to prove those arguments are true or not, mostly to mention defending the supremacy of amode doesnt make it a tournament only choice)
It is not a matter of the strenghts and weakness of the mode. It is a mix of "supply and demand" with what the TO's want their tournament to be about, freedom of choice. Nintendo makes their tournament and TW is the most played mode, but the finals are Ranked modes. If it is the most played mode, just make it all TW then. Logic is not what makes the final decision, it is what they want to do.
people defending Zones only have all the right to express it, but not the right to enforce on others.
Does it make sense?
The idea behind running zones only, is that the strategies and weapons needed for each of the four game modes is different.
When you a run a tournament with all four game modes, players use weapons/strategies that work across all modes. Whereas if you run a tournament with one game mode, players use weapons/strategies that work in just that mode.
If the community is regularly running one-mode only tournaments it encourages more niche weapons to be used and honed. Which increases weapon variety.
Like for example at worlds, Japanese teams tend to dominate tower control. The weapons they choose are either very effective at attacking the tower rider, or have specials that are very good at defending the tower. Whereas the west tends to play Tower Control around a strategy of winning fights away from the tower and then stalling the enemy team from getting to the tower rider. Japanese teams for example have no qualms running double blaster in tower control, whereas in the West double blaster is seen as a liability due to low paint/special output.
But because the west often treats the tower rider as deadweight, they're often not prepared when they go up against japanese teams who will often use specials to bruteforce the tower through the enemy base.
@@dusksoldier increason weapon variety given that we have tournaments exclusive to a mode, compared to play zones only until the sun runs out. right?
from what I understand, it's mainly an issue with the maps. there just aren't enough maps for other modes that are really good. I think that's why prochara started pushing for zones biased tournaments where you would play all modes but play zones more, so that you could reduce the map pool of the other modes to only include some of the better maps
i definitely saw a lot of cognitive bias when they said that no one has ever praised TC/RM/CB. i guess there's a chance we're just out of the loop though.
Moving to a SZ-only format is phrased in the original tweet as "progressing" in the same way Melee players used to jokingly talk about "20XX", the hypothetical moment where everyone is so good at the game that nobody plays anything but Fox.
I hate this with a passion, because as someone who wants to get into the competitive scene, nothing makes me feel like that goal is further away than competitive players moving the goalposts away from the parts of the game that I find the most fun. Just like when a kid won a Smash Tournament and then everyone started yammering about banning the character that kid played, people acting in bad faith hide behind "the meta" whenever something new happens to the game they're already good at.
I have on multiple occasions taken a break from Splatoon because people in the scene that I respect routinely made jokes that "if you play X weapon you might as well stick to turf war and give up on playing comp".
The suggestion that we should cut out 3/4ths of the videogame from tournament formats, and then saying "I haven't heard a good argument for keeping TC, RM, or CB" is just as disingenuous as top players quaking in their boots going "Whoa, maybe we should ban Isabelle. I can't think of anyone who even likes playing against her, so..."
This is gatekeeping. The original tweet is gatekeeping. I struggle to see it any other way.
Zones was my favorite mode when I first got into ranked since it's the easiest to grasp, but it has slowly slipped to my least favorite over time. It's still ok to play/watch, but even as a spectator I prefer the alternatives.
As someone who watches people play the game, I like not being bored
I think that zones is one of the most boring modes to play casually because of how much cheese it has since it’s specifically paint. A person can do almost nothing but paint with a weapon or special and win.
Sure kraken cheese on clam blitz might be annoying, but it’s a strategy reliant on tacticooler’s spot and can easily be fixed by preventing jumps while holding clams.
Meanwhile, here’s what’s able to be zones cheese:
- Explosher: able to sit safely and fire over walls to paint zones, sometimes instantly contesting them too if it’s a dual small zones.
- Bloblobber: paints incredibly safely and consistently becomes an annoyance when trying to contest.
- Snipewriter: Can insta cap zones on very thin zones maps and lays down incredibly high amounts of paint quickly.
- Reefslider: Can insta cap zones
- Ink Vac: Max shot can insta cap zones
- super chump: lays down a lot of paint and is incredibly annoying to get rid of when double of it is ran (which I see way too much when playing zones)
- Tri strike: can insta cap zone with all 3 strikes
- booyah bomb: contests zone almost just as well as strikes, though I don’t see it capping bigger zones that much since its able to be painted over much easier.
