History ScrappyMechanic / Splatoon

* The disregard for player skill in Turf War, combined with the fact that players whochoose to continue are kept in the same room both in Turf War and in Ranked/Anarchy Battle[[note]]This is also the case in X Battle, though not as obviously; if players chose to continue, they are just as likely to be paired with their prior opponents if they also decide to continue,despite any possible power difference[[/note]], alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons (prioritized over skill difference) in all modes, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably indirectly favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win are more likely to be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

* Not taking into account player skill in Turf War, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room there and in Ranked/Anarchy Battle[[note]]And in X Battle, though not as apparent, if players chose to continue they are just as likely to be paired with their prior opponents if they also decide to continue (despite any possible power difference)[[/note]], alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons (taking precedence over difference in skill) in all modes, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably indirectly favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win are more likely to be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.
* The only way to significantly increase your X/Splatfest power (or Glicko 2/MMR rating, however you want to call it) is by "battling players with (considerably) ''higher'' power levels (than yours)", however, that is ''completely'' out of your control contrary to what the game might want you to believe and much more often than not, if your X/Splatfest power is just not at the ''very bottom'', instead of pairing players with higher power levels than yours as it should, the matchmaking will much more frequently pair you with players of ''lower'' or only ''very slightly'' higher, leading you to possibly barely win any power but still being able to lose a lot (even though your power isn't the greatest in the first place). This can happen even in the calculation matches as well so if you won most matches but your power is still low, this is why. You'd be forgiven for thinking this is due to players near your level not playing at the time you are but it can also still happen even when there are players with considerably higher powers playing at the same time. This problem happens in all games with the Power levels used in the Splatfest Pro and X Rank/Battle modes.
** ''Splatoon 3'' initially only changed X Battle so that it uses a best of 3 system like Anarchy Battle, if you succeed you're warranted to get at least 10 points but if you fail you're warranted to lose at least 10 points, however, this was not quite a solution instead being more of a band-aid, as how the matchmaking handled player matching had not been altered in any form.
** A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, the developers tried to partially address this by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing an X Battle series. Now the minimum amount of power that can be won/lost is based on your win/loss ratio during them and matchmaking is altered so players with power levels lower than those on the high-end of the standings are no longer able to be matched together, unlike all prior seasons, where all players could be matched together and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high but only win 10 points. While you can still lose ''a lot'' of power after the update (and more than before overall, because you can lose as much as you can win), this change at least prevents players from only winning 10 points when winning all three matches as was the case in prior seasons and ''Splatoon 2'' (where you could even win 0 points after winning an X Battle).

* All multiplayer matches now use peer-to-peer connection, completely separate from Nintendo's servers. This creates lag between players; such severely weakened the canopies of all Brella-class weapons before the 4.0.0 update; and if the host disconnects, the connection goes haywire when moving to another host, often creating more unintentional disconnects -- which are counted as losses anyway.

** Fighting a King Salmonid rewards the player with fish scales that can be exchanged for items at the reward exchange counter, and you get scales win or lose, though winning naturally nets you a bit more. What attracts ire is that there are three separate types of scales, bronze being the most common and gold being the rarest. Silver and ''especially'' gold scales are {{Rare Random Drop}}s; they're weighted to drop more frequently at higher hazard levels but far from guaranteed, meaning there's a chance that a team that manages to complete an Xtrawave at Eggsecutive VP might see mostly bronze with a paltry amount of silver, while another team may be lucky enough to receive gold scales despite wiping, running out of time or fighting the boss at a lower rank. Combine this with how hard the Xtrawave is to get to (itself randomly occurring after beating all three standard waves) and Cohozuna being an absolute DamageSpongeBoss that's hard to defeat under the time limit (much less with the 30 spare seconds needed for maximum scale payout), and collecting enough silver and gold scales to the Grizzco shop's full inventory can feel like a LuckBasedMission.

