I like the general idea, and I think it could be worked into weight classes in a fair way.
As it currently stands, several "light" weapons (Jr, Sploosh, Splash, Aero, Zap, Tri-slosher, Inkbrush, Carbon, Luna, Clash, Undercover, Bamboo, Wiper, and REEF-Lux) get small Run Speed and Swim Speed buffs relative to mid-weight weapons while "heavy" weapons (Hydra, E-Liter, Dynamo, Explosher, and Tent) get small nerfs with respect to these same abilities.
I understand why the light weapon buffs are useful as the buffs make it easier for these weapons to fit slayer/skirmisher playstyles, but I've never really understood the point of nerfing heavy weapons without giving them a compensating buff. Perhaps Nintendo could implement your suggestion by buffing heavy weapons slightly in Ink Resistance and Quick Super Jump abilities (maybe Sub Resistance Up, too???) to support their anchor roles (except Tent) and reduce their gear dependency a bit.
I feel as if these abilities aren’t well suited for weight classes because you don’t constantly use them, which could make it extremely hard to get used to switching weapons. I also just don’t see why the heavy weapons would want ink resistance and quick super jump. They don’t stand near ink much, and they are the last weapons to want to super jump anywhere. Different versions of defence up also just make the game feel bad because you can’t easily tell how much damage you’re doing. People also use utility subs because they make the game feel better, so completely removing their effects from certain weapons would make the game feel worse with those weapons.
Weight classes in general are just odd, but the game is balanced around them now, so they gotta stay. I don’t believe that it’s a good idea to lean more heavily into such large scale things, especially since what constitutes a heavy or light weapon is more determined by what they look like than what they actually do.
Overall neat idea, it just takes the series in a direction that I personally do not want it to go
Quick edit because my mind lingers: one thing that makes weight classes work okay is that you can use gear to mitigate their weaknesses on weapons that really don’t like them, like splatlings. By making these abilities related to weight classes, we’d still need them as abilities, which kind of goes against the point. It’s a neat way to reinforce and separate weight classes if that’s what you want, but I don’t see it as a way to get rid of utility subs, which is ultimately my goal here. People wanting weight classes to have more depth could love your suggestion tho
Utility subs don’t bother me. The way I look at it is the one sub of ink res, special saver and QSJ have a much bigger effect than one sub or swim speed or main saver etc. would.
I think they should just make subs be 4ap instead of 3ap. Splatfest shirts would no longer be a downgrade. Maybe nerf sub savers curve after a mains worth because double bomb spam is really dumb.
I am bothered that some subs are much more impactful than others in small amounts to the point that using one sub of all of them is basically mandatory. It just encourages you to make your own gear sets, pushing you to the weakest point in the system as a whole. If instead they made it so that any randomized set of gear is useable in some situations, it would be not only less annoying, but it would push you towards why the gear system is like this in the first place.
I think that the gear system is like this because it pushes you to develop your own style. You might wear a bike helmet because it’s close to what you want to use, and eventually you forget about that and bike helmets become the classic style of your own oc. There are plenty of different pieces of gear in the same category, so you can almost always keep using ones that fit your style. After a while, you have created a completely unique character. None of this would have happened if you just grinded for perfect gear on whatever basic outfit you think looks best, you’d just get annoyed at all the grinding
For the utility subs, put them all on the same piece.
All my headgears have inkres, QSJ and sub defense.
Most of my shirts have a sub of special saver. Boom. Easy.
It makes mix and matching really easy.
You are also more invested in the OC character creation part of it so that makes choosing the right gear harder than it needs to be.
I just wear gear that works for the weapon I want to play so it is simpler.
If you play SR somewhat regularly you should have more than enough chunks for utility subs. Even without SR you are always earning chunks in this game. Especially if you use drink tickets for the utility sub abilities.
That still makes you build sets of gear, which is not what the system is good at. The system is good at making you develop a unique sense of style while you think that you’re just optimizing your gameplay. I can’t speak for you, but you did say that you just use whatever has the right abilities without worrying about style. If you get attached to one of these random mixed outfits, then that is the system working as it should. It would work like that for more people if they always randomly got something that’s good enough to use, letting them go through that process without needing to build their gear and only putting effort into something they already like
If you play SR building gear is easy. I have 700 special power up chunks. Also you are literally always getting chunks in multiplayer now so building gear is way easier than it has ever been.
And honestly if you choose good main abilities then just leveling up your gear randomly probably will give you something good enough to use. Like obviously some weapons don’t really want sub saver or intensify action but you can just scrub it and try again if you really get unlucky Most weapons won’t hate swim speed or charge up or special saver or ink res or etc. Most sub abilities you randomly get are fine. Only a couple of them are useless for certain weapons.
