Either Splatoon 3 is Too Competitive, or I'm a Loser

I'm not exactly the best Splatoon player ever, but I wouldn't say I'm bad at the game. I recently hit S rank somehow, and I'm not doing too good there. However, most people don't get to S rank in the first place, so the accomplishment of hitting it is quite good. In ranked battles, it makes sense why they would be harder. But I also noticed that in turf war, battles were also much harder than I remember them being. It just felt like everyone was trying harder than before (which there is nothing wrong with trying).

I assumed this difficulty was due to my rank and level. After all, it would make sense to be placed with people around my skill level. But I started to realize that maybe this game was much more competitive than I thought it was after 2 things.

The first thing was watching my younger sister play. She isn't a gamer, so as a result her skill level isn't that good. She started from a new account, yet everyone kept kicking her butt. When you're new to a game, and especially if you don't play many games in the first place, it would make sense, but this trend continued. Even as she got better at the game, she only did slightly better in battles. She was being matched with players that had S rank badges on their Splashtag. I'm not saying every match was bad, but a lot were like this.

The other thing that made me realize it was going back to Splatoon 1 and Splatoon 2. It feels like there is a completely different attitude there than in Splatoon 3.

Splatoon 1 has always had a different culture around it. As it was the first game in the series, it was the most different. The maps felt more like maps than arenas, and people were playing for fun. I'm not saying people didn't play to win, but it was definitely easier, especially for new people. People were also nicer (sometimes), with things like squid parties happening. Even currently, Splatoon 1 still has that feel, especially because you need to mod your Wii U to even play online^[1].

Splatoon 2 is also somewhat like that, although it feels more like people are trying to win in that game. With that said, nobody is trying too hard. Although the state the game is in kinda sucks, there is a lot of fun to be had. There isn't much to say, it's just fun.

I think one of the things that makes Splatoon 3 feel much less fair is that you can't see other people's ranks. The only way to show skill is through badges. You can't see people's level or anything. I don't understand why this change was made in the first place. Not even a player's level is shown, which indicates playtime instead of skill.

I'm not saying Splatoon 3 is a bad game, it's really fun. But I miss when people would actually ink the base instead of immediately rushing to the center.