* Unlike ''Splatoon 2, ''Splatoon 3'''s Ranking system doesn't take into account your team's probability of winning[[note]]usually calculated via the difference between Glicko 2 power levels/MMR of your team and the enemy team)[[/note]] and award rewards (more increments to fill the rank bar/more rank points) depending on how likely you were to win a match. This means that if you manage to win a highly unlikely CurbStompBattle all you will win is just as much as if you won a highly likely to win battle. In the same way, if you were defeated on a highly unlikely to win match despite your best efforts, you will be punished just as harshly.

** Unlike ''Splatoon 2, ''Splatoon 3'''s Ranking system doesn't take into account your team's probability of winning (usually calculated via the difference between Glicko 2 power levels/MMR of your team and the enemy team) and award rewards (more increments to fill the rank bar/more rank points) depending on how likely you were to win a match. This means that if you manage to win a highly unlikely CurbStompBattle all you will win is just as much as if you won a highly likely to win battle. In the same way, if you were defeated on a highly unlikely to win match despite your best efforts, you will be punished just as harshly.

* When one team has substantially more paint (the scoring advantage) in Turf War than the other team, a "Danger!" indicator will appear next to the losing team's icons in the HUD. This warns the respective team of their disadvantage, which is a useful mechanic in case someone uses a flank route to dive into their enemy's side. However, many of the maps in ''Splatoon 3'' are so simple that the indicator does little more than hammer in the obvious losing state, making it much more frustrating.

** Mirror matches in particular became the most universally hated aspect of Splatfest, to the point many player would rather wait for literal hours for a real match than play a series of mirror matches. Because Splatfest centers around the idea of Turf Wars over the CavemenVsAstronautsDebate and that clout is only earned through actual matches, many players feel demoralized that they were unable to contribute to their teams because RNG keeps putting them into mirror matches instead of the battles that count. It also makes the popular team the most undesirable team because they have a higher chance of mirror matches. Many have demanded Nintendo to either cut mirror matches entirely or at least make them worth something despite potential balance problems in Splatfest point system.

** Mirror matches in particular became the most universally hated aspect of Splatfest, to the point many player would rather wait for literal hours for a real match than play a series of mirror matches. Because Splatfest centers around the idea of Turf Wars over the CavemenVsAstronautsDebate and that clout is only earned through actual matches, many players feel demoralized that they were unable to contribute to their teams because RNG keeps putting them into mirror matches instead of the battles that count. It also makes the popular team the most undesirable team because they have a higher chance of mirror matches. Many demanded Nintendo to either cut mirror matches entirely or at least make them worth something despite potential balance problems in Splatfest point system.

* Whenever a team wins a x10/100/333 match, it's broadcasted to everyone playing with no option to turn it off. This can be extremely demoralizing if you just got done suffering a CurbStompBattle or you won a 10x battle while one of the enemy teams takes home a 333x at that exact moment, making your multiplier win feel like a ConsolationPrize at best. Many players often choose to button-mash out of the lobby room and get to a new match in order to not bare the annoyance of knowing your team took a big loss.

* When it was first released, Splattercolor Screen's [[InterfaceScrew colorblinding mechanic]] immediately faced strong backlash from players for turning the visuals painfully bright on certain stages, with some neurodivergent players finding the combination of the sudden color shift and unsettling staticky splashing sounds resulted in borderline SensoryAbuse. The mechanic was so hated it led to discussion of banning the Special in competitive environments — something unprecedented for the series— with many Anarchy Battle players choosing basically any other weapon out of courtesy. An emergency fix pushed in late December altered the Screen's effects to lower the brightness of the colors in addition to the saturation, which is generally agreed to have fixed its most glaring issues.

