How Tacticooler Fixes Splatoon 3's BIGGEST Problem

[@onewingedakira]

I'm experimenting with a new style of thumbnail. Still new to all of this and learning as I go so I'd love to hear any feedback you may have so that we can work to improve them over time.

[@OSG100]

Looks great. The only issue I’d say is that the text doesn’t stand out as much as previous thumbnails

[@flz_5848]

Some of the most miserable experiences I've had in all of Splatoon was playing 3 without Cooler. Conversely, some of the most fun I've ever had in the series was playing 3 WITH Cooler. Funny how that works.

[@BigPro1123]

Not having cooler against a team with cooler feels really hard to win cause they just keep coming back. It’s great for the game if both teams have it but if one team doesn’t have it they need to work a lot harder to win.

[@crumchyboi4972]

Tacticooler singlehandedly fixed Splatoon's biggest issue... by becoming Splatoon's biggest issue Still a good special, just a little overcentralized

[@xxgamerpissxx9515]

you gotta become the villain to united everyone else ig

[@fireyocean8129]

I love Tacticooler, but... yeah, I don't like how strong it is. I don't think it should be any lower than a high tier special, but the fact it's so strong that you're basically required to have it on your team to play competitively feels pretty bad, as it limits options in more ways than one. I'd be moderately ok with it being a universal mechanic, but honestly, I'd rather it just be a special. My idea is get rid of its special saver entirely (and bring back special depletion to compensate. I think that'd be neat.) and make the QR work like regular QR works now, where it only works if you don't get a kill under the effects; mainly because even with no special saver, I think unconditional QR is too good to pass up.

[@planomania]

Alternative terminology is just 'numbers advantage' :D

[@overlordx19964]

As a former coach for Splatoon, I like your idea, but tweaks I would make for Cooler becoming a mechanic is less revolved around kills and more towards paint output/special output. Kills can still be a factor, but I would say that bar slides up for faster respawns for being a better team player, or that it at least gives you the biggest gains towards your respawn shortening, kills being second biggest, which ties into the special output

[@TheLaXandro]

5:10 I really disagree with this point. Splatoon is fundamentally built around crowd control, it is its core mechanic- the turf under your feet. Even bubbled/armored opponents can't follow you into your ink as fast as you can retreat into it, and Kraken can match your speed but has melee range so it can't reach you unless you corner yourself. Strong turf control combined with zoning tools like bombs and suppressive fire let you herd the enemy and completely invalidate almost any push, and that is the fun part of Splatoon- everything is extremely powerful, even Nova can screw you up fast, but with right tactics you can hardwall the enemy with much lesser resource expenditure yourself. It's a fast game with very powerful offensive tools, but also even more powerful defensive tools if you don't skip the setup. Tacticooler with unconditional QR breaks that balance. It's not doing anything special at first glance, it just lets you fight neutral twice in a row in quick succession. But that's what makes it STRONG. Any fight leads to loss of resources from both sides, but with Cooler, even if you don't go for stupidly ambitious plays when juiced up, you get to fight to exhaust their resources, and then (assuming you didn't win the first time), come back and kick them another time before they have a chance to recover. And that is an issue with any unconditional QR mechanic in Splat. It can't be balanced, QR just means you get to do more than the enemy, and that has defined two endgame metas already. If one side has it and other doesn't, even if it's in the moment, the other side has very little chance to not get their stuff pushed in, because enemy does more and cares less. If you give it to both sides all the time, the game just becomes too fast, with no place for more calculated defensive plays, just brute force pushes, one after another, hoping for a big score because you get a lot of attempts- which is the degeneracy Splat1 devolved into with QRSJ. 2's QR-less endgame meta was too far in the other direction, turtly and uninteractive, but that is mostly due to strong, versatile, spammable specials that it had, particularly 12-per-game Missiles that could safely overwhelm the enemy with zero fighting, and Armor that deterred you from playing neutral normally because Armor is a "whole team wins neutral" button and more often than not both sides had access to it. I think the solution is not QR, but rather toning down most of the game in general and embracing the balance of offense, defense and control. If you are too offensive, you are liable to get walled and then counterpushed with no resources to protect yourself with. If you are too defensive, you don't achieve anything because you're too slow. Fixed respawn timer for everyone at all times to prevent you from brute forcing your way, but at the same, have exclusively weaker, tool-like specials like Ink Storm and Wavebreaker, to prevent slow teams from having meaningful progress while letting them keep the purely defensive tools. A slower, more methodical, more control-heavy game, with all the same fast-paced elements we have now but all of them requiring setup and forethought to not backfire. I might be in the minority though. Some of my personal finest memories of the game is playing Splatoon 1 Moray Zones, a map-mode combo where deaths are EXTREMELY punishing and a neutral position is a stalemate where nobody advances, before people caught onto QRSJ meta. You're less trying to win, and more trying to set the enemy up for failure, while doing your best to not lose yourself. I think that kind of gameplay is Splatoon's unique strength, there is no other shooter that can boast anything close to that dynamic. You don't have to go as extreme as that example, but I do want to see splats actually matter again.

