Splatoon has been a game that, since launch, has kept serving up new content to freshen up the experience. We've have new stages and guns, with Ranked Battles also being an early addition, which have all helped to spruce up the content on offer. One major new feature, the Splatfest, will nevertheless now take a little longer to arrive in the West.
Splatfest is a simple extra mode in which you pick a choice from a question - such as whether you prefer cats or dogs - and earn points for the cause in online matches. The début round has been taking place in Japan, yet issues have now prompted the first Splatfest in North America to be postponed, as outlined below.
While that's perhaps a little disappointing, it's worth noting that the new Bluefin Depot stage should now be on the rotation in online matches, giving players another arena to master.
Thanks to all that sent this in.
Comments 65
Dang, this was my weekend off
This is slightly good news as now I can possibly be able to participate. But terrible for everyone else.
@xPH03N1Xx86 Mine too. I hope they pick another time that's convenient.
I was excited to see how the Splatfest would play out. But, if they need more time to make it the best experience it can be for players I understand and can wait.
Finally, they address the match making issues.
The bluefin depot stage isn't in action yet. I'm disappointed that the North American splattfest is delayed but I hope the same doesn't happen to the euro one although I think it will because the splattfest preparation hasn't come out yet.
Glad we weren't the Guinea pig for this. I can imagine it would of been global misfire x10 since its not a "demo", we pay money, took off for time, E3 and all that talk.
Awell I don't mind the wait, I'll just play Splatoon online the same way I always do.
I'm not too bothered by this as long as they don't reschedule to July the 4th!
I'm actually glad about this
:')
I think I was working anyways this weekend
@Radbot42
ikr? I probably would've missed it if it wasn't for this!
Oh well, look at the bright side. This means that we'll have more time to get acquainted with Bluefin Depot.
This actually works out better. The scheduled time was Father's Day weekend which means a lot of players would have other more important commitments.
Typical. Not much we can do about it though.
Bluefin depot is up.
Yeah, better they fix it, and I was busy this weekend, but still would have been fun to see the splatfest stuff. I can wait. Plenty to do in the game anyway.
Really enjoying the game. Single player is better than I thought it would be and Ranked Splat Zone play is intense while regular battles are fun and different. As more modes are added I can see playing this for a good long while.
That was this weekend? I'm kind of glad it was delayed then!
I had completely forgotten, even after getting my cool shirt too. Go team Dogs!
I've got work and some studying to do for finals coming next week, so hopefully they'll reschedule this sometime I'm off.
Bogus! I was so excite, too... Wanted to get my fix of that music from the announcement trailer while splattin'. At least now I know why Callie & Marie didn't say anything about it when booting up another user profile.
Did they ever actually say if the issue was there stupidity or a technical issue?
What I mean is having rice and bread as the choices in japan, where Ive read the majority of people picked rice, so only a few rice people couldvplay at a time with the limited number of bread people. Yes, tat is a matchmaking issue, but not a technical one, its just Nintendo being stupid. I think dogs and cats wouldvhave been more evenly matched, but maybe not?
They should have picked simpler thngs - red or blue, Callie or Marie, odd or even. I think that is the problem, the imblance in the number of players per side.
What Nintendo really needs to do isa better job of matchmaking, b/c right now I really dont think they are doing ANY, I think it is just random. I was just on a team 20. 20. 20. 18 vs 16. 14. 12. 10. I was the 18 and we won, but I felt bad for the other team, that just isnt right. They first and foremost must split up the 20s as it just looks bad, andthen the numbers on each side should add up to the same number. So Im ok 20.20.10.10 vs 15.15.15.15 Though I would really prefer they split up the 20s first so 20.15.15.10 vs 20.15.15.10 bc right now you are just as likely to get 20.20.15.15 vs 15.15.10.10 and thats just not right.
Nintendo needs to tell us how the matching is done, bc right now I dont think they are doing any, and thats now what I paid $60 for.
Also, Japan Splatfest was last Saturday, why wait until Friday night just 15 hours before it starts? Did they purposfully wait unti E3 was over so Reggie didnt have to answer any more questions? They shoulld have told us on Monday, if they knew there was a problem they should have handled it right away. what were the 4 testfires for?
