Recently, Nintendo released an update for Splatoon 3, a title which originally released over three years ago. At the time of writing, the developers are still re-running old events, but the game is in the latter half of its lifespan \u2013 it isn\u2019t receiving any \u201ctrue\u201d new content. Or so we thought! For whatever reason, Splatoon 3\u2019s 11.0.0 update makes all sorts of changes that will affect players both casual and competitive.<\/p>\n
A quick disclaimer before we begin: I\u2019m not a competitive Splatoon 3 player by any means, but I am a casual player who\u2019s played for well over 1,000 hours in this game. And even so, I can tell you that 11.0.0\u2019s changes are going to change things up significantly.<\/p>\n
Starting on the smaller side, the Stealth Jump bonus has been nerfed. Previously, Stealth Jump was run on almost every single clothing set (unless you had Inkjet as a special, in which case you ran Drop Roller instead). With this, enemies at a distance wouldn\u2019t be able to see your Super Jump spot and splat you right as you land. Especially in casual matches, long-rangers like snipers and Splatlings are very common, and without Stealth Jump, they can easily farm your landing spot and gain a big advantage. 11.0.0 makes it so that Stealth Jump reduces the speed of your Super Jump, which means it\u2019s now got a considerable weakness to deal with. Is this a little bit of a pain, given that I have Stealth Jump on every one of my kits? Yes, but in my opinion this is a good change. Now you have to think twice before slapping Stealth Jump on just anything \u2013 if you\u2019re playing a frontliner weapon like a close-range shooter, you might wind up preferring a different bonus so your Super Jump speed remains intact.<\/p>\n
Next up, this one\u2019s odd: enemies now have health bars. In Splatoon 3, Inklings and Octolings can take about 100 points of damage before they get splatted. 11.0.0 adds a health bar to allies and opponents that lasts around 3 seconds after they take damage, and disappears if they hide behind a wall or swim in their ink. Thermal Ink and Point Sensors will also reveal enemy health bars at all times, even if they\u2019re hiding in ink. This change, I\u2019m mixed on \u2013 it\u2019ll be easier to see that you\u2019re actually dealing damage to opponents, and I feel like it\u2019ll be most helpful to see how your teammates are doing rather than how close your enemies are to being splatted. It\u2019s especially helpful if you\u2019re playing with random teammates and can\u2019t communicate with them over voice chat or the like. In any case, I think it\u2019s interesting we\u2019re getting a health bar (what appears to be an important mechanic) so late into this game\u2019s life cycle. I\u2019m not sure what to make of it \u2013 is this testing for Splatoon 4 years down the line? Who knows.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the main change of the update: Flow Aura. When a player defeats a string of consecutive opponents, the player has a chance of being put into a Flow Aura state \u2013 this chance increases if the player inks a lot of turf or assists with allies (damaging an enemy that a teammate then splats). Flow Aura automatically inks the ground for you to swim it, and it also provides bonuses to run speed, swim speed, ink resistance, as well as Intensify Action (which steadies your fire when jumping and speeds up Squid Rolls and Squid Surges). This is a substantial boost, to say the least, and I can definitely see where they\u2019re going with this. But as a casual player, I think Splatoon 3\u2019s most serious flaw is spawn camping \u2013 this is especially common in Turf War, where the 3 minute timer must count down to 0 before the match ends. A lot of little things contribute to spawn camping \u2013 it\u2019s much worse on some maps than others, with Brinewater Springs and Lemuria Hub coming to mind as some of the ones I\u2019ve been spawn camped on the harshest. It\u2019s also related to matchmaking; if a team is easily spawn camping their opponents, they probably shouldn\u2019t have been matched together in the first place.\u00a0It\u2019s hard to say exactly how else Flow Aura will change the pace of the game \u2013 we\u2019ll just have to see over the coming months.<\/p>\n