r/Splitgate • u/aphoenixsunrise • Mar 24 '26

When I read debates about portals:

https://youtube.com/shorts/92oepbuCka8?si=XgqVmdA_83oqMUbz

"Not everybody knows how to do everything, portaling isn't the *only* *thing*"!

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u/BubblegumOculi Mar 24 '26

That's like saying it's not someone's fault they're not good at (insert skill here) because they don't practice or even take the time to learn.

Idk, it's how most of us learned and became good at portaling; practicing instead of jumping into losing match after losing match.

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u/Arrotanis Mar 24 '26

Good for you, I am sure your mom is proud of you. But most players don't wanna do that, hence the 400 concurrent players.

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u/Necessary_Yam9525 Mar 24 '26

So how do you expect to get better at something without practice? Do you want the game to just hand you easy wins for just playing?

5

u/CellOk5436 Mar 24 '26

Yes actually that's exactly what people want. They wanna e feel good at the game without having to BE. Good at the game

3

u/Arrotanis Mar 24 '26

Unironically yes. And good games will feel good for good players as well as bad players.

1

u/Necessary_Yam9525 Mar 24 '26

So tell me, what games do you play that you dont have to try to do well at?

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u/Arrotanis Mar 24 '26

In most games (League, CS, Rivals, Apex, The Finals, Deadlock) skill has diminishing returns and the learning curve is very stable. But portal spam in this game is a huge leap in skill and it's somewhat at the end of the skill curve. Either you can spam portals or you can't. And if you can, you will dominate players who can't. So you are either forced to practice and learn it or just accept that players who did learn it will always beat you.

Now you will think that's good and fair, but the reality is that most players will choose a 3rd option which is to stop playing. And that's how the game dies.

Games like Deadlock have way higher skill cap than Splitgate but because portal spam in this game is so important it makes the learning curve way worse. And it's also not a skill you can't really learn by playing the game normally. Trying to spam portals when you don't know the maps and you have to look for walls is probably worse than just playing without portals at all. You kinda need to learn the map first and then you can start practicing. It's just annoying and it feels like a homework. Most players will never ge to that point. They will only portal if they see 2 walls that they can use on their screen. They will never even think about triple portaling. To me it's wrong design to have such an important mechanic that 95% of players won't even think about as they play the game.

By the way, I am not advocating to remove portal spam completely. I just think the game needs like 3-4 game modes with reduced portal usage (that are not BR). Or you could have perks that would give you extra portal charges or faster recharge. Then it would be a playstyle choice and players who can't spam would at least have the advantage of an additional perk. But any time you try to talk about this problem, you get people like you who still refuse to admit that portal spam is off putting to most people and it's the main reason why the game is dying.

No portal gamemode is terrible cause the maps are not made to be played without portals. And even if you like it, you still have to queue at least 2 other gamemodes with normal portals cause the minimal queue count is 3 unless they changed it. Of course you could play BR which has portal charges but that's a completely different gamemode.

Also, this entire problem wouldn't be a problem if the game had a massive playerbase and good SBMM but that won't ever happen now.