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Splatoon 2 - Global Testfire announced (March 24-26)

Tank Jr.

Neo Member
The purpose of the timeslots it to put the servers under as much stress as possible.

So Nintendo wants to start waiting queues? Because that's how you start waiting queues.

No, seriously, why is their stress test staggered like this? Why does Nintendo have to make it inconvenient? Bunching everybody in like that is asking to have servers overloaded so they get in the way of play time. Also, 4AM PST/7AM EST sessions? On a weekend, when most folks want to sleep in?

Is it too much to ask for a normal stress test that lasts an entire weekend, like Aion did years ago or, more recently, Overwatch?
 

MouldyK

Member
ENGLAND
Code:
March 24th
------------
 8:00PM ~  8:59PM LONDON, ENGLAND

March 25th
------------
 3:00AM ~  3:59AM LONDON, ENGLAND 
12 Noon ~ 12:59PM LONDON, ENGLAND
 8:00PM ~  8:59PM LONDON, ENGLAND

March 26th
------------
 4:00AM ~  4:59AM LONDON, ENGLAND
 1:00PM ~  1:59PM LONDON, ENGLAND

You have to calculate it a bit different as March 12th is the date PST becomes PDT, making the time difference go to 7 Hours...then March 26th is when GMT becomes BST, making the difference back to 8 hours.

Like this:

UK GAF:

Friday:

7pm-8pm
3am-4am

Saturday:

11am-12pm
7pm-8pm
4am-5am

Sunday:

12pm-1pm
 

DKL

Member
Actually, how is online gonna work in this game?

Will I run into scenarios online where I splat someone, walk two feet and then implode? Or will they actually fix that?
 
Well, that's one way to drive confidence in early adoption.

We're far enough from launch (with the game set for summer) that this might not be the only stress-test weekend, either. For the first game, there were two Testfire weekends that were both within the month of release.

I expect Arms will get a demo, though with 1v1 as the core game mode it's less in need of a timed server test like Splatoon's eight-player matches. Even the Federation Force Blast Ball demo had no trouble with 3v3 matchmaking at any given time of day, and I can't imagine the interest in Arms would be any lower.

So Nintendo wants to start waiting queues? Because that's how you start waiting queues.

No, seriously, why is their stress test staggered like this? Why does Nintendo have to make it inconvenient? Bunching everybody in like that is asking to have servers overloaded so they get in the way of play time. Also, 4AM PST/7AM EST sessions? On a weekend, when most folks want to sleep in?

Is it too much to ask for a normal stress test that lasts an entire weekend, like Aion did years ago or, more recently, Overwatch?

On the occasion that the servers were severely overloaded, in the second Testfire just before the launch of the first game, the demo window was extended.

This is also a global test for a game that elicits the greatest interest at all hours in Japan.
 
So Nintendo wants to start waiting queues? Because that's how you start waiting queues.

No, seriously, why is their stress test staggered like this? Why does Nintendo have to make it inconvenient? Bunching everybody in like that is asking to have servers overloaded so they get in the way of play time. Also, 4AM PST/7AM EST sessions? On a weekend, when most folks want to sleep in?

Is it too much to ask for a normal stress test that lasts an entire weekend, like Aion did years ago or, more recently, Overwatch?
Those are betas... To test the game itself. Not specifically server stress tests.

And what waiting queues?
 

Tank Jr.

Neo Member
On the occasion that the servers were severely overloaded, in the second Testfire just before the launch of the first game, the demo window was extended.

This is also a global test for a game that elicits the greatest interest at all hours in Japan.

So if there's precedence for overloading and interest is at all hours, why stagger it again?

Those are betas... To test the game itself. Not server stress tests.

Overwatch had two stress tests that lasted entire weekends: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/19973677795 and https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20096044/
 
So Nintendo wants to start waiting queues? Because that's how you start waiting queues.

No, seriously, why is their stress test staggered like this? Why does Nintendo have to make it inconvenient? Bunching everybody in like that is asking to have servers overloaded so they get in the way of play time. Also, 4AM PST/7AM EST sessions? On a weekend, when most folks want to sleep in?

Is it too much to ask for a normal stress test that lasts an entire weekend, like Aion did years ago or, more recently, Overwatch?

It's almost as if they're conducting a stress test...they already have a baseline of what normal conditions are like based on the first game and their experiences with that
 

shingi70

Banned
Hmm this is the weekend me and.my girlfriend are supposed to be having a three day weekend. Hmm I should be able to swing those morning times
 

Tank Jr.

