What would you bring to a deserted island: equipment, grub, or fun? That was the question millions of Splatoon 3 players were asking in preparation for the latest Splatfest competition. Depending on their answer, they will then be assigned to one of three teams and compete over the weekend to determine the best option. Each team fought hard, but Shiver’s team, Team Gear, came out victorious in the end.
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This was Splatoon 3’s first official Splatfest, and I was interested to see if it addresses the issues we’ve seen in Tricolor Turf War since launch, such as questionable stage selection and how you beat the machine guns.
Tricolor Turf War is a new mode available only during the second half of Splatfest in Splatoon 3. The team that leads in points by then can compete in a Triple Turf War against two members of each losing team. The winning team has to defend an item in the center of the map, called Ultra Signal, from the losing teams that attack. If the attacking team gets the signal, it will result in a sprinkle of death that constantly paints a portion of the map with its color. Tricolor Turf War works similarly to regular Turf War battles, where the team that has covered the most territory in its ink wins.
The biggest problem is that the defending team gets the position randomly. You have the option to either continue playing regular Turf War or sign up for Tricolor Turf War. However, if your team wins, you don’t have the luxury of choosing. Whether you want to participate in Tricolor Turf War or not, it just happens by chance.
Splatoon has always had a problem with portal modes. Although it wasn’t bad in Splatoon 3 thanks to Salmon Run: Next Wave being made available all the time, the issue of some ranked modes that can only be played for certain periods of time still remains. Now you also have to deal with randomness in the new Tricolor Turf War mode if you’re a member of the winning Splatfest team. It’s not completely illogical. If only the winning team can choose not to play, it defeats the purpose of the mode, which is to give the losing teams a chance to win. But if the winning team is barely able to play the mode, that defeats the goal.
This problem was not only left unresolved, but also got worse.
Ahead of this Splatfest, the game received an update focused on bug fixes and connection errors. There was also a change to Tricolor Turf War which now makes fights less frequent if you’re on the defending team. It is now difficult for people to simply play the mode if they want to. Despite participating in Tricolor Turf battles for the majority of the second half of Splatfest, I was only able to participate in them three times.
The solution should be fairly simple: let the winning team choose which mode they want to play. There are a lot of people who still want to play Tricolor Turf War on both the winning and losing side, and by letting people queue up for a situation, the winning team won’t have to worry about getting the fight or not getting it randomly, and the losing teams can play Situation and take advantage of the opportunity to win.
Tricolor Turf War is still very lopsided and, frankly, not fun. This is especially true of the defending team for several reasons. For starters, they are almost immune to losing teams. Members of the attacking squads will be deployed in battle from above and below the map, as usual. However, the defending team appears in the middle of the map, on the left and right side. The defending team will be constantly attacked from both sides without any proper breathing space because there is no safe space in the middle of the map.
Again, the logic is there. Since Ultra Signal reproduces in the middle, it is easier for the defending team to do its job. However, this can still be achieved by extending the time to get the Ultra Signal as well as giving the winning team more breathing space in the middle of the maps. Since none of the maps really have anything like that, it would be better to bring back Shifty stations from the previous game’s Splatfests matches. This will allow developers to customize stages in a way that makes them more fair to the winning team, as well as provide an experience that makes Tricolor Turf War truly unique.
Currently, attacking teams are mainly playing 2 vs 6 Turf War. The intended way to play is to have the two attacking teams focus on eliminating the defending team to increase the probability of winning, which will make it work similar to a normal 4v4 game. However, as you’ll surely know if you’re in any of the attacking squads in Tricolor Turf War, no one quite gets that. The two attacking teams rarely work with each other to take out the defending team because they both want Ultra Signal and win the Turf War. This is not the game’s fault, but things can be done within it to fix that.
This can be fixed by making the two attacking teams unable to harm each other unless one of the members goes to Ultra Signal. Of course, the defending team will still be able to attack them normally, but now the attacking teams will have to cooperate more to stand a chance.. Both teams can work together as intended, while still trying to go Ultra Signal to ultimately win the Tricolor Turf War.
When you compete in Turf Wars during Splatfest, you earn points for your team called Clout. The amount of Clout determines not only who will take first place halfway, but also who will win overall. You get more Clout just for to share In Tricolor Turf War what do you do the win Turf war is normal, and the attacking team gets more leverage to lose than the defending team to win. It’s pretty unbalanced, to the point where the team that was number one in the middle of Splatfest’s world premiere was last in the end.
A proper solution would be to reduce the amount of Clout that attacking teams gain from Tricolor Turf Wars. Clout’s reward should be more than that of Normal Turf War battles (given the disadvantage of being a team of two players), but it should also balance more fairly with the amount earned by the defending team, which earns less for being a full team of four. The incentive to play the pattern will remain without putting the defending team at a disadvantage.
There are signs of improvement. Doom machine guns have been toned down a bit, for example, and battles have been moved to more manageable stages for the attacking squads, But overall, Tricolor Turf War isn’t much better than the first Splatfest. There are still a large number of issues that need to be addressed and fixed. Hopefully, it’s only a matter of time before Turf War becomes something people can really look forward to playing, but it still has a long way to go.
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