* Not taking into account player skill in Turf War, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room there and in Anarchy Battle[[note]]And in X Battle, though not as apparent, if players chose to continue they are just as likely to be paired with their prior opponents if they also decide to continue (despite any possible power difference)[[/note]], alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons (taking precedence over difference in skill) in all modes, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably indirectly favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win are more likely to be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

** Disconnection in general is annoying, since one team being down a player will probably decide the outcome of the match on its own. In ''3'', if the disconnect happens early enough, the entire match is aborted and none of the remaining players are penalized, though it has a very significant drawback of its own.
* If multiple players in a room choose to start another game immediately, they will be kept in the same room in Salmon Run and PVP Turf War and Anarchy Battle (series). This hampers skill-based matchmaking and can allow skilled players to be held back by less skilled teammates.

* Not taking into account player skill in Turf War, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room there and in Anarchy Battle (series), alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons (taking precedence over difference in skill) in all modes, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably indirectly favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win are more likely to be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

* The Anti Frustration Measure ''Splatoon 3'' introduced of ending the match early if there's a DC is generally good and does its job well for the most part...except it has a very significant drawback too, the game will ''always'' end the match in draw as long someone [=DC=]s during the first minute. Now, think about this scenario: In a Ranked Battle, one team pushes the objective to single digits during the first minute, leading by many points over the other team, and a sly player in the losing team, knowing their team is very unlikely to win, rage quits the match to end it in a draw to also rob the winning team out of their highly likely victory out of pure spite. Needless to say this can be ''extremely'' unfair to the winning team, and can happen rather frequently.

** Matchmaking attempts to sort groups of eight players into teams with similar distributions of weapon ranges, so if enough players have redundant long-range or flanking-oriented weapons, the match will end up with an awkward situation where one team is going have more long-ranged/short-ranged weapons than the other (another much more uneven distribution can happen when there ''are'' enough long-ranged/short-ranged weapons, see below). This also heavily restricts the number of combinations of players, making gaps in skill between teams more likely to be repeated.

* If multiple players in a room choose to start another game immediately, they will be kept in the same room. This hampers skill-based matchmaking in Salmon Run and non-competitive PVP (i.e. Turf War), and in the case of the former mode, allows skilled players to be held back from higher ranks by less skilled teammates.

* Not taking into account player skill in Turf War alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons (taking precedence over difference in skill) in all modes, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win may be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

* The Splattercolor Screen's [[InterfaceScrew colorblinding mechanic]] immediately faced strong backlash from players for turning the visuals painfully bright on certain stages, with some neurodivergent players finding the combination of the sudden color shift and unsettling staticky splashing sounds resulted in borderline SensoryAbuse. The mechanic is so hated it led to a widespread agreement to stop using the Special, with many Anarchy Battle players choosing basically any other weapon out of courtesy to their randomly-matched opponents, and the community-led [=SendouQ=] matchmaking system allowing players to opt-out of having to fight Splattercolor Screen.

** A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, the developers tried to partially address this by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing an X Battle series. Now the minimum amount of power that can be won/lost is based on your win/loss ratio during them and matchmaking is altered so players with power levels lower than those on the high-end of the standings are no longer able to be matched together, unlike all prior seasons, where all players could be matched together and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high but only win 10 points. While you can still lose ''a lot'' of power after the update (and more than before overall, because you can lose as much as you can win), this change at least prevents players from only winning 10 points when winning all three matches as was the case in prior seasons and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' (where you could even win 0 points after winning an X Battle).

* The game is one of the few games, no less a first-party game, to disallow backing up saves to cloud with the Nintendo Switch Online service. While this is most certainly in order to prevent SaveScumming for the sake of preserving ranks and League Battle ratings, it's unclear why at least the save data for multiplayer stats (such as level, gold, Super Sea Snails, weapon/gear purchases, and progress in single-player modes) couldn't be stored online, like other games such as ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker2''. In fact, ''VideoGame/Splatoon3'' does exactly this -- too bad that Nintendo never updated ''Splatoon 2'' to do so.

** A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, the developers tried to partially address this by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing an X Battle series. Now the minimum amount of power that can be won/lost is based on your win/loss ratio during them and matchmaking is altered so players with power levels lower than those on the high-end of the standings will no longer able be matched together, unlike all prior seasons, where all players could be matched together and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high but only win 10 points. While you can still lose ''a lot'' of power after the update (and more than before overall, because you can lose as much as you can win), this change at least prevents players from only winning 10 points when winning all three matches as was the case in prior seasons and ''VideoGame/Splatoon2'' (where you could even win 0 points after winning an X Battle).