Neo Member
It's almost as if they're conducting a stress test...they already have a baseline of what normal conditions are like based on the first game and their experiences with that

So instead of letting people come and go as they please at all hours throughout the weekend, they rather shove everybody through the door at the same time?

What exactly is the issue with letting these stress tests run the length of a weekend? I feel this isn't normal and it forces people who are interested to participate into stringent schedules. Why does Nintendo need to go against the norm?
 
So instead of letting people come and go as they please at all hours throughout the weekend, they rather shove everybody through the door at the same time?
Relax. It's definitely not the most ideal thing, but what can you do? They did it before and it worked well for them I guess.
 

Plum

Member
So instead of letting people come and go as they please at all hours throughout the weekend, they rather shove everybody through the door at the same time?

Hence the term "stress test." When I want to test my CPU so I know its cooling is on point I don't look at regular gaming/web browsing/etc I do everyday but boot up Prime95 and lock that it to 100% usage for a few hours, and that's what they're doing here.
 

Anteo

Member
Guys remember when they stress tested Splatoon 1 and we actually killed the servers?
They had to add an extra hour.
It was fun.

I doubt we can kill the servers this time.
 
So instead of letting people come and go as they please at all hours throughout the weekend, they rather shove everybody through the door at the same time?

They're trying to stress test the servers. Not test the server under normal conditions, but test it under extreme conditions, to get an idea how it handles, performances is affected, and what to adjust. Funneling most people into small time slots is the best way to do that, especially for a new system where the user base will still be fairly small, and only a subset of them will be participating in this anyway.

Now you could make the argument that the slots could have the opposite effect, and be a big enough inconvenience that people won't actually be able to play, but I'm assuming since it worked last time they feel it will work this time.
 

Toadsili T

Neo Member
My predictive joke post of future complaints and feedback for this Global Testfire "meta" (based on this original image that floated around the original testfire GAF thread)

The_NEW_new_meta.png


Charger buffs and general skill level of the playerbase in Splatoon 1 is gonna surprise people, at the very least.
 

Plum

Member
This is making me reconsider my choice to not get the Pro Controller at launch. The Joy-Cons on the grip look fine but whether they're OK for fast-paced shooters like Splatoon is the question.
 
OOoooooo nice, I wonder how much Rollers are gonna in this one lol! I remember the first Global Testfire for the Wii U had a ton of Rollers and many people were saying "OP, OP" because they couldn't deal with them....fun times haha. Really wanna try the Splat Dualies and it's dodge rolls! Also this will be very good advertisment for the newcomers who didn't play the first one/didn't have a Wii U at the time!
 

Tank Jr.

Neo Member
They're trying to stress test the servers. Not test the server under normal conditions, but test it under extreme conditions, to get an idea how it handles, performances is affected, and what to adjust. Funneling most people into small time slots is the best way to do that, especially for a new system where the user base will still be fairly small, and only a subset of them will be participating in this anyway.

Now you could make the argument that the slots could have the opposite effect, and be a big enough inconvenience that people won't actually be able to play, but I'm assuming since it worked last time they feel it will work this time.

I understand the intent but I think this goes into such an extreme that it'd be more along the lines of security, like they're seeing if they can withstand a DDOS attack. I don't know. It doesn't give the players time to try things out at their own pace either. I'm used to what other tests did in the past.
 

Devil

Member
If they don't fix the horrible p2p netcode which lead to terrible lag kills especially when combined with the stupid matchmaking matching you with people from the other side of the planet, I won't buy it again.

It was an absolute dealbreaker, ruining the main component of an otherwise great game. Had fun when I recently played Splatoon 2 at a preview event too, but I won't deal with such a thing again, especially not as it will become a paid service.

So I'm very excited how the stressest will handle it and I'll also wait a few weeks after release before buying it to get some community feedback.
 
So instead of letting people come and go as they please at all hours throughout the weekend, they rather shove everybody through the door at the same time?

What exactly is the issue with letting these stress tests run the length of a weekend? I feel this isn't normal and it forces people who are interested to participate into stringent schedules. Why does Nintendo need to go against the norm?

Think about it.
 
I understand the intent but I think this goes into such an extreme that it'd be more along the lines of security, like they're seeing if they can withstand a DDOS attack. I don't know. It doesn't give the players time to try things out at their own pace either. I'm used to what other tests did in the past.
Splatoon matches last like 3 minutes. You'll get plenty of time to experiment within reach hour you play.
 

Anteo

Member
If they don't fix the horrible p2p netcode which lead to terrible lag kills especially when combined with the stupid matchmaking matching you with people from the other side of the planet, I won't buy it again.

