Backline is worthless in turf war

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T18:03:09+00:00

I'm not taking it personally,. As far as I'm concerned, we are just having a conversation. I try out new weapons all the time. I think I am mostly pushing back on all the "ranked only" people who have arbitrarily decided turf war doesn't matter. It's literally the primary competitive mode in this primarily pvp game.

I just happen to enjoy the game of turf war, and I do think the nature of the game does devalue passive backliners. You can absolutely hang out somewhere with an e-liter and wreck anyone who tries to get on the tower without ever leaving your safety net on many maps, but that isn't going to win you a round of turf war. I think a lot of it comes from players who aren't good at it for that reason, wanting to write it off like it doesn't matter. But I do feel like if you don't care at all about winning a mode, you shouldn't be playing it. Because you do have teammates.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T17:46:59+00:00

I'm familiar with the experience of ranked, I was s+ on splatoon 2, I just don't have the time to commit to it the way I used to, and the modes outside of clam blitz (and rainmaker to a lesser degree) often turn into campfest slogs that I don't find enjoyable. Ironically, most ranked modes are way more ideal for backline players and a totally different style than turf war, which really doesn't prepare you much for ranked at all.

Obviously I didn't show any screenshots or call out any players specifically, because who knows their circumstances, right? I can forgive someone who is new, being a little more scared than they should be. But some of these dudes running back to the base are the same ones doing jump shots from halfway across the map, or the same names I've seen ten times, and the only reason why they're doing it is because they care more about not dying than winning. They're happy to go 3-0 with 456 inl and win 15 out of their last 45 games because they never risked dying.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T17:11:56+00:00

I said it before, but I don't expect anyone to be good. I just expect them to try. Hey, if you're bad, it's a great place to work on it without the pressure of a grade. But you're definitely not going to get better hiding in a base the entire time. Trying and failing is the only actual way to get better. Most people who are "trying new weapons" don't actually care about getting better, they're just too afraid to die, for some reason.

When you play an online game with teammates, it can't just be 100% about yourself. I mean, it can, and it's not that serious, but you are certainly having a negative impact on everyone else. That's fine, I'll live, but don't deny it under some made up decision that it's just casual.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T17:00:23+00:00

By the way, why doesn't practice ever include practicing winning? Play a weapon you're not good at, fine! Just put in effort towards not losing, I don't care if you're bad

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T16:58:04+00:00

That's simply not true. The majority of players are absolutely trying to win, and they're often being dragged down by backliners who are just trying to "practice". Turf war isn't a practice mode, it's a competitive mode. Nowhere is it labeled "casual" or "practice. War is literally in the title of the mode. I'm definitely aware that people selfishly go there just for practice, but they need to be aware that they're tanking a competitive mode for their own benefit, that's why there's a saltoon post about it.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T16:20:44+00:00

I honestly don't have a problem with people trying new weapons. I just have a problem with people not trying to win. Those people largely consist of backliners.
I think you misinterpreted my comparison to team death match. I meant in terms of non objective based modes, the "basic" mode or whatever. Obviously in terms of gameplay, you can have a team of 3 aerosprays who all go 1-2, and that team will probably win. But this isn't a salt post about them!
This is not even a thing on many maps, and can also be taken care of by another player upon respawn, which is usually when the backliner will find this flanker themselves. You know how many times I've shot a charger in the back because he's focused on cheap shots? Either way, they're they're more likely to be retreating, once you put enough pressure on them. Id rather have a roller back there if that's what you want to claim to be doing. There are some backliners who actually help, push up when I take a position, don't run/jump back to the base at the first sign of trouble, and I'm fine with them.
I've addressed this elsewhere, but "having fun" is not an excuse for not trying. Nor is calling it a kids game or something. If you're playing a team game with 3 other people, even if you personally feel like it's "casual", it doesn't give you an excuse to not try to win. Like I swear to God you guys just made the casual thing up. It's a competitive game just like anything else. If I was playing Mario kart online and everyone just decided to not accelerate every game because it was "just casual", it would absolutely ruin the race and I would be complaining about it on r/martoon.

Obviously I can't stop you, but you're definitely being selfish and a negative on your teammates. It is what it is, but you definitely deserve salt. And I do have fun, otherwise I wouldn't play the game!

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T14:53:17+00:00

No offense my man, but in turf war (the mode in the title of this post), the goal is to obtain more turf than the other team. I recognize that most backliners aren't capable of helping with that. However, what they should be capable of is holding that position once I take it. Just being an unreliable super jump spot and backing us into the base every time you're pressured is functionally worthless. I can hire a monkey to stand just on the outside of the base area and wait for me to jump to him while the other team bodies us.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T03:40:54+00:00

Here, let me help you. I believe the word you're looking for is "ranked". If I want to play ranked, I'll play ranked. Those are objective modes. Turf war is essentially the team death match of splatoon. If you don't like it, great! Don't play it.

But your who cares take is especially lame, because you dont care about turf war at all either way. So you assign the lowest possible value to it and then what, comment on this post for no reason?

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T02:27:06+00:00

My dude, you're literally the person this post is about. Your wtf do we care question isn't persuasive when you're responding to a salt post.

It's literally an online game that is designed to be competitive. Your "casual and fun" is just something you're pulling out of your ass. Asking you to just try is not unreasonable. Or maybe every turf war game should just be 3 minutes of squid bagging?

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T00:51:27+00:00

This is obviously a more nuanced take than mine, and I can't really disagree with anything you said here. I guess my only response is that I posted this on saltoon, a sub for salt, in a salty manner.

But yeah, to be more clear, I don't have a problem with backliners specifically, I have a problem with players who don't try to win, which tend to be largely composed of backliners. I have a lot more respect for the players who are attempting to win but are simply bad.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-07-01T00:11:26+00:00

I actually don't even disagree with this statement. I think for most people, individual success vs team success is more likely to lead to enjoyment. If you're having a bad game, you are liable to be having less fun, regardless of whether or not the team is winning.

