Why is Salmon Run Unpopular? │ Deep Talk with Hazmy - Salmon Run Splatoon 3 Next Wave 

To me it's entirely because the rewards are both a mix of being lackluster while also grindy and tedious to get. The capsules are the only thing that truly feel worth the time you need to invest. The scales system is just downright miserable and the fact that it's entirely RNG really pads out the time needed way too much.

I've never minded the lack of rewards for salmon run, but the punishments for losing a round are so harsh! Especially if a teammate drops out, I believe it shouldn't demote you, but rather make the shift 'not count' like it does in turf war if somebody drops. Having a smaller golden egg requirement doesn't change the fact that there is 1 less player available to take out those 4 flyfish around the map!

I think big run should be changed to be about community wide cooperation, similar to Plant VS Zombies Garden Warfare 2’s community events. Instead of competing for the highest score, they could make it so the community has to meet a certain goal (boss kills, king salmonid kills, etc) and along the way there are certain milestones that give better rewards. Each player also has to contribute a certain amount to earn the rewards (enough to be difficult for the last rewards, but not to hard it turns a lot of people off). Finally, it needs actual rewards for playing, not just a trophy. more scales, sea snails, or exclusive clothing would be way better and make it a lot more rewarding.

Splatfest (pvp event) - rewards everyone with currency no matter how much they participate Big Run (co-op event) - rewards people with badges and trophies based on how much better they did compared to others Yeah. Cause that makes sense.

I agree with the general consensus that the reward system needs work and if done right it would fix a lot for me personally. Maybe a "Off the Clock" mode that lets you use multiplayer gear, weapons, and drinks but doesnt increase or decrease your rank would be fun. To balance the quality of life maybe have no superbonus and or small bonuses more frequently but with smaller payouts.

I would care a lot more about Big run if they gave something like Conch shells or Super Sea snails Also I’m praying they will add a refresh button to the notification screen

My biggest grievance with the mode has always been the hard 40 resets every rotation. It just makes the whole grind worthless if I know that by the next 40 hrs, all my hard earn points are for nothing. I could tolerate a soft reset like minus 100 points per new rotation (stop when it reaches 40) but a full reset basically kills any incentive for me to improve since I have very limited time.

Also thank you Hazmy for making a more transparent video for those of us who aren't as talented at this mode and aren't particularly motivated dbto be

It’s unpopular because it requires so much skill. Regular turf and ranked modes also do, but they do not require the resilience of ranking down with randoms SO quickly and having to bounce back. It also does not have the resetting rank every rotation, which could be frustrating for players new to SR. By far, it’s my favorite thing to play on Splatoon. Love your video!!!

I think the lack of rewards after the Super Bonuses is intentional because they want you playing PVP as well. But then on the other hand, the King Salmonid Scale rewards are so absurdly overpriced and grindy that it seems like they actually do want you to spend all your time in Salmon Run?? It's wacky!

I just wished they take advantage of Big Runs more... Like just double down on the whole vibe of it and make it more eerie and spooky feeling, making the king salmons actually feel more of a threat then just smth you have to grind for, remixing more of the music in the style of ω-3, maybe even custom modes (like nighttime, mother ship ect) exclusive to only Big Runs only and ofc make the rewards more worth the countless hours of grinding.

My personal biggest issue is the inability to play Freelance without basically getting punished for it. I see lots of players failing to bring eggs to the basket or hoarding specials to the point that it costs us the match, and it’s incredibly disheartening when I’m just trying to enjoy some Salmon run. I feel like the rank up/down for matches needs to be player specific, if you’re carrying your team over quota you deserve to get rewarded for it, and conversely you shouldn’t be punished so harshly if you’re using your specials and gathering eggs while your teammates are dying at the shoreline over and over again.

i also *really* want big run to be about hitting a cumulative egg count so it would be much more about casual play instead of beating other players, bc we dont need two competitive extra modes in a majority casual mode with eggstra work coming soon

Really interesting critical discussion here, I agree with pretty much everything. Personally, the enjoyment of the game is enough for me to keep coming back since I like PvE. But I'd be lying if I said I don't get disheartened and frustrated enough to stop playing until there's a new rotation pretty often. Like, I played with a friend last night and we never got farther than wave 2 for like 5 to 7 rounds! It's fun just playing with my friends, but seeing my rank drop after a bad night just feels punishing. Without having an enticing enough reward to keep me coming back I just don't feel like touching it again until the rotation's over.

I mentioned it on Twitter and I think it deserves stating here too that random rotations imo are a big gatekeeper for Salmon Run. As someone who has been obsessed with Salmon Run since Splat 2, the bigger pool of weapons and maps in that game really helped make the mode feel less luck-based and more skill based. In Splat 3, between the worse ranking system, lower average player skill, tougher enemies and smaller pool of SR maps/weapons, it has turned one of the most engaging modes in Splatoon into what feels like the lottery

One of the things I don’t like about Big Run as much is that the event is supposed to be about PvE (or teamwork), but instead of all players working together, everyone becomes even more competitive towards each other to get the top 5% rewards. In Splafest, the rewards feel more like a “we-win” because the winning team only gets 3 extra super sea snails, and it’s a useful reward rather than just a hierarchical approval.

A good critical discussion of SR as that's probably the actual mode outside of clam blitz that has improved from Splatoon 2 counterpart.

The biggest issue with SR is Nintendo still treats it like a side mode instead of a main one. There’s so many little things they could do to make it more fun but they haven’t yet. It’s hard because on one hand I love the challenge of SR at times, it gets frustrating that due to my ‘lack’ of play time I usually get stuck in the 0-200 EVP range and can’t progress much further before the next rotation happens. I get my own skill issues are a big part of the problem, but it kinda speaks volumes that a lot of the advice people give on how to get better is more or less ‘learn to do everything and carry so you can get out if EVP hell’.

8:58 this is what I want for salmon run. Let us pick our best weapons so we can see how far we can push the mode!