Not to mention that LDE is very prevalent on this mode and with some weapons being able to rely on sub saver for bombs, it can quickly also devolve into bomb spam as well.
5:28 that inkling with the octobrush just sliding out was really funny.
I think CB is honestly the most "splatoon" mode. I'm not good at it, but it really is kind of amazing how they came up with it.
TC and RM are also very fun modes to me, not only because as mentioned previously they allow for much more weapon diversity (I love to play tri-stringer, but it's terrible in Zones because of how abysmal its paint is) but also another factor is the difficulty increases as you get more points. As you push further and further into the enemy base, it's usually an uphill battle, moving more and more into their favoured territory where they have better defensive positions and can come back faster after a respawn.
Splat Zones is always stationary, the mode never gets more difficult as you gain more points its always the same pretty much... once again with Bluefin being the exception loool (can't lie though I do like bluefun lol sorreeeee)
i play only zones and tc in soloqueue because teamwork is less manditory but on tourney levels absolutely not, all modes pls
You summarize perfectly why Rainmaker is my FAVORITE mode in ranked. Splatzones is the second least to me because I don't like how I'm forced to play a specific way I dislike especially when the maps are actually garbage in zones (except for 3 of them but it's my personal opinion)
Clam Blitz isn't really good because it's very hard to strategize with randoms and Kraken kinda break the mode when used correctly
Tower is active and honestly that's a great positive to have.
Zones is really favorable to have a campy playstyle and a lot of people dislike this kind of strategy. And that's personally why I would not like this change either in my opinion. If you want to do competition this would limit the creativity you have and if you watch that said competition this is really not a great way to encourage people to keep the scene going
Fast forward to now, and i hate zones only rulesets more than I did before and I also hate how stubborn people are about changing it.
Zones is one of my least favourite modes, in general. So much so that I've started consistently preferring Clam Blitz over it, which is a sentence I never thought I'd type about Clam Blitz, lol. If I had to pick ONE mode to only get played, it would absolutely be either TC or RM and it's not even close, so this whole conversation is just confusing to me.
I'm of the opinion that Zones is the weakest mode in Splatoon 3. It brings out the worst of S3's map design and the worst of S3's special design.
I prefer S3 zones over S2 zones. It’s a case where I can confidently say I prefer S3 to S2, at least in this case
Id agree. I'm a massive fan of the other modes, with CB being my favorite, and zones doesn't mesh well with some of the games biggest strengths imo. Despite being a mode about painting an area, the coverage of the map as a whole matters less, and the static objective really hurts it. Being a static objective just takes the energy out of team fights and pushes, and takes the thinking down a notch. Movement mechanics are also far less valuable in it, since you necessarily need to move less on average, and duels will often fall in semi repetitive areas.
Just not a fan of zones, and am surprised by some of the adamant zones best and only I see.
Nah, while Zones does have some of the weakest map-mode combinations like on Scorch Gorge, it also has some of the best map-mode combinations like on Mahi-Mahi. Towers is the weakest mode overall, it hardly feels good to play on and Gem himself ranked a lot of TC maps lower than when he ranked Splat Zones when he made his map-mode tier lists.
It's so strange, because switching modes feels a lot like switching maps to me. If your team has a player who's really good with E-Liter and the opposing team has a player who loves Carbon, you both have the option to counterpick maps to give yourselves an advantage depending on who's winning. If the other team is way more skilled, they'll still win.
Being able to say "We're gonna make you play Tower Control" just fits in with that. And while I think a lot of the modes need work in some way, I just feel weird about the idea of "We're one of the best teams in the world! Uh, no, we've never learned Rainmaker."
Even though I'm a bit late, I totally agree with you and I'm so glad a comp player sees the game how I see it! Zones only would just get... stale.. boring... and the other modes are so cool! Thanks for making this
Another quirk of Zones that makes it work very differently than the other modes (Rainmaker and Towercontrol especially) is the way the penalty(is that what it's called?) works, flipping the zone for a split second can be enough to set the opposing team back by over a minute. Even in Clam Blitz, the only other mode with a penalty(?), the scoring team can plan around bursting through the penalty by stocking up on clams before going in.
