Salmon Run 1: Endgame

Well, things have been moving quite a bit these days. It was looking like I had already retired from Salmon Run, then I came back, and now they announced its return in Splatoon 3, which means now would actually be the best time to take an extended break. Except...I'm going to delay it a bit still, simply because I already had some "plans" before the big news from Nintendo and I don't want to entirely throw them away. Game's too much fun and stopping immediately doesn't feel right. I fully understand that I'm probably not gonna get any big PBs anymore at this point but that's fine, it's not like that would change anything.


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+ Community Overfishing Sessions +
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Okay, so basically the main reason why I'm sort of back in the first place is the recent golden rotation. Got invited to play in that and actually put in some effort to derust a little before it happened. It was pretty good and fun (except for the part where we had a clean single-night 200 seed and scored 188 instead, what's new), to the extent that I would like at least *some* more. I'm looking at having a scheduled overfishing session roughly once per week (worst case once per 2 weeks if scheduling itself is as hard as expected). The players: not fixed, pretty much everyone up to the task. I will (have to) go out of my way and finally message various players. (This can go the other way around too, by the way: If you happen to read this and would really like to overfish at least one time with me before I'm gone till Splatoon 3, just shoot me a quick message and I will figure out a spot for you.) Talking to other players has forever been the single hardest part for me, please have mercy! I believe that all of this being a confirmed limited-time thing without any expectations or hopes of longevity should make it easier to handle.

I will do this for about 1 and a half months. The last rotation I'm playing will be my birthday rotation (more on that in the next section). While all of that is going on, I will also make sure to not completely rust again by playing every other rotation in Freelance for some hours. I want to play as well as I can for the players I'm inviting, obviously. And that is really all I have to say about this here.


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+ The Finale: Birthday Challenge(s) +
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31 March, the most meaningless day in the whole year, is blessed with a rotation that isn't obviously broken but just comfy to play (Carbon, Blaster, Mini, Splatterscope on Polaris). I want to make this my last Salmon Run rotation in Splatoon 2 as of now. Let's meme it up with some team challenges for good measure. These are on the table:

~ no specials
~ no revives
~ 3p69 (Player with a predetermined weapon submerges at start of the wave and then the other 3 have to clear it without that player, no disconnects to retain full HLM quota, which is, yes, 69.)
~ 3v1 (Similar but more spice involved -- 3 players try to win as normal, the 4th sabotages the whole thing in any way they deem most effective. The saboteur could be rotated but I could also imagine inviting a fixed supervillain to make this a real challenge for the team.)
~ princess 999

Any of them pique your interest? DM me! If there end up being exactly 3 players interested and up to the task, we can make it a full 400-999 challenge run. If there are (significantly) more than 3, we will either rotate players on the day and leave it at that or just spread the event across multiple rotations in one way or another.


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+ Conclusion/Closing/Whatever +
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I have always enjoyed many different video games. That and having a full-time job to pay my bills rarely goes well with absolute dedication for a single game. Some may know that I have played competitive Pokémon for more than a whole decade -- various championship titles included --, but I eventually stopped when it became too much of a forced grind, where you essentially needed to be on top of things for the whole damn year just to make it to Worlds. And that was, at that point, nothing special anymore, because everyone who puts in the hours and money probably makes it to Worlds. Back to Salmon Run, well the thing is, I have tried to commit multiple times, and I faced setback after setback, which made it harder and harder to get what I actually wanted. I will of course check out Splatoon 3 on day one just like everyone else, and then we will see what happens and whether I can somehow manage to catch up simply by starting fresh. In an ideal world we get many new interested and capable players in Europe, for things have been rather stagnant over here for a while, but realistically speaking...eh, I don't know, who exactly would emerge from the depths of nothingness because of Splatoon 3 when they didn't care much about Splatoon 2 in the first place?

There is one more interesting thing that I would like to try after quitting SR1 and before SR2 arrives, and that is speedrunning my latest favorite game. I have never before done a speedrun of anything ever, and sure as heck it would be helpful for overfishing to have that experience. Overfishing is very similar to a co-op speedrun, except instead of the clock you're racing the Golden Egg score. Oh, and that speedgame for me would be Hades in the any-heat category. Good times are under 10 minutes in-game time (record times are under 6-8 depending on weapon) and there is neither button mashing nor overbearing menuing, just a fuckton of RNG that can add a few minutes to the run if you're unlucky.

See you next job, gamers.