It's so weird how salmon runs have more content then in 2 but it feels worse because of the lesser rewards and the grind. I really hope it gets fixed

For me it's the maps. The big run maps are perfect to me as there is plenty of room to move and all the paths of salmonoids make sense. The normal maps just feel too openly chaotic and you either sweep through boss after boss or get overrun instantly and there is nowhere to retreat to. Yes big run stages have cheese areas for glowflies and such but to me that's half the fun.

I LOVE Salmon Run & everything about it but the thing that sours me the most is that the game encourages to be higher ranks to get better scale drop rates. I'm decent enough to hang in lower EVP rank but it's not uncommon for me to demote once or even twice. And it just stings even more knowing I have to climb back up to get better rewards & some days it's just discouraging. Not to mention I have a day job & other responsibilities & hobbies so I can't dedicate tons of time to Salmon Run, pvp or when Big Run pops up. I still love the mode & Splatoon 3 in general but I think they definitely need to change some things.

Something I would absolutely love is an alternative mode for Salmon Run that's much closer to a co-op mission mode - something like story mode missions but built around having four players. Basically a short-form version of a Left 4 Dead campaign, max time of ten or fifteen minutes to work with to get through an obstacle course with objectives sprinkled along the way. Plot could be something along the lines of clearing out Salmonids who're hiding out in the city sewers after Big Run

One challenge I've had with Big Run has been that, if you're gunning for the gold trophy and know roughly how many eggs you'll need to get there, you kind of know by the end of the first wave how likely it is you'll achieve it. Lucky waves like Mudmouths or fog can help, but it's frustrating to push through the rest of the round knowing you're on pace for 100-110 rather than 130+. The last Big Run felt like having to maximize time played not to learn the waves or the stage, but to try and luck out with the right weapons, tides, and waves to get an abnormally high score.

I think the biggest problem with salmon run popularity is when first playing the mode there is next to no teamwork in solo queue, which makes it feel almost random whether you win or lose, because even if you play near perfectly a single small fry can bump you into the water and your entire team wipes because they don’t bother to revive you. This was my experience, it felt almost impossible to progress and I was just about ready to completely give up on the mode. The only reason why I didn’t is because my spouse, who actually cares about the game mode decided to get me up to profreshional and now that I actually have competent team members most of the time I can actually have fun, and it feels like my contributions matter more too.

As a chronic Salmon Runner, you pretty much took the words right out of my mouth 😂

It would be better, if you could choose between chunks and money in the gear capsules after 1200 points. That was better in Splatoon 2. Also I think the badges for each map (bronze, silver and gold) are very hard to get and there is also no reward (they could have made somthing like bronze will give you 10% more money on that map or other interesting rewards etc.).

Also, I'm so glad you made this video, I want Salmon Run to be more fun and accessible to people! All these points are things I've mentioned to my friends before, and I really hope Nintendo puts the effort in to understand and implement the things we'd love to see to make this game mode as good as it can be!

One big thing for me that you didn't address is how slowly we get new things in Salmon Run. The newest map we got was Marooner's Bay and we had that in Splatoon 2. It's very likely that we're just going to have to wait till the next season to get ANOTHER stage. Not to mention that the gear reward system has been really poor and everything that was in 2's salmon run should probably have been in 3 already to begin with

I like that last idea you added about special modes for the community, sounds like a lot of fun

it feels really bad to clear 3 waves and barely get any catalog xp. i find the mode itself extremely fun though regardless of rewards, so i suppose i'm in the minority of people there (i agree with you though there's sooo much more they could do with it). and the PVP modes stress me out more for some reason, maybe because SR is PVE.

I think a nice twist to your "bring your weapon to work" mode idea would be that every player can choose a weapon, but then the game just treats all 4 as a regular rotation and attributes one to each player randomly You would have more control over the shift and see less "bad" weapons, but it would still have the randomness which I think is one of the strengths of the mode !

Completely agree with most of this video. I actually mostly prefer Salmon Run to the other game modes in Splatoon 3 but it is completely wild how poor the rewards are in comparison. No normal experience, a cap on how long you should be playing due to capsules, the extreme rarity of scales etc. I'm glad it's a permanent mode unlike how it started in 2 but they've almost repeated that same mistake with how infrequent events are in comparison to turf war. I'm not expecting Big Run each month like SplatFest but the upcoming Eggstra work I assumed was permanent and was instantly disappointed to find out that was not the case. I was also really excited that the Grizz catalogue got an update but how slow it is and how hard it is to get the top rewards in comparison to the other in game collections is really rough. Even Tableturf is faster to get all the bits it has on offer. It's funny for me right now as I'm grinding out weapons to get all that Sheldon has to offer. This in comparison to getting scales though feels infinitely more doable. It *should* be easier to get the weapons but while doing this grind it's occurred to me how much faster the classic Splatoon grind of getting gear chunks is also faster too! I, like so many people you mention in the video and I can see in the replies pretty much give up with Salmon Run once I hit the shiny capsules. I got to EVP and felt rewarded but even I, a huge fan who plays Splatoon 3 almost every day, just could not see the point in getting to EVP999 when the rewards were not worth it. I feel that the Kings turn up fast enough, but the higher level you are the more likely you fill up the King gauge just to keep losing in the 3rd wave for a more games than it took to fill (and then probably losing to the king and getting 3 bronze scales).