Zones is also interesting, in that if you're scoring you want to not be near the objective, rather fighting in front of it. While for the other three modes, your play always focuses on the objective to some degree.
P.S. When the subject of which weapons are good for which modes came up, I realized how nice the Tri-Stringer is as a jack-of-all-trades weapon, good for painting, good for AoE vs the tower, good for engaging the rainmaker at long range when it tries moving forward, and pretty mobile for Clams. Makes me appreciate my Main even more.
zones was always my least favorite game mode by far (excluding turf war), it just always felt boring but when people asked me why i felt like that about this game mode i couldn't always find the reason or a way to express those reasons, this video explained exactly everything i hate about this game mode and i'm very grateful for that.
I think if the original tweet took a step or few back, the idea of *blank*-only tournaments would have a suited place in competitive Splatoon, if they already aren't common. Like a "best-of-the-best" tourney of those greatly skilled & adoring of the one mode.
but picking one mode out of 4 or 5 (if Turf is allowed) & advocating it as the only way competitive should be played is probably the worst take I've heard yet for Splatoon. There's so much nuance to every mode, weapon, set, stage, comp, everything that a single mode will all dumb-down & restrict.
I think people like Splat Zones so much because it’s an easy gateway to anarchy modes from Turf War, because in both modes painting is the objective-just that in Splat Zones, the key area to paint is one or two specific places
All the other modes are different from Turf War significantly, so I wouldn’t be surprised if casual players had a harder time getting into them and just never got over their initial disdain
Amazing video with great points, but what the hell happened at 5:30
Why do people act like kranken cheese in clam blitz is worse than literally every special being able to cheese zones
Why are we all okay with that
To be fair zones cheese only adds a penalty to the other team whereas Kraken cheese scores clams for your own team
Zones cheese doesn't snowball an insanely huge lead in the losing team's favor. The cheese just stalls the timer and closes out winning games, so even if it's not great, it's not as badly designed.
@@SorellaKez This, omg. I'd go so far as to argue that "literally every special cheezes zones" is flatly wrong, becuase almost none of them do that. Saying this as a Zones main: No, the specials don't cheeze it unless you specifically pick a combination of specials specifically intended to do so. Just HAVING an ink storm user isn't gonna cheeze much. Bring three ink storms and have their activations on a coordinated stagger? That's not really cheeze either, that's just a valid strategy!
Making Splat Zones the only game mode is like holding a Smash tourney where only Steve is legal.
5:30 bro did the Michael Jackson
5:30 did yall see that octobrush
I really like this video. I've been almost exclusively playing splat roller since S2, and Zones is really not a mode I enjoy. Rollers are terrible at brute forcing and 1vs1, and I feel like Zones is the only mode that demands that. Flanking and sharking are not at all effective in SZ.
I appreciate all your arguments for the pros of each mode and fully agree with every point you made except perhaps that Zones inherently reduces weapon diversity (it is by far the mode that allows the most diversity). However, I do think it is unfair to make this argument without discussing the flaws in the other modes.
Tower Control rewards the pushing team with huge special advantage, and has very, very few maps where the tower path is well-designed. Many maps give the pushing team a positional advantage over the defenders. There are many maps where the first team to get out of mid immediately KOs, and if they fail, the other team's special advantage for being behind gives them a KO on the response push.
Rainmaker has many, many games where a team immediately makes a break for sub-10 points, then drags the rainmaker into the corner and stalls for literally four minutes without moving.
Clam Blitz meta is hugely dominated by Kraken cheese, where the only point of interaction is whether a team can pick up enough clams to form power clams before they get an unpreventable jump to the enemy basket and score 40-60 points.
these are my major gripes with the non-SZ modes and I think Gem should have discussed those more specifically. there is also more map diversity, not less, in SZ than the other modes because the concept is simpler vs having horrible tower/RM pedestal layouts, for example. and even in low div teams, kraken cheese is a serious problem. it's not that SZ is inherently the best, it's that map design and development as well certain special misuse makes the other modes less viable.
can you explain to me how SZ allows for more diversity? i'm honestly curious, since i always see shooters and painting weapons when i do solo queue. plus, sometimes the other team has one more weapon that paints the best and even when we're attacking and winning interactions, they can just outpaint us.