[@harmless9336]

I have thought this but have never put it into such good wording. To me what makes splatoon unique is not its speed and power but its control. The ability to take an area and hold control over that area while the pacing of the game moves around that taken area. What I dislike the most is anyone remotely around competitive insisting the game is entirely instead about speed and power to punch through any style of control. With these louder voices the game through the patches has drifted further away from control into overwhelming power, making the game just feel less special as that's what every other shooter is too. Cooler really is the biggest thing here for that because it just instantly gives players overwhelming advantage that they clearly did not equip for. Games with cooler feel less like "may the best players win" and more "may the worse players lose" with the polarizing advantages it gives.

[@dewroot5176]

In FLC's list of player roles (not wholly fixed to weapons!), skirmishing is a higher priority than slaying, actually. *Anchor:* Priority one is don't team wipe; your friends can really use the super jump spot *Skirmisher:* Engage the enemy; hold the line (Focus on not dying, using evasion, shields, and/or cover. Analogous to "power" classes in TF2, designated in the "Don't play Spy" video) *Slayer:* Get picks to destroy opposing zone control (analogous to "pick" classes in TF2) *Support/Utility:* Accelerate (synergistic aids to your teammates. Whether _zoning_ out enemies, _painting_ to help teammates' mobility advantage, or _farming_ your special, this is about spreading ink.)

[@TheOnlyWaffles]

Love this video! Makes me realize how actually crucial cooler is! Also, WOW! I really loved the editing here. Super clean and kept me engaged😁

[@BelleColonD]

Woah what's with the zzz at 5:37, I feel called out

[@EnergyBurst2]

I still remember when 3 came out and people like Chara, I believe, were saying cooler would be crazy good, then it just wasn't really used for the longest time it seemed, but I never lost faith in it since it really did feel like using it did literally everything to patch up any gear set of your whole team for a period of time in a match and I was just waiting for it to eventually become meta as I always knew it would and now we're here. Edit: I forgot to mention that I've been an Nzap 85 main in all 3 games which definitely played a part in my loyalty to/faith in cooler.

[@onewingedakira]

At the start of the game, cooler was about as strong then as it is now. iirc, we saw zap in ever game of the enter the splatlands invitational (a splatoon 3 tournament ran a few days before splatoon 3's release) and zap was used by both team on every game of the finals. Cooler was very strong but unfortunately, the early meta of splatoon 3 was very hostile to cooler since the maps were worse, zap was the only good cooler option, splash existed and respawn punisher backlines were pretty common. You were right to hold faith in zap tho since it is now, once again, one of the best weapons in the game

[@TheLaXandro]

@@onewingedakira the weapons were pretty much the same. Zap and D-Dong were there on release, Snipewriter came in Season 2, Edit wasn't there for a while but H3 can sub for it, it's a bit harder to use but about as capable. The only one that came later is Tri but it's not even good. I think it's just a very bad case of meta inertia. People saw Crab dominate and instead of asking "how can we beat Crab?" they just converged to Crab. Cooler eventually was the one to kill it, not the Crab nerfs, since the sheer pace it accelerated the game to is something Crab can't keep pace with. In turn, Cooler was brought into the meta proper by Snipewriter that could've terrorized the game from very early days, but it took over a year for some blokes to push it into the meta thanks to one of them having a hunch that it might not be worthless afterall, especially after buffs that turned it from just busted into completely busted.

[@ajmoment8091]

While debatably more complicated than just adding a new mechanic to change respawns, I honestly don't really see much of a reason they can't just tweak some numbers on gear abilities and death penalties to fix this issue. Reduce respawn time by 1-2 seconds, lower special loss from 50% to 40%, or bring back special depletion even though I don't trust Nintendo to handle that well after how they've done points for special, and change a few things about the gear system, either making it so abilities like stealth jump aren't borderline a requirement anymore so you have more gear slots to choose from, or making it so abilities like quick respawn, swim speed, and run speed stack better in lower amounts, or both. I feel like the right number tweaks of this would have the same effect as cooler, without tying it to a special weapon.