Honestly I barely touched salmon run except for money and the exclusive gear until I found your channel. Even still I usually only get my super bonuses because depending on the rotation I just get far too exhausted to go further unless I have a friend with me or a random group from a pool. I honestly kinda wish there was a very super casual mode that I could do in SR. I mean I can take a gold areospray into turf war and turn off my brain and still get rewards even if I perform less than my best. Aside from demoting to go getter and just enjoying the easier level there's really nothing to make it less stressful. And if you want to perform well in events you have to at least be in Profreshional. It's also hard to get and keep a good group, whether in a pool or randoms, especially since some just disconnect after a lost. And it takes forever to get a group if you don't have friends online or higher level people in the pool willing to help you if you're a lower level. It can take like 15 minutes to get even 2 people to join an SR room when you can get a turf team in less than half that time. I love Salmon Run, I just can't mentally take the stress of the middle high levels

I think the biggest problem is the Scales and the value of earning them from the big bosses I would say that is my biggest concern/problem right now with salmon run

Personally i love the rotations of odd weapons since it forces me to play out of my comfort zone of weapons and get better with them. Also love the supposed “stressful” part, i like the clear goal of “collect x amount of eggs in this amount of time, work together and dont all die”, i feel no stress honestly, its just a game lol. But I loathe the reward system, its weird to work a shift and not get paid some coins because unlike splatoon2 we actually have places to spend it. The only reward of spending at least 6+ hours and getting to 999 is a single badge you can only get once per stage. Which is such a waste because i really like the challenge of the higher lvls but even getting there is such a chore, imo they should make it that you get more points the higher your lvl is.

Very good points raised. As much as I love Salmon Run, you're right that its odd that a co-op game mode is becoming so competitive. It means that come big run, you're sweating to get with the best team rather than playing with other people casually, which then creates a cycle where all but the best players are struggling to find people to play with. This last big run, I didn't get to play with my friends at all, and it lead to me burning out while I tried fishing for good teammates, all the while RNG was screwing us over at every turn. Another thing - One of the thing's they advertised as a new to S3 feature was a higher hazard level. So why is it so damn hard to get there? Starting at 40 EVP every rotation feels way too low, and your reward for grinding to get there is... largely more grind. Add that to the fact that you can't play above 200% in private jobs, and it just feels odd. Shooting for nines in S2 felt achieveable if hard, in S3 it just ends up feeling like they moved the goalposts.

I wonder if they make these changes sometime in the future, putting grizzco "under new management" and changing the name of the company entirely, as well as changing the goals. Going from mr grizz and lil judds greedy egg collecting to focusing more on just pushing back salmonids.

When you talked about Big Run forcing you to play the mode in a completely different way, I thought about a mode where the point REALLY is about getting as many eggs as possible, but in this mode getting splatted doesn't mean make the stage instantly fail but make the time drop, and you have to get as many eggs as possible before the timer hits 0. Something like that! Also, the bosses needs some adjustmeants in their spawns. They all seem like they have the same chance of spawning each time, but it shouldn't be the case. The harder bosses should more rarely and not spawn if the combination of bosses at the moment would make him extremely difficult to fight. Just a thought.

I enjoy salmon run but I agree with basically all of these points. Its also very difficult to rank up when playing in solo queue. I play SR fairly regularly, and I’ve never been able to get past Profresh +2. I know that’s partly a skill issue on my end, but it feels like at a certain point you need a level of team coordination that can only be filled by joining a discord or something. I’m not personally comfortable popping into a voice chat full of complete strangers just so I can get to EVP. It just feels like I’ve been stuck for months, if there were better rewards or a casual mode, SR would feel less exhausting.

I wish I could fight King salmonids more frequently- it’s hard enough to beat 3 waves on freelance, and then half of those you don’t even get an Xtrawave. King salmonids are really fun to fight and being able to encounter them more frequently would make the scant rewards hurt less.

As someone with delayed processeing ability (like, there's a short time where my brain loads like a lagging PC when it receive new information, and it's worst when there's infos everywhere) and who get easily overwhelmed I just freeze and panick sometimes and it really sucks. And still I'm here spending most of my time in the mode and skimming the channel to try survive the current Big Run

Personally, salmon run is my fave mode because it gives me a chance to play with different weapons i normally don't use in turf or anarchy. I think if they did monthly exclusive rewards then maybe people will play it more often and more golden scales!

So, I broke EVP 400 for the first time last week and now I'm hooked on SR lol. I think it's unpopular because learning how everything works is hard without looking up resources, and low level SR is so different from mid or high level SR. Once you start playing with other people who "get it" it becomes so much more fun.

I completely agree that the reward delta for modes like Eggstra Work and Big Run are completely opposing what the modes are for. Big Run especially is supposed to be seen as a rallying point for players to repel a nearby Salmonid threat, so the rewards should also go to all of the community members that participate in shifts during these events. Alternatively- have special community challenges within that time period, like splatting a certain number of King Salmonids or collecting a number of golden eggs (even if they're separate by region) in order to unlock the rewards for everyone that contributed to that number.

excellent video as always haz, i definitely agree with the points that were raised here! while i love salmon run a lot and can consistently stay in EVP (i've pushed to 500 on sockeye before and have the 200 badge for gone fission), i do think the lackluster rewards are really unfortunate. i personally feel that this is made especially noticeable since the sneak peek period is ongoing for the cryptid splatfest... like you've mentioned, you don't really get all that many catalog points from playing salmon run, despite it being a longer time sink. within the time it takes to complete a successful shift you get... idk, 500 catalog points or something? (it's so low that i can't even remember what it is). but for a similar amount of time you can get 1600-2800 catalog points from two turf war matches... and that just makes me sad, because learning salmon run and getting better at the different maps + modes is immensely gratifying to me. so it kind of feels unfortunate to me that i have to put salmon run on the backburner during sneak peek (only playing up to superbonuses) if i want to maximize the amount of conch shells that i can get. if salmon run still offered money past the superbonuses, i'd be down to make that my grinding mode for the gacha machine, but alas... i'd love to see a bring-your-own-weapon mode for salmon run though, i think that'd make more people feel comfortable with playing it? it's hard for me to say what the more "casual" people would enjoy, given that i play the mode a lot as is (compared to other people in my friend group). i think it'd offload some of the burden of having to get accustomed to several different weapons! ANYWAYS, i love splatoon 3 but it definitely has some issues with the rewards not respecting people's time... you see this not only with salmon run, but some of the badge requirements just being genuinely insane (looks at 5 star weapon freshness). thank you again for the video, you always approach these topics with such care and nuance and i always enjoy hearing what you have to say on the matter! and i would definitely love to see a brushes only event, as an inkbrush main that would make me happy 😂