** A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, this was somewhat addressed to an extent by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing an X Battle series, now the minimum amount of power that can be won/lost is based on your win/loss ratio during them. And matchmaking is altered so players with power levels lower than those on the high-end of the standings will no longer able be matched together, unlike all prior seasons, where all players could be matched together and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high but only win 10 points. After the update you can still lose ''a lot'' of power but now this change at least prevents players with power levels not that high from only winning 10 points after winning all three matches.

* The Splattercolor Screen's [[InterfaceScrew colorblinding mechanic]] immediately faced strong backlash from players for turning the visuals painfully bright on certain stages. Some neurodivergent players even found the combination of the sudden color shift and unsettling staticky splashing sounds resulted in borderline SensoryAbuse, which led to high-level community competitive members considering an unprecedented ban on the Special in their privately-ran matches.

* Turf War and Anarchy Open matchmaking will pair both solo players against teams of friends who queued up together. Because of how friend queuing has changed (if you create a room for friends to join beforehand instead of "dropping in" on a match in progress, you'll always stay on the same team as your friends), it's always strategically advantageous to play with friends, leaving those who prefer to play on their own at a constant disadvantage.

* Not taking into account player skill in Turf War alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons in all modes, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room, causes the games' matchmaking to questionably favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win may be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

* Matchmaking in Turf War can pair players of all levels together despite any possible skill difference, [[https://youtu.be/5VsCQkdj650?t=251 even a new level 1 player can easily get paired against an experienced 99* player]]. Not taking into account player skill alongside other factors such as flawed distribution of weapons[[note]]in all modes, combined with the fact that when players choose to continue are kept in the same room in Turf War[[/note]] unintentionally causes the games' matchmaking to questionably favor upsets, which means that players unlikely to win may be paired together more often, contributing to the notorious losing streaks mentioned in other examples.

** ''Splatoon 3'' initially only changed X Battle so that it uses a best of 3 system like Anarchy Battle, if you succeed you're warranted to get at least 10 points but if you fail you're warranted to lose at least 10 points, however, this was not quite a solution instead being more of a band-aid, as how the matchmaking handled player matching had not been altered in any form. A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, this was somewhat addressed to an extent by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing an X Battle series, making it based on both what your X Power was before the series and your win/loss ratio during them, with players with power levels lower than those on high-end of the standings also no longer being able to be matched together[[note]]Unlike all prior seasons, where even though the game tried to pair players of similar power levels, all players could be matched together regardless and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of Power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high.[[/note]]. After the update there's at the very least a clear range of how much X Power can change after a series, and it is no longer be possible to lose a lot of power all at once.

** ''Splatoon 3'' initially only changed X Battle so that it uses a best of 3 system like Anarchy Battle, if you succeed you're warranted to get at least 10 points but if you fail you're warranted to lose at least 10 points, however, this was not quite a solution instead being more of a band-aid, as how the matchmaking handled player matching had not been altered in any form. A year after the introduction of the mode in ''3'', on Chill Season 2023, this was somewhat addressed to an extent by altering how much X Power is gained/lost after finishing a X Battle series, making it based on both what your X Power was before the series and your win/loss ratio during them, with players with power levels lower than those on high-end of the standings also no longer being able to be matched together[[note]]Unlike all prior seasons, where even though the game tried to pair players of similar power levels, all players could be matched together regardless and the only thing certain after finishing an X Battle series was that you could either win or lose 10 power points after winning or losing three matches, but depending on your opponents' power, you could lose ''a lot'' of Power (even hundreds) even if you power was not that high.[[/note]]. After the update there's at the very least a clear range of how much X Power can change after a session, and it is no longer be possible to lose a lot of power all at once.