@@Rose-df4ep Because Zones is largely a mode about slaying. You need some paint, for sure, because otherwise you can't take zone when you're a player or even two players up, and the zone flipping against you becomes a huge mobility issue for the team. But every single weapon class and role can work in this mode, because you can accomplish the goal of the mode by removing the enemy team from the area around the zone. Slow backliners work, aggressive backliners work, aggressive midline weapons work, defensive midline weapons work, aggro weapons work, paintbots work.
You can play tent comps, you can run a bunch of AoE, you can play with or without cooler, you can spam zooka or crab or tristrike, you can pick crazy aggro mains like wiper, zip stamper, tetras, or enperry and be super disruptive. The only stuff that really doesn't work is the stuff that's just generally bad and can't take/hold space, like all the crappy shooter kits without bombs or range like neo sploosh and aerospray RG.
Now, the meta will naturally condense to only the best weapons showing up on top teams, so weapons like Flingza and Zap '89 that are "okay" but have better options in slot generally don't get picked, but there is still a pretty crazy amount of variety that we've seen in top tournaments in the last few months despite that.
@@celestialspark5697 isn't this true in basically all the modes though? if you slay the people around or in front of the objective then they can't get to the objective. if anything, i would say Clams is inherently the mode designed best for weapon variety since weapons don't directly interact with the objective at all. and i know you said kraken is all that's run in this mode, but afaik there's tons of top teams who don't even run it (i cant remember the last time jackpot ran it for example, and I want to say Starburst too but I don't recall for sure since i've mostly only seen them on zones recently). Rainmaker and Tower Control (and to a smaller degree CB) do have very big flaws on these maps and especially in this meta right now, but from an inherent design standpoint SZ is the one that interacts directly with weapon choice the most--and in CB, weapons/specials don't interact with the objective at all (except for kraken ig), so i don't really understand how SZ would be better for variety.
Even in your examples: Tent comps? jackpot was running them in CB. AoE comps work just as well for holding areas behind the basket. You absolutely cannot play without cooler in this meta on any gamemode, and SZ is probably the worst for playing without cooler to the degree (AR even won Mode Cup(?) with double cooler on SZ not too long ago). And if you take a look at the recent SendouQ major, both finals teams were generally playing to spam Zooka/Crab/Tristrike, with cooler allowing slayers to keep their strikes/zookas and Splash/Pencil being permapick in every map on finals.
The argument was never “Splat Zones is more flawed than other modes and thus we shouldn’t play Zones only,” it’s “Splat Zones is not a flawless mode that is significantly better or more competitively viable”
Other modes do still have flaws and they always will, because that’s just the nature of having to design maps that have to be played in five distinct modes
The point Gem is making isn’t that all the other anarchy modes are necessarily better, but rather that they are *not* nearly bad enough to justify never playing them
"Zones only" sounds to me like the "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" meme of Splatoon.
something else wrong with zones that I have literally never heard anyone mention is the penalty timer in the mode is complete BS. In clams it adds 50% of the points you earn which is fair. In zones it adds 80%. This creates situations where the team who is in control the vast majority of the game can still lose if the other team cheeses the zone at the right time repeatedly It's just as much of a scam as any other mode for this reason.
I would argue Tower and Clam are more fun than Zones, so why even have a "Zones only" ruleset? Now I am with if there was a "No Rainmaker" ruleset.
I hate zones the most 😂 all the other modes make you have to do more than “have good aim” or “control space”. Everything you said was spot on, and the reasons I love playing this game
Also if you hate clam blitz, get to S rank, solo queue gets better, I promise! lol
Agreed on CB. It's so immensely satisfying when you play an s lobby and your teammates silently coordinate and understand macro objectives. Being able to just, understand, people and goals in clams, then act on them, and watch it work like a well oiled machine, is one of the things that keeps me coming back
I know some people I talk with regularly favor zones only because they feel it mitigates the effects of cooler that they dislike. They feel that in other modes, cooler makes it too difficult to push and get anything done. I’m not sure I agree with them on their thought process, but I thought I would share in the interest of adding additional viewpoints to the conversation.
5:31 Brush moonwalk
No matter how it’s explained to me, I can’t get behind only wanting to play Zones. Especially when some of the worst modes on a lot of maps are Zones imo.