HAZMY- You should make a Salmon Run Player Pet Peeves Video. Mine is the opening of Goldie Gushers when we are already past goal and less than 20 seconds left of either the first 2 waves. I just keep trying to ink and clean the area and people keep opening the sewer covers and they never have enough time to convert any of those eggs into the basket anyway before times runs out. I hated that in #2 and now the same in #3. Cheers, BIGFOOT

Those community events sound amazing!

as someone who absolutely loves salmon run, even i agree that it definitely needs to be fleshed out more, the canteen you mentioned for example, or having abilities on our slopsuits could add more to the gameplay itself. also, i grind salmon run all the time, and im still no where close to that gold banner for 333 scales... im at about 14/333 scales and im a player who goes for 999 literally every weekend. the rewards are extremely hard to get and i dont think its unrealistic to say that most casual players will never get them at all. i dont think they necessarily need to completely revamp how scales are earned but like i dunno? maybe guarantee a gold when you get the kill? even that would be great because it encourages players to learn the proper techniques to killing the kings so they can get that precious gold scale more often.

Absolutely agree with these observations! Very nice video. Additional personal thoughts _Rewards_ : "Rewards" while true would entice players into playing Salmon Run, 'better rewards enticing players would to try x more' would be true to anything. The most prominently played mode is Turf Wars, which lacks overt rewards. Still, Big Run is a huge broadcast even...but the only rewards are the usual (but with an increased frequency) and a bragging right trophy _if_ you reach a certain threshold - and not even the usual Map Badge achievements*. And you really _don't_ get a lot from King Salmonids, or a lot of options from him - even for the lower level stuff. Think about the number times you'd need to fight King Salmonids, before actually getting a _tangible_ rewards from the shops. *You can at least still get the Hazard Max Badge from Big Run, but that's not why you'd play Big Run, or a recommended time to aim for Hazard Level Max. _Difficulty_ : So, in terms of Salmon Run's difficulty, I've always taken "Hazard Level 100%" to be literal to the design intention. At 100%: -The bosses are managable to challenge one by one, -Runs can always be redeemed as long as they're played well enough, -And required knowledge required isn't near absolute on each weapon, community found practices and general playing skills. HL would also let players ease themselves into the 'normal' mode. Players IDEALLY start with very low Hazard Level numbers. With lower numbers, rewards are still plentiful, and there's very little consequence to players reducing their rank to consistently get rewards and for a less stressful experience - which the game also makes simple to manually do. The ratio of silver and gold scales inproves over rank, but even mid ranks have a fair rate. If HL 100% is the 'let's not hold anything back' (normal) value, then Hazard Levels are designed to give the player the option to go _far beyond_ - to let players challenge and push themselves. However, as a playerbase we push the limits far beyond that. Splatoon 2 had a max of 200%. Splatoon 3 decided to extend that to 333%. Eggsecutive VP (Legendary), is allowed to let the players keep going. But I fear that these levels become the standard both the game and players accidentally put on themselves collectively? Firstly, is playing for long periods to reach EVP 800 not intended for players to do, maybe, but the game certainly rewards it. Achievements are not a bad thing, but their very existence means people will push themselves (and others in their journey) to reach it. Plus the achievements are strictly for these EVP ranks. With how far in the biggest achievements are, it becomes a standard even. I think it's good the regular 'you mastered a map' is normal coloured are only at EVP 200 at least. Yet, the map badges (400+) and the Big Run Trophies have the usual 'Bronze-Silver-Gold' tier which by default make having Bronze or Silver seem inferior - pushing people towards Gold only of the 3. Secondly, veterans inviting earlier players - especially in groups - considerably boosts the rank they're used to (or first trying out). So players invited by friends can quite easily get overwhelmed. This would be especially common for modes like Big Run; "why not try this special, broadcast, one time event with me?". It would really work if the mode for...well...clearing a proposed salmonid threat was/had a 'collective community based' marker too. Kind of like Splatfests, but one team. Smash Bros Ultimate also has the solution of 'better than x players' rating. Finally, from the ranking system, players are _always_ pushed to their limits after a given amount of playing. Ranking is automatic (which is a problem in itself), and the point where one's rank stagnates is where players are consistently _barely_ making the limit and have a ratio a little better than 2:1 losses to wins (Wave 1 loses points are the reverse of winning, but Wave 3 keeps scores), unless their threshold is some ways into Eggsecutive VP. So the difficulty the game automatically assigns over time, is that of 'That's a wrap' somewhere in 3 waves being more likely than Wave 3 clears relative to the player. I think letting players push and challenge themselves is fine. I also think making it easier to rank down and harder to rank up is not a solution. However, there could be some form of option on when one can be tested on a rank-up and down, or whether players want an easier or harder time. Currently, if players want a relatively easier time, they either have to set up a private game, or actively have to select a demotion in the menu - undoing the progress they've made. I think these are the biggest reasons for the resulting stigma on Salmon Run's difficulty (aside from weapon pools and unfamiliarity/dread of using certain weapons). I don't think this is intentional to the design at all either, but even if not, I hope the game will try to present more tips to help players know what they're missing - like Grizzco _tries_ to do if you fail a wave - for any they know. I like that the design for the 'normal' (HL 100%) mode is friendly, and there's lower and higher for different players learning or mastering. I'm personally happy with a challenging mode like this though. I'm really happy there's a challenging PVE team mode that lets players push their teamwork and individual skills and weapon knowledge.

I guess I'm just one of the oddities that simply enjoys Salmon Run for what it is. I wouldn't even care if there weren't rewards. I just like playing it. 🤷 That being said, I definitely agree with everything being said. There's a number of ways to spice up the mode, and it almost makes you think it's being deliberately neglected so that people can play turf war/anarchy instead.