This is just the exclamation point on a very bad week, which is extra sad b/c Splatoon was the one and only summer game trying to carry the Wii U in NA all summer long until 9/11, and now theyve even gone and screwed that up. How are they going to market Wii U now?
Im going to bed.
YES! I was so disappointed that I had to miss the Splatfest this weekend! I hope they start it next week/weekend instead!
Hope they have the issue resolved for the euro splatfest next weekend, but i'm guessing not
Checked out Bluefin Depot myself. Actually learned about the Splatfest delay from an Inkling in the Plaza BTW. (got Splatoon for my birthday earlier today.)
Cats! That is all.
Is this still happening in the UK?
@rjejr
I think matchmaking has something to do with your average score or win streak. I restarted playing (deleted my save game and back to level 1 last night after 40 hours of playing) and I got matched against lower levels. I averaged 1000+ points and 95% win. By level 5, I am already being matched against all level 20s even though I join/search for new matches. Gear means nothing in matchmaking since I'm using default gears and haven't bought a new one yet. Maybe there's a hidden "rank" in Turf Battles after all.
I hope the matching is random as how I play with friends is we take it in turns...im level 19 but some friends aren't very good. I like that it's random. Hoping for splat fest in uk but no voting booth in the plaza yet
Wow, it's sad that they left it so late before telling everyone that it was postponed. I hope it doesn't affect the European one, since they were supposed to wait until next weekend before their first Splatfest.
@rjejr You might have a point there. I don't know how Splatfest works yet, but they might have assumed approximately a 50/50 split. If the actual split turns out to be 80/20 for instance, you might get some situations in which there are no opponents to battle against for 60% of the people, resulting in what they described. But that's just a hypothesis.
I personally don't really care that they postponed it. I don't have time to play this weekend anyway. Also, are the Splatfests the same for Europe or will there be separate ones? In which case I would have preferred it if they made it global like the other modes.
Oh, goody. I'm just now finding out about this. I literally just booted up Splatoon and happened upon an Inkling who mentioned it on Miiverse before going to look for it.
I might be missing something here, but why doesn't Nintendo life confirm whether or not this is affecting the UK? After all, it is a UK run site isn't it? A lot of the news seems to revolve around NA.
Am I missing something??
@HappyMaskedGuy maybe because the announcement came last night and theres no one at nintendo europe/uk in the middle of the night?
@SmoochyTea i think thats very likely the reason or at least a big part of it
That's disappointing.
Oh well.
Looking forward to trying out the new stage.
@HappyMaskedGuy - um, b/c the EU/UK Splatfest isn't until next Saturday June 27, so even if Nintendo was canceling it they probably wouldn't say anything until next Friday night seeing as how they canceled the NA Splatfest w/ only 15 hours notice.
So no, this particular news isn't affecting the UK b/c it has nothing at all to do w/ the UK so why should they bring the UK up?
That's what you are missing.
I did get to play Bluefin depot last night. Very very aggravating to be battling for the splat zone while somebody on your team is just wandering about painting the other side like they were in turf war. I was at 90 points that match trying to get from C+ to B- and we lost. The match after that was in port mackerel and we only had 3 guys, so we lost that 1 as well. Though the weirdest thing I've seen in Slaton so far, it only subtracted 1 point. Then I won a match and got 13 points, so I finished the night at 70.
I wish Nintendo would explain ranked scoring as well. A few nights ago, still at C+, I won a game and got 10 points, lost a game and lost 12, which I thought was the opposite of what it was supposed to be. Maybe if these was a manual in the $60 box.
@Splatburst - makes sense, like how the sports section for baseball in my newspaper always list win/loss streaks next to record for the previous 10 games, so you might see L3 5-5.
And I'd be OK w/ that, if it was explained to us. And if that's how it works, rank doesn't matter, then why show people's rank before their name like it means something? People live their live by perception, b/c perception is all we have, so unless I'm told differently that's all I have to go by.
If you are vorrect, and it sounds like you are certainly onto something, then rank doesn't matter, so I'd rather they put the win and loss streaks before people's names, and a 0 for first game, so teams would look like this.
