What No One Tells You About EVP 999 in Salmon Run - Splatoon 3

Since there seems to be a lot of comments about checkpoints and time. The whole point I am trying to make is that instead of bashing your head against the wall for 11 hours which is unhealthy - it's much better to instead train and try to get better on whatever rank so when you are actually ready to go for EVP it will take only 3 - 3 hours for 2 days instead of 6 - 6 hours and lots of suffering. The reason I don't support checkpoints is that as harsh as it sounds, most players are not yet ready for EVP as Nintendo designed it as of now. Which is fine - the game is only 3 months old and it's hard, even though a lot don't want to admit how hard it is. So changing the difficulty with checkpoints to the current level of experience the community has is simply a rushed bandaid fix that will only reduce the long-term quality of Salmon Run in order to help people reach EVP 999 early - which is pretty pointless anyway, it has no real meaning. Instead implementing better tutorials and ways to actually practice Waves such as Grillers of Glowflies that help people train and practice will overall improve the experience and skill of everyone AND THEN it's a good time to evaluate if and how many checkpoints should be added.

Yeah, I realized quickly that time is the biggest problem with getting to 999. Not to mention that fact that a bad comm error can count as a loss dropping you down 20 points. The fact that there's no checkpoints at all and it resets to 40 every shift is just frankly absurd, kudos to anyone who manages to actually pull it off

I feel like a small change they could do would be having it so that if you defeat a king salmon you rank up by 30-40 points instead of just 20. It would make it so that your rewarded for doing well against it and offsets the time it takes away from rounds that would allow you to rank up

"Salmon run has always been a fun mode" Famous last words.

The biggest problem I've had for EVP 999 is time. I know I can reach it. I've reached 800 playing solo multiple times. I've beaten rounds cleanly on up to 320% (just barely missed max hazard, rip) But, because I have a 9-5, the only time I can try is on a weekend, and I need to wait for a weekend that has a strong rotation, and I need to pour the entire weekend into the attempt. And not only that, but the attempt itself is just exhausting. By the time you're getting close to the high ranks, you've been playing for so long that you start to play worse due to fatigue.

I don't think I could disagree more strongly about EVP being worse for having checkpoints. I work a full-time job, and it is just outright impossible for me to even try for EVP 999 because of the absurd time requirements. The worst part about every shift is that until I manage to get up to about EVP 150, I am constantly matched with terrible players (unless I stay up super late, past around midnight EST, where the player quality dramatically increases). By the time I'm at EVP 200ish, it becomes significantly easier to win, and I stop having teams of three players who have less than 500 Power Eggs in three rounds (or my recent game where we lost in round 2 with two players under 100 Power Eggs). Just making the checkpoints farther apart than what you get naturally getting both superbonuses is probably enough to deter most of the bad players.

I became one of the first 4 or 5 NA people to get all 3 Gold map badges and I gotta say, SR Is a whole lot of fun. It’s pretty much just mode awareness and weapon experience to reach such a high rank. Understand the rotation and what weapons are better for Shredding enemies fast, which ones are painters, or which ones are Boss killers etc. I feel like understanding your role is one of the most important tips to getting 999. Regards to taking bosses down, I personally only think 3 of them are the biggest threats. Big Shots, Stingers, and Fly Fish. Take them down as soon as you can if you see one. Be smart about it, don’t just throw yourself into taking one down hahah As well as that, only try to meet the Quota and survive. Do not put more eggs in because that puts you and your teamates to die. You don’t gain any more rank points if you overfill the quota. And the most important tip I have, is to PAINT 90% OF EVERY WALL YOU SEE. Trust me, it will make surviving so much more easier and or escaping. Around 850 is pretty much boss after boss and you need the walls painted to have more movement. And please, lure your bosses to the basket. Stop kiling Maws by the shore, thank you. Hope this helps !

I feel there should at least be one checkpoint at 500 given almost no one has 11 hours of free time, that way it’s high enough bad players can’t easily get into it, and gives a halfway mark giving plenty extra time save

Checkpoints are definitely needed to make the badges more realistic for a normal player without 40 hours to kill, it was much better having them in splatoon 2. But I think the best way to go about it would be to save your scores for each map instead. That way the badges do mean something, but instead of showing you have no life they will show that you are good enough to get to 999, considering that in itself is a very difficult task even without the time crunch.