Your idea for monthly custom events sounds awesome, I'd be down for that

Everything about Salmon Run is to support Turf Wars! Not TableTurf or Cash for the stores. I have over 300 ability chunks for each and I only play Splatoon for Salmon Run, however I still love it and will play until I die! Sincerely, BIGFOOT

honestly just a buff to the scale reward system ALONE would improve so much, and not even a huge buff--just one that gave out scales in a more consistent and fair way rather than the semi randomized way they are currently given out. i think a balance has to be struck where the hardest-to-get cosmetics still require a grind (like the golden grizzco banner) but maybe not a 2 YEAR grind like it would probably take to get that banner. i think there's a way to make the system still tough and challenging without being straight up unfair

This is true. Salmon Run is such a steep learning curve going in but it's more fun to me. But i am also guilty of only playing for a number of hours per rotation. Partly for the rewards (because i want to be able to buy gear etc) but also if i want to learn a particular weapon or stages better. Your channel helps a lot, thank you.

First off, top notch video you definitely explained well, and put the good points the community made across. Especially with your ideas to help it! Two problems I have with it (other than the scale drops which collides with my second reason), is that it feels like the maps don't cater well to how MANY boss spawns and the high amount of variety of them. I have had games over in seconds for the amount of spawns rack up, especially when freelancing and can't communicate to members properly. Cause of course, not everyone can go onto discord and voice chat for various reasons, people should keep in mind. You could have a great shift, and then get unfair RNG with the spawns on the final round. This adds to making the mode highly exhausting. This makes maps become ones that players avoid, I now refuse to play on marooner's bay UNLESS the weapons are good enough to make it bearable (Or if Horror is in rotation, I prefer him over Coho). I been playing more splatoon 2 overall between events. My other reason is that now we have to pay copious amounts of scales for the outfits that we got for FREE in splatoon 2, just by playing. They could have had a pod in the salmon run rewards that has a chance to give you a gear piece from splatoon 2 while we have the main reward going. Cause with the current drop rates of scales and how little you can get, only those who heavy grind can even get them. It's a fun mode, but it's a side mode, and it's being pushed to be played more. I hope it gets positive adjustments, cause I like this mode, but it's tiring so I only play it on a good rotation . It just needs tweaks to help it thrive.

This was a really good talk to listen to. I'm a bit conflicted about certain things, but overall, a lot of what you talked about makes a whole lot of sense. Big Run should be more community focused rather than a competitive event. Experience should count towards your account, give more towards your catalog, and level up your weapon freshness, rewards should be better and more easily attainable than they are now. I'm a bit ashamed to say that I've overlooked a lot of these problems because there is part of me that enjoys how hard it's to clear a wave and attain some of the rewards and badges. I think that it would be a huge benifit if Salmon Run engaged to all levels of players without having skill limit thier enjoyment the mode, but I also do think there should be a space where even people at the highest levels of play an continue to challenge themselves. In terms of badges and rewards such as banners It excites me to know that there are some really difficult prizes to attain in the game. Not that I have many at the moment, but I do like the idea of showing off a shiny new badge or banner to other players signaling that I did put in a bit more time and practice than the Average Joe into this mode that I really enjoy. The problem is that some of these rewards are not simply just hard to get, but essentially unattainable. 1,000 kills to attain a gold badge of a Boss Slamonid, and 9,999,999 points in order to get the gold Grizco logo bagde is some extreme dedication to the game. I did the math, and if you got the equivalent of 1200 points (which is your standard bonuses) every single day nonstop it would take you nearly 23 years to attain that gold Grizzco badge. You're telling me that if someone played slamon run for 20 years every single day at that pace is still not worthy of having a gold bage to show off to others? I think there is a balance somewhere where casual players and pros can meet in the middle and have fun.

I am a long-time Salmon Run enjoyer and I'm already playing it as much as PvP (if not more), but I agree with your points. Sure, maybe Grizz is supposed to be a stingy boss, but there's too much grind for too little rewards. The problem with grind could be lessened to a small extent by reintroducing checkpoints for the highest rank like there was in Splatoon 2. As for more drastic changes, random conditions that would increase the reward when met sound really good. As for your community event idea, I'd really like to participate in such rotations, it sounds great!

I started playing Splatoon 2 towards the end of 2021, and I only played turf/ranked battles because I knew nothing about Salmon Run (how it works + the streamer that got me into this game didn’t play SR at all so I also wasn’t aware of this game mode). Fast forward to Splatoon 3, I got the game right after it was released and had fallen in love w Salmon Run since then. I always tell my friends that I’ve probably spent 3/4 of my 860 hrs playtime in Salmon Run because I love this game mode. I know the reward system sucks but I personally don’t mind it that much, but when there’s a bad rotation I’d only play up until 4000 pts and stop. I think being able to find a community and play Salmon Run has made it a lot more fun, and it’s nice when I get to teach different tricks to people who are new to Salmon Run and see them get their first badges in SR. I think some people just prefer PVE better than PVP and I’m kinda one of them (I do enjoy playing rank but again, I’ve definitely spent a significant amount of time in SR than in other modes). That being said, I do hope Nintendo will make adjustments to this game mode so that more people will find it fun to play.

The way how SR works: work hard, perfect your runs and performance, feels like how Japan's mentally works in general. I love SR but some rotation I don't play either since they feel to hard. And honestly, ever since I entered your pool Haz, I don't play freelance anymore. To much of a wildcard the teammates. I'd love more rewards too, but not to much. The majority of games give you domamine WAY to easy.

Fr I love salmon run but it is a constant grind for those scales and they are soo difficult to get. I love the idea for snacks for boosts before matches. I had no idea this mode was unpopular. But also I am guilty of occasionally just collecting the chain of capsule rewards from salmon run before hoping out.

This is a separate thing because I do love Salmon Run and it's my preferred game mode already. I was so excited about the pools system as a way to match up with better players without having to arrange something over discord, but I have so much trouble getting a match to start or even just to join one (the list of available games is always full of games that already started or were cancelled, and takes forever to refresh). I found that really discouraging and have been playing other games lately. Maybe it's just coincidence that I just had other games I wanted to play at the time, but it did happen right when I was feeling pretty down about that freelance situation..