W3
W2
W1
W1
L2
L1
L1
L4
I'm basing that on people w/ the lowest score losing the most or just entering. If that is the case then we would be able to see if the system is balanced. If instead we got this
W5
W4
W4
W3
L2
L2
L3
L6
Then we would know that system was broken as well. I want to see something that makes sense to my brain. Or be told something that makes sense if I can't see it. B/c 20.20.20.18 destroying 16.14.13.12 tells me it's broken, whatever it is.
@rjejr it depends on the ranking of the opposition. If you're team, let's say, all C+ and the team you beat are all C- then you are rewarded less points then if you defeat team with equivalent ranking. You're right, they should explain the exact method employed.
Was lookinng forward to this since the Direct in May. -_- Bad E3, no SplatFest, how can this get any worse!?!
I was literally shaking with anger reading this article. Tears formed in my eyes and my fists were clenched. This was actually unbelievable.
Now, I'm 15 years old and this was, without a doubt, the worst bit of news I've ever read in my life. It's clear that Nintendo is not just done with the Wii U but done with the company. There is no recovering from a something this bad. They'll have a next SplatFest, but people will ignore it after remembering this.
I loved this company and put my heart and soul into dedicating my gaming life to them. But now, I have nothing. I'm an empty shell.
@rjejr
Yeah that happen to me I just logged off and went into another match because I just couldn't compete... But hey it's completion..... You gotta fight through it.... Buying better gear helped me a lot... Expensive but worth it..
Also, I haven't even done the solo campaign because I'm enjoying. The multiplayer battles...
The ranked battles seem to be distributed by rank... Did anybody experience anything different?
Do you get any gear from completing he solo missions?
Ranked battles feels like the equivalent to a drug or gambling addiction. I've been dragging through work the past couple of weeks because it's kept me up till 3am trying to recoup lost points or getting a high from winning. Last night was weird - after spending a week of bouncing between C+ and B-, I finally broke through and went on like an 8 game winning streak and blasted to 80 points as a B rank. Then the illuminati intervened...at bluefin tuna I kept getting pitted against a team with a sniper and a jet squelcher who were making easy pickings of the two aero spray guys on my team. This happened like three straight matches. Frustrated, I kept wondering when the sniper would be on my team (bluefin is ideal for snipers because of the verticality and high visibility). Finally, I get paired with the sniper and an ink brush guy...but we were switched to the claustrophobic underpass level and, now, was pitted against the two aerospray and jet squelcher. We lost because the aerospray works well in the underpass. This went on for an hour, I was set up with the most I'll-equipped teammates for that level. We would bounce back to bluefin and I would be against the sniper. Then, back to the underpass I would have the sniper on my team against two aerospray people. Fortunately, I left the lobby at B, with 70 points but, I felt they were trying every possible way to screw me over. All in all ranked battles had made me improve my game drastically which makes all the more rewarding when you level up.
@Boidoh You care way too much about this kind of stuff if that is your reaction.
Dang! I was looking forward to this!
Regardless I'm happy that the team are fixing this issue as soon as they could. Probably a technical issue at the most that shouldn't take too long to fix. The fact that it postponed the Splatfest is a little disappointing but at least we get a working one. Best part is that we probably wont get this again!
@Koopa-King I was parodying another post someone made around E3 time. I think Alex made a video on it. It was pure comedy.
Ah my mistake. My apologies
Good I'm busy this weekend
I'm actually glad they're postponing it for personal reasons, because right now I'm on vacation with the family in a cabin with super inconsistent internet (I brought my Wii U just in case I needed to try though). Hopefully they'll hold the next SplatFest after I get back home....
@rjejr
Level means nothing. I can get to lv 20 without winning a single match if I play enough and sometimes a low lv team will beat a higher one.
Regarding Splatfest it is not the end of the world. They are cancelling and fixing it instead of releasing a mess and I am sure they waited until now to tell us because they thought they could fix it on time but could not.
Kudos for the better than normal spelling
Wow, Nintendo is having a bad week. First they fail E3 and piss off gamers by announcing some crappy games that are insults to fans of the series, then Regie ironically bashes VR while trying to push Wii U which is a failed tablet controller console, and now they've completely screwed up the Splatoon event. Glad I only rented that overpriced ripoff game.