[@and_s3lkie]

Your channel is so underrated ngl. I like the qr bar concept, and I had been thinking only the same lines recently as loads of people are talking about how they want cooler as a mechanic. I've always disagreed with this as Splatoon is already so fast and changing the base stats to cooler stats would just make it too fast imo. Anyway, great vid!

[@BakedCalamari]

Yo, that quick respawn idea would be AWESOME!

[@JakoBpyroTech]

Yeah, it does sound good.

[@PickPig]

coolerless zombie comps are peak splatoon

[@onewingedakira]

Some of the most fun i've had in splatoon 3 is playing coolerless brush + tetra in tournaments. it's so fun

[@aloha8389]

Cooler encouraged mindless plays over time and is to this day a major factor to the loss of skill ceiling in the scene It’s nice that it allows variety but the entire game is dying partially because of it Players always picked the easiest route indeed but cooler gave them an excuse to do it

[@SKIN121]

your bg gameplay makes inkbrush so fun however my wrist will break if i play it mannnn

[@supremekirb]

Cool video! Would have been neat to also discuss how perma-QR was kinda a thing in S1, and how cooler being a special (meaning you need to charge it) makes it quite different to other QR implementations, but that's probably a whole discussion on its own.

[@mera450]

They should turn cooler into an entire mechanic. Like every time you die you can equip a free sub of some sort. that sounds like Fortnite reality augments ?!!!

[@onewingedakira]

That sounds more like the type of mechanic they'd make into a headgear exclusive ability. A reworked comeback perhaps? An interesting idea regardless

[@JVSTG4L4XY]

4:05 that has happened to me twice so I feel your pain (but I’ve never been in a tournament)

[@niksooxyz]

I REALLY like this video! I never even thought about how kraken, bubbler, and armor were overtuned methods to make deaths less punishing. I completely agree with your take on not wanting required specials in comps; when it comes to making cooler a mechanic in S4, I like your QR bar idea and I think a special saver bar would be helpful too. Maybe the SS bar would be full after a respawn so that you wouldn't lose as much if you died immediately, but the more times you use your special in between a death, the bar would reduce and you'd save less by the time you die next. (It might need to be independent from points for special so that it's still possible to farm special on retake.) Also, while we're on this topic, I think having stealth jump be a permanent ability would help a lot since 90% of people already dedicate a main of their gear to SJ.

[@vicctretamaj]

Combine Quick respawn and Special Saver to make them both more viable as potentially increase their effects slightly (Atleast Special savers effects)

[@harmless9336]

I see why people like cooler but I really wish for giving such stupidly great advantages it also gave a massive debuff too. Something I have wished for them to do with cooler is make it so while active it just disables all your equipped gear so it becomes more of a form change instead of just drugging up your player for a duration.

[@buzzy4227]

I think they should just slightly decrease the penalty for death across the board.

[@JVSTG4L4XY]

I think if your losing by like 20-30 points (this would most likely only work in ranked modes) you actually gain/keep your pfs (points for special)

[@Goggy.96]

having to preselect a weapon with cooler wouldnt be much of an issue if the kit system was better. and the bar mechanic would make qr sort of reduddant if it decays over timeas rq stops after 1 kill, if they were to make this a mechanic you would have to buff qr similar to s1 where it activates all the time. (I also have way too much time on my hands lmao)

[@andredoruk]

I wonder if reverting the shooter buffs from splatoon 2 would fix this issue

[@mikamikax_]

i had an idea a while ago to just maker QR a shirt exclusive ability that would always work, just 50% less potency if you got a kill during that life

[@eethyl_1827]

My problem with cooler is that it's a necessity and it makes the game feel better, but it's kind of at the expense of the cooler user, cause it just isn't that fun to use. Like, I enjoy being the paint, support, objective guy, but in S1/S2, the specials I was playing for still gave me enough of a power spike to make my own plays. With cooler, I can go for those plays, but they're less likely to succeed, and if we're already losing then the QR I get from that doesn't really do much to help. Kind of a solo q issue, but cooler in solo is just an issue in general, cause most of the time there just isn't one, or worse only 1 team has cooler and the other team just feels awful. Cause again, no one wants to use it cause it just doesn't feel good to use.

[@Swiiiitchy]

nice view, subscribed

[@existencehurts7930]

new video when?

[@onewingedakira]

whenever it's ready smh

[@hellboros2790]

Tbh i feel like cooler wouldnt be as popular if the maps werent hallways. You are kind of forced into this because of the way you get walled by certain weapons and specials. Best example is crab meta. Think cooler would be less powerful if all specials had cooldowns even after running out.