The problem with freshness thing is that you could easily get freshness for weapons you don’t own and the rewards I understand

For me, it’s mostly how the rank system works. Meaning that by default, you will be losing the majority of the matches you play in Salmon Run. As in, completing wave 3 gives 20 points, but failing only deducts 0-20 points. This means an average player that “belongs at their rank” can easily win a run, then lose on wave 2, lose on wave 3, lose on wave 2, then lose on wave 3, and still stay at the same rank. Adding in Extra Waves, this means it’s easy to get “it’s a warp” constantly. Which feels really demoralizing. Combined to the problem, the tone and theme of SR also don’t help. The gamemode is not phrased as “YOU ARE DIVING INTO HELL AND YOU ARE NOT EXPECTED TO SURVIVE!” but instead “80 eggs? You fucking donkey.” This means it feels like you are constantly being told you are not achieving what you should be able to get done. Which make the game mode feel really unfun.

I just play Salmon Run more than anything else ❤ It gives us a challenge of defeating Salmonids and saving teammates while collecting enough eggs to reach the quota ❤ It's just so much fun!

8:58 you could call it something like contracting insted of freelance were you bring your own weapons and set an egg goal you think you could hit or something different like that.

I like salmon run, but I do also stop when I get all my capsules and have a shot at the boss. I think the issue is a lot of people stop when they are in danger of demotion, like I do. I think Nintendo could help by making it harder to lose your rank, like starting a rotation with 60 points instead of 40. Also, maybe allow you to choose a weapon from a small pool instead of being forced to use for weapons, some of which may not synergize well.

I'm really fortunate enough to be in the 15% of players you mentioned. I am not skilled at this game at all - I'm currently hovering around the top of Profresh +3, and my Big Run scores were bronze and silver. However, I love the allure of a game mode that you lose by default, and every match is a struggle against overwhelming odds. To me, tough but fair odds like Salmon Run actually feel better to play against than regular PvP, where the difficulty fluctuates wildly based on how skilled your opponents that match might be.

I almost exclusively play Salmon Run, yet I almost never play Splatoon 3 much anymore. This video brings up a lot of great points, and I agree with it for the most part!

Rewards: They could be WAY better and I don't just mean for the standard gameplay as I do love the enormous amount of ability chunks I have accumulated over the months playing, I mean the rewards for the events should be MUCH bigger and/or better. For Big Run as an example, we need to have conch shells, Sea Snails, but also I feel a major world event like Big Run should also have King Salmonid appear each round since this is a dangerous event threatening the city. But if they want to keep King appearances normal then the rewards for killing them should be at the very least DOUBLED, so instead of 1 golden scale you get two. There should also be gear attainable ONLY if you play Big Run, so a certain hat, cloths, or shoes will be rewarded if you play. This goes back to the lockers being the right direction but, the scale rewards are kinda a waste outside of the banners and now other gear you can trade them in for. Without an apartment room to customize, there is no way you can fit EVERY jade figure in your locker. I have so much stuff for my locker I can never show it all off. Until we get something like an apartment, all the Hotlantis and Salmon Run stuff is such a waste of space. I don't play games for rewards but I find them nice and fun, and if rewards and achievements are offered they need to be good. Customize: As you and I have said in the past, a huge drawback with these different suits is they serve no purpose outside of a different look. There are two ways we could go with this, either you have the ability to customize each slopsuit with different Salmon Run specific abilities giving positives like Main Weapon Damage up, faster movement speed, or things like being able to hold 2 eggs etc. or they could even give a slight negative with a huge positive but I think the mode can be difficult enough. The second idea would be each suit would have a set specific bonus to them so you would pick a different suit for specific reasons. The Food system would be nice too, a buff to gaining abilities and more cash, or a bonus buff to get more King Salmonids. Modes: We know about Eggstra Work, we know Big Run, but they will also be adding another mode in the future called Underground which is supposed to be a harder version of the game. I think the biggest thing people need to understand is that Salmon Run is a horde mode where you wait for the enemy to come to you, not you going to them. Personally I feel they need to add a whole new style of Salmon Run mode, or you could make it a Wave type, where you do actual missions with your teammates. Instead of just collecting eggs, it would be cool to go out and complete specific objects like Kill certain number of bosses, rescue a down helicopter and team, destroy a Salmonid base or building, maybe even have random objectives during a run that could give bonus rewards in cash. Big Run needs to take a page out of Eggstra work and be a set goal to achieve during each wave with each rank facing its own set of waves so players know what they are going up against. It isn't fair when a high level team gets two easy waves like Mothership and a low level team faces glowflies and grillers in the same Run. All n all, we need more exiting and interesting modes and waves that REALLY shake things up. With the death of "SPOILER" Mr Grizz, there really isn't a purpose to gathering golden eggs unless Lil Judd is going to be apart of Side Order or a future Expansion Campaign. I like fighting the Salmonids but it would be so much more fun to fight them in different modes and environments. Imagine how cool it would be to ACTUALLY explore new areas with Salmonids being the enemy with your team. I love playing Salmon Run, even its current state, but the ONE thing that I cannot stand at all is the match making and the level system. The difficulty of the actual modes and Waves aren't the issue for me, it is my damn teammates. We either need more levels after VP like VP +1, 2, & 3 and maybe a CEO rank, or what you have said before where each map has a rank so you don't automatically get sent to VP 40 EVERY TIME there is a rotation. It is too easy for people to get to VP where at that level I expect my teammates to know what to do for each enemy and wave type. When I have to spend half the time each wave screaming THIS WAY to my team and saving them I don't have fun playing. That very first Run on the rotation seems to determine who I get matched with.

I'm glad you brought up the grind portion. For my thoughts, I'd probably have to write an essay to describe what should be done to fix the mode. Some quick thoughts in my head, I think the ranks should spread out more, unlock at the start of the game. The concept and structure is still relatively good, it just needs to be expanded more. The fasted improvement to make IMO is EVP checkpoints, Splatoon 2 had the highest reset point at Profreshional 400, I don't know why Splatoon 3 hasn't done the same to EVP. To prevent the comment from going on too long, I have a feeling not even 1% of all salmon run players learn the functions of all weapons in the game, which is somewhat essential for the game mode's current design.