@sinalefa - Don't confuse - "may not mean anything" with "does mean something". You can't say levels don't mean anything, b/c they do. I saw 1 guy start at level 1 and whip thru several games in a row being the high scorer on the winning team each time, he was level 4 by the time I left. I watched my son start at level 1, after watching me play for several hours, be one of the best on his team as well, mostly level 4, 5 and 6 players. So yes, there are exceptions to the rule. I've seen level 20 players be almost totally useless. So it isn't an exact science, but I feel like levels still mean something. For one, while you can stink and still get to level 20, it means you had to play for a long time to get there. And I bet if you write down the levels of every team and their win loss records, I'd bet over the course of a couple of hours of playing the higher levels teams would win more than the lower teams. It's the law of averages, and on average the higher level players will be better.
But mor eimportanly, adn I always try to mention this but people always seem to miss it - it's the number that people see. When baseball and football fans argue about which team is better their Win-Loss record is alwasy the first thing that comes up. Normal people don't discuss strength of schedule and team BA and ERA and point differential, unless your the college bowl championship computer. And nobody likes that computer.
When Spaltoon shows people in the lobby and after the match they always have their level # first. If that level # isn't important why is it the first thing I see? If it doesn't matter, Nintnedo shouldn't show it. It's an unnecessary distraction from an otherwise awesome game.
@Blastcorp64 - "You're right, they should explain the exact method employed."
Thanks for replying, that makes sense. Would be better if they just split up the teams before the match better though and had a standard scoring policy. Maybe someday.
@arrmixer - There are 5 bosses. After the 3rd boss you get what many people think is a really good weapon the aerospray RG. After the final boss you get gear that has 2 sub slots each, but by the time I beat it I already had mostly 3 slot gear. It is very fun though, I highly recommend it, world 4 is the best. I did hate the final boss very very much, I don't like dieing and replaying levels from the beginning that much.
@rjejr
I see it like a Gamerscore. It is common to assume a person with a high one is very good, but could just mean doing menial tasks to get achievements.
And level is there also for bragging rights. Again, playing a lot not always means being good at a game.Ranked matches is generally where you go expecting equally skilled opponents.
@rjejr
Thanks for tip! I need I new weapon so I'll have a go at it then.
I'll get practicing
So they are fixing those issues, that's good...been having more trouble playing Turf War. The issue seems to be affecting Splat Zones now, so yeah.
@rjejr If you responded to me like that face to face, well, you wouldn't.
Behave yourself, manners go a long way little man.
@rjejr
"Callie or Marie"
Implying that that would even be close.
Was this in the uk?
@fed0ra7 - ""Callie or Marie"
Implying that that would even be close."
Well, I bet it would be closer than "rice or bread" in Japan. Really, what racist moron even came up w/ that idea, and what bigger morn approved it?
@HappyMaskedGuy - "If you responded to me like that face to face, well, you wouldn't.
Behave yourself, manners go a long way little man."
Responded how? Accurately? Factually? Correctly? Chuck full of information? You asked a question and I answered it. I didn't curse, use vulgarity, insult your mother or your manhood.
But threatening people and name calling is OK?
If you can't communicate properly with other people without resorting to insults and threats perhaps next time you have a question you should asked Siri?
I still think their matchmaking needs some improvement. I've been through 4 matches straight where we lost and i was the highest scoring player of the team.
@rjejr I appreciate your answering my question- my point simply being that in person, you wouldn't have chosen to answer said question in a manner which would be deemed by most people as rude. If you can't see that from reading your own words then I don't know.
I never threatened you. And I called you little, because you chose to respond in a unnecessarily sarcastic manner. That's your doing mate, not mine.
And I asked the question because it's hard enough getting any Splatoon info for me. I'm busy enough, and Nintendo Life can sometimes be vague, especially surrounding UK info. Look on the comments section- I'm not the only one who was left confused.
I'm sure you would only like to be talked to in a polite way if you were misinformed or misunderstood something? This has nothing to do with threats to manhoods or mothers. If you had responded to me like that in person?
I'd probably just walk away wondering what your problem was. I said you wouldn't, because talking in a comments forum sometimes help people forget that manners still count.
Hope that clears things up.
@rjejr Actually, bread is becoming big in Japanese culture. As of recent years, they have been consuming more bread and less rice. The Splatfest choices wouldn't be that uneven.
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