Disconnects:
Poor NetCode or Rage Quits
Unlike Splatoon 2, which used Nintendo’s older NEX backend, Splatoon 3 uses Nintendo’s proprietary NPLN services through gRPC for matchmaking. Once connected through Nintendo’s proprietary peer-to-peer network library, PIA, consoles exchange gameplay packets directly over UDP. Because each player’s connection affects the session, high latency or packet loss from one console can contribute to visible lag, de-sync or disconnections during a match.
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If one or more players disconnect after the first 60 seconds of a Turf War or Splatfest battle, the match will continue. However, in ranked modes the disconnect timer is changed to the first 30 seconds as of version 11.2.0. In either situation, the match will not count as a loss for the losing team.​​
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Since Splatoon has skill based matchmaking (SBMM), we can make a hypothetical scenario to better illustrate the impact disconnects can affect a match.
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Below is a hypothetical scenario where each player in the lobby has an MMR of 1500. As players on one team disconnect, the MMR gap between the two teams increases, lowering that team’s probability of winning the match:
Number of Disconnects | MMR Difference | Higher Team Win Chance | Lower Team Win Chance |
|---|---|---|---|
4 | 0% (Game Ends) | 0% (Game Ends) |
This hypothetical scenario isn’t perfect. In real games, you might lose your strongest or weakest player, or a player filling an important role such as: a frontline slayer, a painter, or backline anchor. Regardless of who disconnects, the scenario illustrates how quickly a match can become lopsided, though not technically impossible to win, because of poor connections or rage quits.
Turf War:
Inflated New Player MMR
Because of how the game calculates new player's matchmaking rank (MMR), the game often puts new players into high skill lobbies and predicts the game will have a fair output.
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In the match below, the average skill level on both sides is fairly the equal: 1840 MMR vs 1819 MMR. Therefore, the chance for either team to win is an almost even split of 53% for Team Alpha or 47% for Team Bravo to win the game.​
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Team Alpha's Individual MMR:
Heavy Splatling 2107.0 MMR, Rapid Blaster Pro WNT-R 1720.7 MMR, Order Shot Replica 1691.0 MMR, REEF-LUX 450 MIL-K 1839.7 MMR.
Team Bravo's Individual MMR:
Aerospray MG 1736.2 MMR, Splattershot Jr (New Player) 2000.0 MMR, Ballpoint 1850.8 MMR, Tri-Stringer 1687.8 MMR
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Because the new player has an inflated MMR of 2000, by simply having Splatoon 2 save data, the reality of the match is unfair. Remember, 2000 Turf War MMR is similar to that of a Top 10 player in X Rank.
In the game below, the the new player splatted one enemy and got splatted 13 times. The overall team got wiped out 14 times.
Turf War:
Fair Skill. Unfair Paint Output.
Unlike X Battles in version 11.1.0, Turf War never considers Weapon Category nor Weapon Range when matchmaking. Ironically, Turf War doesn't look at the Paint Output either.
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In the match below, the average skill level on both sides is fairly the equal: 1819 MMR vs 1809 MMR. Therefore, the chance for either team to win is an almost even split of 51% for Team Alpha or 49% for Team Bravo to win the game.
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Team Alpha's comp: Bulbz Tri-Stringer, Custom Blaster, Tentatek Splattershot and Tri-Slosher ASH-N
​Team Bravo's comp: 1 N-ZAP '89, 1 Goo Tuber and 2 E-liter 4K.
The reality of this match is lopsided because the Team Bravo's paint output is much worse than Team Alpha's paint output leading to Team Alpha being able to make or take space easier and faster than Team Bravo.
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