I would love a “Beginner” mode for Salmon Run. Maybe a clean-up mode. You join a lobby to clean up battlefields. You’ll have low level enemies trying to steal back the eggs, and we as player would have to destroy the enemies and take the eggs BACK. The rewards could be tweaked to match the level of difficulty for this kind of mode pretty easily. And I know this kinda defeats the purpose of Salmon Run but being able to choose our own weapons on occasion, not all the time, would be highly appreciated! 😊

I will say that salmon run, as a co-op mode is just lovely. Shoutout to Proton from the HazCo pool ❤

Another thing I thought of: I think the increased difficulty of the mode in general compared to S2 is scaring a lot of casuals off. For example, my brother used to love playing SR with me in S2, but he has a hard time handling the difficulty in S3. So now he doesn't really like playing it "for fun" as much. (I personally love the increased difficulty though!)

I tend to play salmon run more than the other modes because its nice working as a team for a change instead of taking down human players

Slamon run is amazing

Hazmy, Salmon run is all I play. I'm proud to say I just hit 1000 shifts worked! I'm not nearly as good as you, but I love it and I don't even play turf war because I'm always the number one inker (100% over 1000 each match) but I lose way too much due to poor teammates inking 400-600. Salmon Run rules and your guide is essential reading. I really appreciate all the hard work that you do analyzing Salmon Run! You are the man Hazmy!

I love salmon run but it’s hard to get motivated and play when the rotation is unbalanced and hard to use. Or in random rotation when you get two or three chargers.

Giving coin in some of the bonus capsules after the super bonus capsules, would be a nice start, and 1.5x the Treasure Scales from King encounters as well. Making it harder for the Salmonids to shut down specials would be nice, there's nothing worse than a legitimately well timed special getting shut down out of nowhere. Some kind of overhaul to the ranking system would also be nice Maybe a mode balanced for 2 players would be cool (or maybe even a 2v2 contest mode?)

I think my favorite thing about salmon run was how it didn't even launch with splatoon 2. The first rotation didn't even happen until a day or two after the game launched, which ticked everyone off.

13:22 Imagine a rotation of only Rollers with Glowflies

Salmon run is good when you have good teammates in freelance. With bad teammates I lose my sanity

I've constantly thought that evp needs some checkpoints too because the reset back to 40 every time no matter what is one of the biggest demotivators in my opinion, it just makes it so grindy but it also makes top ranks less accessible for people with limited time. I did beat max hazard level during the golden rotation and almost got 999 (got to 930 and ran out of time was pain) so i know i can manage the top levels albeit with an amazing rotation but funnily enough grinding to max hazard has also kinda burned me out on salmon run and i've barely played it since big run

The main reason I love salmon run (and have since Splatoon 2) is that the better I got at the game the better the game felt. While the Salmon Run ranking system leaves something to be desired, the PvP ranking system increases your hazard level by simply replacing more of your opponents with splash-o-matic users. As someone who has been able to clear max hazard since Splatoon 2, the more I play salmon run, the better it feels. The more I play PvP, the worse it feels as I get moved out of the “fun” ranks and into the “optimizing” ranks.

As someone who considers myself maybe on the more invested side of casual players in Salmon Run (I think my max rank was like Eggsecutive VP 300 and I don't have all of the rarest scale rewards) I think the biggest thing holding me back from playing more, aside from just having very finite Splatoon time that I also have to split between other games modes, is the randomness and difficulty of rotations. I try every rotation if I have the time, it's not that I'm against trying weapons I'm not good at, but some of them just feel so ridiculously stacked against the player that they basically feel like being back in Splatoon 2 where the mode just isn't available some of the time. If I get a rotation where I get absolutely crushed five runs in a row because the weapons are all slow and clumsy I *could* rank myself down and try to learn them on a lower difficulty, but it's much easier to just go play ranked. Coupled with the ridiculous difficulty variance between maps sometimes a rotation just feels impossible to someone at my skill level, or at least steeply uphill. I don't really know what I think the fix to that should be, I don't want to just say "the game mode should be way easier", but maybe it would be helpful if the devs curated rotations in a more balanced fashion so the weapon sets with huge weaknesses at least get put on the less punishing maps. Or maybe I would like to see Marooner's Bay and Spawning Grounds reworked to be closer to in line with the other maps difficulty-wise, but I wouldn't want to take the texture and challenge of the game mode away from players more skilled than me either. I think maybe an ideal fix more me might be a new Salmon Run mode that lets players bring their own weapons. It could be a good way to eliminate weapon rotation variance during the times when that variance is more punishing than it is interesting, and it would be another thing to do with scales. Letting people unlock more weapons and even subweapons and specials to choose from could help with making Salmon Run feel like it has more meaningful rewards as well.

I have 2 solutions to fix the scales reward problem: 1. Add scales to the list of possible bonuses, maybe like 1 silver scale every 1000 points and 1 gold every 4000 2. Add a category to redeem scales for more bonus capsules, so you could for example trade 5 bronze scales for a regular bonus capsule and get money or ability chunks OR alternatively just add a salmon run version of the capsule machine in the pvp lobby and spend like 5 bronze scales to use it I have so many bronze scales I'm never going to use as is while having nowhere near enough silver or gold to buy the things I actually want, these 2 ideas would fix that problem completely

for me the rewards aren’t that much of a big deal, i just enjoy playin the mode. what does annoy me a big deal, is the spawn of flyfish. this could so easily be fixed if they slowly moved towards the centre of the stage rather than stayin at the shore, that way it’s somewhat easier to get rid of em without dying

The only two good things about Big Run: - random weapons every time, love it - the music

I personally am really mad when there’s a rotation with a bunch of weapons that I hate or that don’t cover each other’s weaknesses. I would definitely like it if we could pick our weapons in salmon run.