5:31 moonwalkin'
Zone only would get really boring even tho it's my favorite mode and let's not forget that it's probably the mode with the most cheese
i'm no competitive player but i despise zones and, even if i'm not directly in the competitive community, i'd hate to see something like this happen to it.
plus i've been wanting to join the competitive side for a while, even though i'm not too great at the game yet, and zones is my worst mode. most of my matches on zones have me with more deaths than kills and very little points, since you're basically only in the middle of the map and it's difficult being unable to move around much.
zones only would just turn the game into smash ultimate with pokemon stadium 2 at all times
In a solo queue environment, I like to see Zones come up because the high chance of knockouts increases the EV of the game session. I also seem to win it more since it's the only gold badge I've earned thus far, which makes sense given the higher EV.
For people like me, who are trying to level every weapon to at least 4 stars, if not 5 eventually, high EV is really appealing and might make the mode more liked. But for me, it's still not my favorite mode, and I do prefer variety. Those moments in SZ where you're locking the enemy out and suddenly the game is over before you know it because you were focusing on a fight and haven't looked at the score in a minute, feel very anticlimactic. Pushes in every other mode feel so much more hype. I personally think tournaments would become stale to watch.
What is EV?
@patricktanoeyjaya4430 Expected Value. When you play a game where you can earn something over a long period of time, it has an expected value that's determined by the various factors that go into playing it.
In this case, the EV is a product of the following:
* time it takes to play the game
* queue time
* win rate
And the value you're trying to generate is up to you. For me, it's weapon freshness. It could also be cash or levels.
Because winning (or losing) by knockout reduces the game time, it increases the expected value. So if you see more knockouts, both your own and your opponent's, in one mode over the others it has a higher EV which means over the same stretch of time you'll earn more from playing it than the other modes.
@@RedOphiuchus wow, this is very clear and informative. You work as game designer or something?
Also thanks for explaining it and not banishing me to Google. (I don't think I could've found it anyways)
Btw, I went back to your map-mode tier lists to see your tier lists and noticed that you forgot to make the tier list for Clam Blitz (also your map-mode playlist needs to be updated)
great video gem
BASED GEM THANK YOU 💯🔥🔥🔥
one could argue that some weapons might become more relevant in Zones bc of their paint
Zones is so boring though. . . especially where we have so many maps you can literally lock out the opposing team from getting near the zone (Looking at you Hammerhead as an example). Clam Blitz was my LEAST favorite mode in S2. . . I jumped into a fairly casual league for team play when S3 came out and. . . Clams is my hands down favorite mode in the game at this point. The maps Clams generally is trash on. . .are all maps that rarely have a better mode.
Zones also just feels the worst to lose at. . . when you're literally a percentile from flipping the zone at the end and could absolutely easily hold your overtime. Half the time it feels the zone just doesn't neutralize when you think it should be. Rainmaker/Tower/Blits all are much easier to define a 'push' on where Zones you can literally sit good painting weapons in spots hard to reach and just outpaint for the last ten seconds with no actual contest. The other maps you're always in contest with the other team.
There have been so many times I have been playing zones and I got a KO, and I’m like “huh it’s over already”. I love zones but I do feel like it can be too quick if there’s a huge skill imbalance between teams.
Honestly the zones only take makes sense coming from a meta slave zap main 💀
If this is what our top players are like then I'm extra motivated to overpower them one day and show them the beauty of not only diverse weapon comps, but also the better three modes that require actual skill beyond just winning the first mid fight.
I hate Zones. If anything, I'd be interested in seeing TC, RM, CB only rulesets
All ranked modes are kinda flawed.
Zone’s problem being it doesn’t really allow any weapons other than zone-cheese or painting weapons. RM’s being the maps. TC’s isn’t even about the maps, it’s just that staying on a block, maybe rectangle, isn’t fun.
CB’s problem is the fact that nOnE oF mY tEaMmAtEs lIsten. yeah nah it’s just nintendo not implementing actual communication other than that weird vc and the “This Way!” or “Booyah!” callouts.
Speaking from a more casual perspective but when I can find zones the most boring to play by far (especially when you can't rely on solo teammates to make up for any bad painting weapons so I HAVE to go a painter weapon), I don't want to learn how boring it is to watch.
