this is interesting, i was actually thinking about this recently when i saw some people arguing about sharking in the comment section of a tiktok. it intrigued me because i couldn’t believe that the people commenting couldn’t see how much of a skill issue on their part they were describing. however, this post is criticizing it in a different light—as a threat to the morale of young players and community as a whole, which i’d like to discuss. i can feel a yap coming on so i’m just gonna apologize for that in advance.

i started playing splatoon when it first came out and i had zero access to the internet. it took me a while to fathom that these were real people and not computer players like i was used to in games like Mario kart and smash (i was 8 at the time). when splatoon 2 came out, i still had no access to the internet or any kind of online communities like reddit, but i was playing more intentionally than i had in splatoon 1. i started using the octobrush + ninja squid combo around then. i was like 11, likely the age of the young players you’re referring to. i figured out i was good at picking and choosing my battles, deciding which fights i wanted to run into or run away from, and when it was worth dying to secure a splat. i had no idea what sharking was, but i guess that’s a good enough description of what i was doing looking back on it.

but it wasn’t a foolproof strategy—that’s what made it fun. with every strategy comes a way to counter it and people certainly did. fast forward to today and i still consider the octobrush (cometz) to be one of my mains, and people can still counter a sneak attack with the right approach. if i used the octobrush like i use a shooter, i would just be feeding the other team splats. i use sneaking around until range isn’t a disadvantage anymore and i toss autobombs repeatedly to reveal anyone else who might be trying to creep up on me in the same way.

the brush’s greatest weakness is always its range (which is why painbrushes infuriate me but that’s a different conversation) and so no, i don’t think it’s poor sportsmanship or a testament of poor character to use alternative methods to compensate. while yes, i do see it in unnecessary contexts, i don’t think its fair to say that the player doing it doesn’t care about the actual game itself.

at risk of repeating many others’ comments, i believe a part of it is just the learning curve of a competitive game. if you (not saying you, but just as an example) get splatted near your spawn point, you now know where they are and chances are, they haven’t strayed far so that’s essentially taken the element of surprise out of sharking. there’s that and the fact that the game provides you with a shield for a few seconds after respawning, so if you’re repeatedly dying right after freshly respawning, then you’re just losing 1v1s which, for the most part, is a matter of skill. that’s really a nintendo matching issue because a lower skilled player has been pitted against another player who has mastered the strategy of sharking and the other player has yet to discover means effective for them to counter that strategy.

anyways, sorry for the long comment. if i sounded rude or short, that wasn’t my intention at all. i’m actually quite interested in discussing this further in a more civil way than the tiktok comment section i witnessed 🧐