It was an absolute dealbreaker, ruining the main component of an otherwise great game. Had fun when I recently played Splatoon 2 at a preview event too, but I won't deal with such a thing again, especially not as it will become a paid service.

So I'm very excited how the stressest will handle it and I'll also wait a few weeks after release before buying it to get some community feedback.

I seriously hope they host servers for the game, we will be paying for online after all.
I cant believe I typed that. sigh.. paying for online...
 

Effect

Member
Is this cconfirmed to have a non gyro option?

Don't think they've said but the original had the option to turn gyro off. Now it is questionable because all Switch controllers have gyro built in now but makes no sense to not give the option. The game played fine without it before so I would assume there would be an option to turn it off. We'll know for sure on March 24th.
 

noshten

Member
I can't stop laughing at the thought of Splatoon clans and the idea of people taking the game too seriously.


It might not be a popular online game outside of Japan currently but there it is kinda of cultural phenomenon there. Once it releases on a handheld with spectator mode it's going to only get bigger.
When you look at the top 200 videos from last year regarding スプラトゥーン(Splatoon) on YouTube - you'd seem a pretty sizable audience. We are talking a game that came out an year ago getting a maximum of 4 million views and a minimum of 168k views in it's top 200 videos. That's not exactly a small amount of people.
There was is a thread about the big tournament Nintendo organized in Japan once a year.
 
The purpose of the timeslots it to put the servers under as much stress as possible.
Sure, that's why everyone else does it too. The servers would still get stressed to hell and back of they opened it up for 12/24 hours. There are many many games stressed tested across multiple companies that aren't limited to one hour sessions. It's stupid.
 
If they don't fix the horrible p2p netcode which lead to terrible lag kills especially when combined with the stupid matchmaking matching you with people from the other side of the planet, I won't buy it again.

It was an absolute dealbreaker, ruining the main component of an otherwise great game. Had fun when I recently played Splatoon 2 at a preview event too, but I won't deal with such a thing again, especially not as it will become a paid service.

So I'm very excited how the stressest will handle it and I'll also wait a few weeks after release before buying it to get some community feedback.

I never had any issues with the netcode. In fact, there was a thread way back where we figured out the "issues" with the netcode were actually from people who had crappy wifi, causing them to lag/drop matches at a higher frequency because they didn't meet some system ping/connection speed cutoff
 

phanphare

Banned
I understand the intent but I think this goes into such an extreme that it'd be more along the lines of security, like they're seeing if they can withstand a DDOS attack. I don't know. It doesn't give the players time to try things out at their own pace either. I'm used to what other tests did in the past.

this is how it was last time and it worked fine. it's not like you have every weapon and map available to check out.
 

Devil

Member
I never had any issues with the netcode. In fact, there was a thread way back where we figured out the "issues" with the netcode were actually from people who had crappy wifi, causing them to lag/drop matches at a higher frequency because they didn't meet some system ping/connection speed cutoff

Pls stop this right away. I never play wireless, have an excellent ping, I use the official LAN adapter, 120mbit connection, open ports, perfect experiences with other comparable games and the same console.

Still had kills and deaths 3 seconds after an encounter without any other stuff happening around. And I'm not surprised by that when half of my teammates and enemies are from Japan while I'm in Europe. That's exactly how lag kills happen when it is p2p based.

Also, if other people have a bad connection to the match, I will have a bad experience as well. It's only natural given the circumstances.
 

Malus

Member
I think I'm gonna hold out until it launches for maximum hype.

Also I refuse to be involved in the inevitable curbstomping of new players heh. Some of you guys are savages.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I understand the intent but I think this goes into such an extreme that it'd be more along the lines of security, like they're seeing if they can withstand a DDOS attack. I don't know. It doesn't give the players time to try things out at their own pace either. I'm used to what other tests did in the past.

Thats because a lot of games now aren't actually running "stress tests" or "closed betas" when they say they are - they're running demo weekends.
 

Sendou

Member
Thats because a lot of games now aren't actually running "stress tests" or "closed betas" when they say they are - they're running demo weekends.

If this was a stress test why are they holding it so close to launch of the system when the install base is still growing rapidly (or in all places consoles aren't available readily) and they refer to it as "demo" in the video?
 
If this was a stress test why are they holding it so close to launch of the system when the install base is still growing rapidly (or in all places consoles aren't available readily) and they refer to it as "demo" in the video?

Cause Splatoon 2 is close to coming out.
 
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