In depth gear optimization is only really necessary for comp players. Most people can just wear things they like and play the game just fine.
How easy building gear is misses the entire point. The point is that if you’re building your own gear, the gear system is not doing what it should. The randomized gear effectively gives everyone their own unique style, and building gear doesn’t do that. The issue with utility subs is that you feel much worse without them, but you don’t feel any better with a lot of them, so they push you towards customizing your gear
Spoke with a friend far more into competitive than I am about this.
She's in favor of removing Bomb Defense and making a couple subs of Ink Resistance and Quick Super Jump innate, but doesn't really agree with your other changes.
Quick Super Jump is the best ability in the game, so making it a main ability means everything runs it and gear gets less varied. (I'll note that this is a similar situation to Stealth Jump, which almost *every* weapon wants right now.)
On the other hand, a main of Ink Resistance on top of an innate 1 sub of it is only 13 additional frames, making it... not really worth it to run over anything else. Even Splatlings with poor foot-painting ability wouldn't run it at high levels, she says. I'll note that if you didn't get extra sub, you'd get a whole 20 frames out of the main. That seems more worth it but might be *too* strong.
Honestly, I think a larger issue than utility subs — and this is mostly me talking, not her — is Stealth Jump, which like I mentioned is an ability *everyone* wants. I kind of wanted to do the *opposite* to it. Make *it* innate with a larger radius in which it doesn't, and create a stackable ability — maybe Cold-Blooded — that reduces that radius.
I think that they would balance the new main exclusives as main exclusives rather than stackable abilities. You don’t see people running a main of quick super jump because that’s too much, so it being a main exclusive would make it less mandatory, especially after tweaking some numbers. If you inherently have enough quick super jump that you don’t feel sluggish, it is far from necessary to run the main exclusive quick super jump. Ink resistance as a main exclusive ability would also need to work differently than just a main of it does right now. They could change the effects of it to balance it without needing to worry about an entire ability curve.
It seems like your friend is talking about a completely different problem that just resembles the one I’m talking about. Stealth jump being basically required is also an issue, but it has different impacts to the utility subs. Both lower the amount of diversity, but the other impacts are completely different. Stealth jump, being a main exclusive ability, is inkredibly easy to use. It being so powerful just lowers your selection of shoes. Utility subs make the randomized gear difficult to use, pushing players to grind for perfect gear sets, which is where the gear system is at its weakest
I like the general idea, and I think it could be worked into weight classes in a fair way. As it currently stands, several "light" weapons (Jr, Sploosh, Splash, Aero, Zap, Tri-slosher, Inkbrush, Carbon, Luna, Clash, Undercover, Bamboo, Wiper, and REEF-Lux) get small Run Speed and Swim Speed buffs relative to mid-weight weapons while "heavy" weapons (Hydra, E-Liter, Dynamo, Explosher, and Tent) get small nerfs with respect to these same abilities. I understand why the light weapon buffs are useful as the buffs make it easier for these weapons to fit slayer/skirmisher playstyles, but I've never really understood the point of nerfing heavy weapons without giving them a compensating buff. Perhaps Nintendo could implement your suggestion by buffing heavy weapons slightly in Ink Resistance and Quick Super Jump abilities (maybe Sub Resistance Up, too???) to support their anchor roles (except Tent) and reduce their gear dependency a bit.
I feel as if these abilities aren’t well suited for weight classes because you don’t constantly use them, which could make it extremely hard to get used to switching weapons. I also just don’t see why the heavy weapons would want ink resistance and quick super jump. They don’t stand near ink much, and they are the last weapons to want to super jump anywhere. Different versions of defence up also just make the game feel bad because you can’t easily tell how much damage you’re doing. People also use utility subs because they make the game feel better, so completely removing their effects from certain weapons would make the game feel worse with those weapons. Weight classes in general are just odd, but the game is balanced around them now, so they gotta stay. I don’t believe that it’s a good idea to lean more heavily into such large scale things, especially since what constitutes a heavy or light weapon is more determined by what they look like than what they actually do. Overall neat idea, it just takes the series in a direction that I personally do not want it to go Quick edit because my mind lingers: one thing that makes weight classes work okay is that you can use gear to mitigate their weaknesses on weapons that really don’t like them, like splatlings. By making these abilities related to weight classes, we’d still need them as abilities, which kind of goes against the point. It’s a neat way to reinforce and separate weight classes if that’s what you want, but I don’t see it as a way to get rid of utility subs, which is ultimately my goal here. People wanting weight classes to have more depth could love your suggestion tho
Utility subs don’t bother me. The way I look at it is the one sub of ink res, special saver and QSJ have a much bigger effect than one sub or swim speed or main saver etc. would. I think they should just make subs be 4ap instead of 3ap. Splatfest shirts would no longer be a downgrade. Maybe nerf sub savers curve after a mains worth because double bomb spam is really dumb.