I love Salmon run more than I do regular Splatoon. but at the same time, I agree with every single one of the complaints. I was all ready to farm out the goldie statue, or the 30 gold scale banner, but when I realized the difficulty of King Salmonids vs the scale drop rates, I gave up on that goal. As an Adult with a job and tons of other responsibilities, if I were to dump the time into a game, it better be worth my effort, and Salmon run really isn't. I can't even get to Hazard Max like I used to due to time constraints. I don't have 8-16 hours out of 48 in order to grind out a single rotation. So I just settle for doing my 12 capsules plus one king per rotation (if I can even manage that) and I "save up" time for Big Run.

I wish there was a training mode of sorts? Like private, but uses current rotation or your choice, and you can force events Like if you struggle with glowflies or mudmouths, you can force them to happen Want to try a king salmonid strategy? Force one to spawn I need it for glowflies, the first time I encountered it was during the big run and I was playing for about a month beforehand

I will say I believe the Pools help because at least you can get people who play more regularly and want to improve than just randoms, who range from expert to I have no idea what I'm doing and you might have to carry me.

One thing that bewilders me is that they made Salmon Run much more hardcore/grindy/competitive while making Ranked Battles *less* hardcore/grindy/competitive with how the rank system works (e.g., you can get all the way to S rank before winning 2 out of 5 matches in a series stops giving you a net profit on points) - you can get pretty highly ranked while losing the majority of your matches, which doesn't even make it more fun because people eventually hit a wall because their skill is below what is appropriate for the rank. If you were only winning 40% of matches in A rank but still got to S, then you're not going to do well in S rank but unlike in Splatoon 2, the game won't rank you down if you struggle, so people have to decide whether or not to use their 1 rank-down they get every 3 months or just struggle in an environment where they are so outskilled that they aren't learning much. Combine that with very inconsistent matchmaking even in Anarchy Series & the attempt to make Ranked less grindy/more satisfying even to casual players backfires on everyone.

I had my first chance to participate in a BIG Big Run not that long ago. Personally, I really enjoyed it since the rewards tend to be different from what I have gotten in the Splatfests. For example, I got several drink tickets that I was struggling to find elsewhere. I also got a decent amount of money that I was able to use to upgrade my gear. I think Nintendo could stand to be better in announcing Salmon Run events. I'd been trying to get in on a Big Run for a while but missed several of them on account of not knowing when they were. I do think that the scheduling is balanced well between Salmon Run events and Splatfests as the Splatfests do seem to yield more (and greater) awards. Personally, I like the lack of EXP and the diminished catalog EXP. It provides a way to grind without gaining levels. I am also trying to keep my new gear acquisition at a minimum and the catalogs seem to reward a lot of gear for advancement. I think this will be helpful in Splatfests down the road. Time will tell, I guess, and that's just my opinion.😮

I honestly thought when Big Run was first announced we'd be able to use our own weapons and not have like bomb and special limits. I do like they're randomized but it would also be fun to just use what I want

Being able to pick my own weapon would be a massive improvement I don’t even care about rewards but I’m so frustrated and discouraged by how inconsistent my performance is. Of course a game mode should be fun even if you lose. But it’s not fun to effortlessly beat kohizuna in VP rank one day but then derank all the way to +1 on the next rotation. I don’t want to blame my teammates but I also want to pull out my hair knowing I’ve easily cleared harder hazard levels before but am constantly in a position where I just can’t carry my team. I’m by no means a good player, I’m a stay at home mom who only plays rotations with weapons I’m comfortable with. Last night was my favorite map with two of my favorite weapons and yet I was only able to clear wave 3 three times in two hours and only saw kohizuna twice. Deranking to +1 and having zero idea what I could have done differently to turn all those losses into wins. Combined with the fact that I don’t get a lot of time to play and basically have to choose between ranked (where I win more and feel like my skill is more consistently translated into wins and my teammates are more likely to feel actually competent ) or salmon run, it’s hard to pick salmon run. Especially if it’s a map or weapon I don’t know how to use. I don’t have enough playtime to just “get good” with every weapon in the game. I’ve placed top 50% in both big run events.

I actually like the challenge and the random weapons, but the idea of more rewards and more game modes does sound like a good idea. It would be cool if Nintendo did different events like all brush modes as well

personally I think Big run SHOULD be every few months - Given it's an invasion - it wouldn't make sense to be more frequent other modes instead. Such as eggstra work or some other mode ideas that may occur from the devs.

The main problem for me is that it feels like it was designed to be played by a coordinated organized team, which you dont get most of the time with random que. So many bosses can overwhelm you if not killed quickly which for bosses like stinger and the missle guy are very hard to do when not discussing in a pre made group. The rewards feel tedious to get because you can easily lose rounds extremely quickly and suddenly the 6 ish game superbonus turns into 12 or 16.

I'm in the camp that absolutely loves Salmon Run, and even I'll admit that the system could use some streamlining. The biggest gripe I have with it is that it needs a more sophisticated player selection algorithm to pair people of similar ability. I can't tell you how many times I've lost a shift because one person was woefully underperforming compared to everyone else. This also happens in standard pvp too to be fair, but it's even more notorious in Salmon Run since the ranks below Profreshional and even Eggxecutive aren't that hard to simply be carried through. If the lowest performing player of a losing round performed at least 35% worse in egg retrieval and standard kills than the best player they should suffer a harsher penalty than normal in order to return them to a more appropriate hazard level faster rather than drag actually skilled players down with them. Another edit that I always hold my breath for every time the game updates is that the charge meter for King Salmonids gets raised to 10 instead of 5 to serve as a standby resevoir. King Salmonid spawns are determined by the average charge of all players, so even if your meter is maxed you may get nothing if everyone else has a 0, 1, or 2. Under these circumstances, fully cleared shifts that don't result in a King Salmonid appearance should begin to fill the meter a second time In a different color, and when King Salmonid finally does appear the meter's level should drop by 5 increments rather than empty completely so that the extra rounds waiting for a King don't feel wasted. Unlike the first problem, this would be incredibly easy for Nintendo to fix in a quality-of-life update and I really hope does in the future.