Also as you say, knockouts are hype! In zones, a knockout is often predetermined if the points tick down to
I’m gonna say this as a guy who retired from competitive Smash Bros years ago:
Keep the variety in modes. The modern smash scene is fucked because there is no breathing room for variety in a Singles-only ruleset, and it’s forcing everyone to work with a bad system. The stage list is pitiful(like come on, only 6 out of over 100 stages being legal is absurd), and the stages we picked are benefiting playstyles that the community considers “lame”. This causes the baby mindset of: “We need to ban [insert character here]!” and then leave when that is not fulfilled. The thing is, I feel that not every character thrives in every mode, and that’s something that should be explored from the competitive point of view; same applies here.
You guys got it good, where you at least have some chance of variety in gameplay. Some weapons are strong in all modes, sure. But if Splat Zones was the only mode people ever played, some weapons will never see the light of day again, and people will also probably want to ban certain weapons or comps.
Remember, the systems of competitive play are not built by the devs, but by you guys. The devs just wanted to make a funny squid game, just how Sakurai wanted to make a chaotic fan fiction factory that was controllable by people everywhere. Take what the game has to offer, and use it. It will create some unforgettable stories.
While I never played a lot of splatoon due to shaky hands, I've always been so jealous of how many good modes you guys got. Looking in from the outside, the only mode I can argue is contradictory to the game's design is turf war (needs something more permanent to count towards the results that isn't just decided within the final fight), and even then you only have to deal with it once every few months when splatfests are forced upon you.
As a b plus (one battle away from a) they can all be fun it like the yen and yan only x 5
Well this video aged absolutely perfectly
If anything we should go CB only I do think that for testing a teams overall abillities its the best mode, the only downside it has is that its the hardest mode to understand. Wich is prolly SZ biggest strength .
i enjoy playing zones enough, it has really solid maps and stuff, but zones is the most boring mode to watch imo. the most exciting moments tend to require pushing into the enemy bases and higher team mobility, which imo clam and rainmaker are the best for.
Having strict pairings of maps and modes seems more righteous to me. Would be interesting to see a breakdown of best maps for each mode for tournament play, and why.
I might be preaching to the choir because idk if you’re in the competitive scene or not, but you’re absolutely correct about it being more righteous, because it’s something every tournament already does-like Gem said, Scorch Gorge is loved for Rainmaker and Clam Blitz but *hated* for Zones, and justifiably so
Every map in the game has to be designed in a way that it can be played in five very different modes, and so it’s just the nature of things that each map is more competitively viable on certain modes-or in the case of something like Wahoo World, not competitively viable at all
And that’s not a bad thing! Splatoon is, at its heart, a silly little casual game about squid kids throwing paint at each other, and having more casual maps and modes makes the game accessible to more people, but in a competitive setting we should make the most of everything there is to offer instead of pretending that 75% of the anarchy modes don’t exist
As someone who ratio on zones is pretty good on all maps compared to other modes I love zones. But the other modes are what keeps me coming back and wanting to get better. The challenge is more of a draw than just being good.
I just think it's limiting I mean what's next? Everyone has to wear the same shoes because some shoes make your character slightly taller or shorter? like I know it's competitive but still try to have fun with it, maybe just have varying rules that are announced beforehand like "this tournament is Tower Control only" or "Clam Blitz and Rainmaker only" etc,
As a solo queue player, Zones is by far my least favorite mode by far for many reasons listed here. Thank you.
Most Zones maps should have one zone closer to each base, so it's not a king-of-the-hill stallout and you have to push out of mid to start scoring. I imagine whichever team holds more zones (whether out of 2 in a longitudinal line or 3 in a latitudinal one) scoring points over time.
S1 did that. It was bad.
@@1unar_eclipse Don't see that anywhere except Port Mackerel and Moray Towers. You would have had to push as far as you would in Clam Blitz to actually earn points, and stalling is less likely to push your lead any further (not _farther;_ this is a cumulative objective). This can also incentivize controlling space to protect against enemies "diving" towards your base to cap the nearer zone (stopping that isn't too hard, since the characters are all glass cannons).
Could you please explain why that made the mode worse? I'd love to hear any reason for it to have been changed (hopefully besides maintaining a King of the Hill structure, which I actively oppose).
I like Splat Zones; but Zones-Only sound like the most BORING thing to watch or even play in.
5:31 gem secretly had michael jackson on his team (michael jacksquid? squidson?)