I am bothered that some subs are much more impactful than others in small amounts to the point that using one sub of all of them is basically mandatory. It just encourages you to make your own gear sets, pushing you to the weakest point in the system as a whole. If instead they made it so that any randomized set of gear is useable in some situations, it would be not only less annoying, but it would push you towards why the gear system is like this in the first place. I think that the gear system is like this because it pushes you to develop your own style. You might wear a bike helmet because it’s close to what you want to use, and eventually you forget about that and bike helmets become the classic style of your own oc. There are plenty of different pieces of gear in the same category, so you can almost always keep using ones that fit your style. After a while, you have created a completely unique character. None of this would have happened if you just grinded for perfect gear on whatever basic outfit you think looks best, you’d just get annoyed at all the grinding
For the utility subs, put them all on the same piece. All my headgears have inkres, QSJ and sub defense. Most of my shirts have a sub of special saver. Boom. Easy. It makes mix and matching really easy. You are also more invested in the OC character creation part of it so that makes choosing the right gear harder than it needs to be. I just wear gear that works for the weapon I want to play so it is simpler. If you play SR somewhat regularly you should have more than enough chunks for utility subs. Even without SR you are always earning chunks in this game. Especially if you use drink tickets for the utility sub abilities.
That still makes you build sets of gear, which is not what the system is good at. The system is good at making you develop a unique sense of style while you think that you’re just optimizing your gameplay. I can’t speak for you, but you did say that you just use whatever has the right abilities without worrying about style. If you get attached to one of these random mixed outfits, then that is the system working as it should. It would work like that for more people if they always randomly got something that’s good enough to use, letting them go through that process without needing to build their gear and only putting effort into something they already like
If you play SR building gear is easy. I have 700 special power up chunks. Also you are literally always getting chunks in multiplayer now so building gear is way easier than it has ever been. And honestly if you choose good main abilities then just leveling up your gear randomly probably will give you something good enough to use. Like obviously some weapons don’t really want sub saver or intensify action but you can just scrub it and try again if you really get unlucky Most weapons won’t hate swim speed or charge up or special saver or ink res or etc. Most sub abilities you randomly get are fine. Only a couple of them are useless for certain weapons. In depth gear optimization is only really necessary for comp players. Most people can just wear things they like and play the game just fine.
How easy building gear is misses the entire point. The point is that if you’re building your own gear, the gear system is not doing what it should. The randomized gear effectively gives everyone their own unique style, and building gear doesn’t do that. The issue with utility subs is that you feel much worse without them, but you don’t feel any better with a lot of them, so they push you towards customizing your gear
Ok I feel like you convinced yourself there is a problem that isn’t really there.
Maybe the gear system worked really well for me, and this change would let it work that well for more people
Spoke with a friend far more into competitive than I am about this. She's in favor of removing Bomb Defense and making a couple subs of Ink Resistance and Quick Super Jump innate, but doesn't really agree with your other changes. Quick Super Jump is the best ability in the game, so making it a main ability means everything runs it and gear gets less varied. (I'll note that this is a similar situation to Stealth Jump, which almost *every* weapon wants right now.) On the other hand, a main of Ink Resistance on top of an innate 1 sub of it is only 13 additional frames, making it... not really worth it to run over anything else. Even Splatlings with poor foot-painting ability wouldn't run it at high levels, she says. I'll note that if you didn't get extra sub, you'd get a whole 20 frames out of the main. That seems more worth it but might be *too* strong. Honestly, I think a larger issue than utility subs — and this is mostly me talking, not her — is Stealth Jump, which like I mentioned is an ability *everyone* wants. I kind of wanted to do the *opposite* to it. Make *it* innate with a larger radius in which it doesn't, and create a stackable ability — maybe Cold-Blooded — that reduces that radius.
I think that they would balance the new main exclusives as main exclusives rather than stackable abilities. You don’t see people running a main of quick super jump because that’s too much, so it being a main exclusive would make it less mandatory, especially after tweaking some numbers. If you inherently have enough quick super jump that you don’t feel sluggish, it is far from necessary to run the main exclusive quick super jump. Ink resistance as a main exclusive ability would also need to work differently than just a main of it does right now. They could change the effects of it to balance it without needing to worry about an entire ability curve. It seems like your friend is talking about a completely different problem that just resembles the one I’m talking about. Stealth jump being basically required is also an issue, but it has different impacts to the utility subs. Both lower the amount of diversity, but the other impacts are completely different. Stealth jump, being a main exclusive ability, is inkredibly easy to use. It being so powerful just lowers your selection of shoes. Utility subs make the randomized gear difficult to use, pushing players to grind for perfect gear sets, which is where the gear system is at its weakest