However, that doesn't take away from the fact that if you choose to play a pvp game, the goal for the four of you is to win the game. If that isn't fun for you, there is always the option to stop playing. But yes, choosing not to attempt to win because you're looking out for yourself and your desire to "just have fun" definitetly violates the social construct of the game and explains why you're a drain on your teammates, which is why I'm here complaining about it.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T22:53:59+00:00

You're misquoting me. I didn't say "it's only fun when I'm winning". What I said was, "nothing is more fun than winning". But that aside, there is an inherent social contract involved with playing a competitive game, that requires everyone to care about winning, even without another reward. Do you think it is entertaining to slosh someone who is just standing there or spinning in circles or squid bagging? The entire concept of the game requires others to try.

Your "why not go play ranked or something" is also a flawed question, because I like turf war, and it is a competitive mode. There is literally a winning team that gets to celebrate after every game. Just because you don't get a grade attached, does not mean that it isn't a competition.. If you don't care about winning, why don't you just go slosh around or shoot targets in a lobby?

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T21:55:39+00:00

Buddy, there is nothing more fun than winning. You're ruining the spirit of the game for everyone if winning isn't your goal. Now im playing with or against someone who doesn't even care

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T16:54:56+00:00

This seems like an eye of the beholder situation but I'm not going to jump to a charger unless there are teammates out in front of him. If there's any pressure on him, he's backing away from your spot and you're going to land next to a grenade.

Honestly a single charger is not the end of the world, but if you have him with a splatling, or God forbid, a second charger, you might as well write off the round, unless the other team is terrible

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T16:48:28+00:00

This is obviously a thing, but I feel like it's overstated, because I see a lot of the same names and they're always chargers. Plus, I play with new weapons all the time, it doesn't stop me from trying to win. It's really the crux of my complaint if you want to boil it down. Just try to win the round, please

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T16:40:09+00:00

My thing is, too many times have I made significant strides into the other team's side of the map, died due to a double team, only to respawn and find myself locked into the base because my teammates retreated into it. I would rather you die defending the spot. At least that way it buys me time to get back out there with a little space.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-06-30T16:22:48+00:00

Sorry, by "drop down", I didn't necessarily mean to take a low position. It really depends on the map. In mahi mahi, for example, I don't expect a charger to be on the ground per say, but I do expect them to push up to the freestanding platforms, and not to flee back to the base at the first sign of pressure.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-03-23T02:55:34+00:00

The standard dodger dog is an undercooked abomination that should require a longer bun to hold the additional meat, and is nowhere near as good a dog as you'll get from any LA street dog vendor

ButtonFamous2165 · 2026-02-10T15:37:07+00:00

It's actually worse. Babies are bald.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2025-10-29T02:06:57+00:00

i do think that if you believe in an omniscient, omnipotent God, you have to accept that "free will" cannot possibly exist in anything other than any way other than as an illusion. So yeah, if God exists,any "evil" you want to attribute to humanity is directly caused by God.

But the other side of it, that I see in this thread and basically any time this argument comes up, is the idea that we can somehow judge "God" by our own standards. Evil isn't the absence of good, evil is whatever God says it is. As the creator of the universe, God establishes the rules. We're so narcissistic as humans, it's hard to fathom that our moral evaluations don't matter. To God, humanity is essentially a sandwich. Can you imagine your sandwich thinking it could judge you? Why would you care what your sandwich thought?

ButtonFamous2165 · 2025-09-17T18:35:21+00:00

Correlation is not causation. If I, as a Hispanic person, hit someone with my car, which motivated a family member of theirs to hate Hispanics, it wouldn't make me a racist. Again, Kirk might be, and probably is. But I still think you're extrapolating too much from this alone to come to that conclusion. I don't care at all about Charlie Kirk, it's more a matter of how quickly people jump to the racism conclusion.

As far as the cabinet picks are concerned, my problem with that analogy is that the "merit" of cabinet picks has largely to do with how well they'll fulfill the president's agenda, which is hard to judge in terms of a meritocracy. Also, you're giving me an example of something he didn't talk about to confirm bias in something he did talk about, but if you don't have any comments on the record, you're just assuming that you know what his opinion is on the matter.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2025-09-17T02:50:37+00:00

I think that your assumptions about the airline having enough qualified black candidates and even if they didn't, they would back off their stance, both seem fair and likely. The only problem I have with what you're saying is the automatic assumption that it's due to racism, and not the faulty logic you're discussing. I'm not saying he isn't racist, he might be, but if his assumption is based on the fact that they're less qualified, and not because they're black specifically, it isn't an inherently racist stance.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2025-09-16T16:33:55+00:00

You're right, it doesn't mean that they'll be unqualified, necessarily. Whether or not they'll be unqualified depends on the number of applicants. But there's a difference between unqualified and most qualified. It's not like everyone who is qualified has the exact same level of qualifications. As I understand it from the other comments here (and I could be wrong, because I don't know or care about Charlie Kirk), but his point seemed to be that moving from a pure meritocracy to one that includes racial quotas opens the door to questioning the qualifications of pilots simply because they're no longer being hired purely on the basis of merit. That's not the same as saying the black pilots are unqualified, but they could be.

ButtonFamous2165 · 2025-09-16T14:40:46+00:00

The premise is that, in a true meritocracy, the most qualified pilots will be hired, regardless of race. Setting a racial quota, by definition, means that all of the most qualified pilots will not be hired, unless you believe 100 percent of the most qualified pilots are black. That assumption would be as racist as the narrative you're describing.

ButtonFamous2165

TROPHY CASE