Saying that only zones should be played is like saying only the meta weapons should be played in comp
also as a low level player, excluding all but 1 mode WILL put off new comp players from getting into comp. Personally, zones is my least favourite mode to play and i can imagine for a lot of others their fav mode isn't zones, just cuz there's 3 other modes. And ofc, for ppl watching tournaments, only zones forever will get so stale - this would just box out so many new players and spectators from the game imo.
As a Dynamo main that’s been playing Splatoon since they introduced Splat Zones into Splatoon 1, I love Splat Zones, it’s my favorite mode. However, for the competitive scene to just be solely SZ? That wouldn’t be healthy to the scene. Different modes use different weapons, and that diversity is what helps a game to survive longer. Just because I don’t like playing the other comp modes doesn’t mean I think they are bad either, they just require different skill sets sometimes, and that’s what makes them more interesting for the competitive scene!
i wouldn't want to play comp anymore if it was literally just zones only, that's so unnecessarily restrictive.
Zones only sounds like hell, like even to me who doesn't play competitive, i just dabble in the ranked modes. don't get me wrong, it's fun if both teams get back and forth over the hill, but splatoon isn't Team Fortress 2 with teleporters and engi bases or explosive jump rollouts and super fast scouts to keep the pressure on the hill.
As a zones/tower main, I would hate zones-only. Variety is everything, from mode to weapon comps! It's a defining trait for Splatoon. Also, zones cheese is real and I am lactose intolerant
Zones in my opinion feels the most bland. it's very easy to get steamrolled with the enemy team physically blocking the path to the one Objective while they have control. even though I rarely play CB,I'd prefer it to Zones.
I hate to be that guy but...competitive rule sets are generally made to be boring by design. A trade off you make when the focus is on winning, not having fun. Though honestly, I agree with zones--partly because Splat 3's map designs are really bad when it comes to SZ. Too many specials basically being "win buttons" really doesn't help.
Zones is my favourite mode but if it was all anyone played it would become terrible and repetitive to watch and to play. Rainmaker is so much fun that if nobody played it at a high level I would recreate the rainmaker itself out of solid gold just to show up to every major tournament and bash down the door with it in protest (the explosions come from my rent-a-ninja's throwing hand grenades that we acquired legally from the catholic church)
anyone else catch the brush player sliding at 5:31
Splat zones is my least favourite mode so i agree with you
I believe zones only rule sets are more for the players than the spectators, specifically the top level players. At top level, I’d assume that they’d be able to see many non-enjoyable aspects of modes be exploited or highlighted, where in lower levels the game isn’t as optimized.
Some things that come to mind is tower special advantage, rainmaker stalling, kraken cheese, lack of good map modes, and cooler.
Me personally I think non-zones modes are cool, and they can be really hype. BUT I understand that there’s obviously a reason some top players may want zones only, this being my best guess as too why.
As a blaster player tower control is the best mode
The people making this argument seem like the same people complaining about the current lack of a concrete meta
That 27 bomb was amazinggggg
I'd be perfectly fine with turf wars and zones only tournaments. I'm not really advocating or suggesting that tho, I don't know if its something the community would widely enjoy that.
But Grey is gonna be streaming the discussion so I guess you could participate in that.
as an outside observer, I do agree that I would prefer to see all modes played, but I do understand why so many competive players are pushing for zones only. from what I gather, the main reason why people want zones only is because other modes just don't have enough good maps. like in my opinion, there isn't a single tower control map that I would consider "great" (ramen might be but I haven't gotten to play ramen tc yet). wheras zones has maps like mahi and mako mart. overall seems like more of a map issue than anything else
i definitely don't want to see zones only cause i don't like how it's played, i prefer the back and forth of other modes than the more passive defense of zones, other modes require the enemy to push into your base, so it always feels like you have a chance to turn things around, zones just feels hopeless if you can't cheese it.
Zones is my least favorite mode to play, but I think something this video misses is the difficulty to give other modes as much representation in maplists as zones. There are simply more zones maps in the game currently that are balanced well for both attackers and defenders, and I’m personally in favor of seeing and playing the best map/mode combinations the game has to offer.
Basically, while I think zones only isn’t something I would like to see become the standard of play, I do think there is validity to having more zones be played than other modes (at least until we get some more excellent rainmaker and tower maps).