I personally think the checkpoint should work like Profresh did in Splat 2. You get checkpoints every 100 and 400 is the max that you will checkpoint at, so every rotation people need to earn 600 to make it to 999, instead of 960 points. That would still make 999 be a prestigious achievement, but not a massive time sink that many people don't have in their day to day lives, particularly because it's not just about having the time in your life, it's also about the fact that playing Salmon Run for so many hours on end will drain your stamina fast and you will likely need to take a break, lest you start playing worse because of exhaustion. For example, my max so far has been 300 while Freelancing and it took a while to get there. I kept trying to play to reach 400 but I was so mentally exhausted at that point that I started being an anchor to my team and dropped back to 220 in just a few matches. There's also another reason I wish EVP had checkpoints: I consider my skill level to comfortably be able to take me to 200 on any map, but many people on EVP that I freelance with on every rotation reset clearly don't go that high. When I reach 150-200 I start getting matched with people who feel like they're at my level, but before that, Freelance at 40 VP is a massive crapshoot that can easily put me back into Pro+3 depending on what teammates I get. I want freelancing to feel more fair. VP rank needs checkpoints because people playing at 40 rank are much more likely to not play SR as well as people who reach 200 or 400.

By the way, getting a disconnection error, even on Wave 3, makes you lose 40 points not 20. I can confirm because my team literally won the third wave and then it disconnected and I lost 40 points.

On the topic of checkpoints, Splatoon 2 had checkpoints in the old Profreshional ranks: 0-95 reset to 40 100 - 195 reset to 100 200 - 295 reset to 200 3xx to 300 and 400+ to 400 Doesn't sound unreasonable for VP to have similar checkpoints. The X-factor is the badges. Since you earn a badge at 200, then can't have a checkpoint until you at least have the base badge, but once you have it, then you should be allowed to reset to 200 when rotating into that stage instead of 40. Gives you a little bit of a buffer for a stage you already earned the base badge for. Difficulty aside, however, the biggest problem I have with Salmon Run (the mode I played Splatoon 2 for) is that Splatoon 3 really doesn't have any rewards for playing. You can't get cash anymore and chunks aren't exactly all that exciting to get. Further, it's hard to get a GrizzCo item with 3 slots on it now as they only have as many slots as they have chunks now. Further, they created a grind with Cohozuna and the scales, for which they are extremely stingy giving out anything over bronze. On top of that, spawn the damn boss. I've had 10 straight fails in a row, a full meter for now 5 full shifts, why the fxxx did he not spawn on my next clear? That's what pisses me off more than anything.

In my honest opinion, you are probably THE MOST helpful channel I’ve seen when it comes to Salmon Run. Your guides & tips have helped me out the most. Watching your channel has made me actually have fun in Salmon Run. Whereas before, I would get too panicked and stressed and never play it. The more I watch your videos, the more I want to play it. Keep up the excellent work!!

one thing that's a huge issue that you hadn't ended up considering is that a lot of players are on tabletop mode, so every 2 hours of grinding is followed by 3 hours of charging. thus it becomes over 24 hours, and accounting for a normal sleep pattern that is literally impossible. thus I think some form of checkpoint system is fully needed since the idea of being skill capped based on the device you use is a bit awful

I get your point that the overarching issue is that ranking up is too easy- but I hate that when I get up to Exec Vp 200,400 etc people actually know how to play and it becomes fun again- but every 2 days I’m thrusted back into the hellscape of new players who managed to grind their way up and do not even vaguely belong there. I shoukdnt have to grind back to my skill level every new rotation. I should just be there.

I think a good solution would be adding something like a win streak feature to SR, making it much quicker to gain points if you can win rounds consistently, maybe +5 pts per consecutive win. Probably lock the feature behind EVP 99 as well to prevent people being carried with streaks so easily

I think both rank up exams and checkpoints at those exams is a good idea. It would allow a test of knowledge for those who are prepared, and prevent those who aren't ready from getting into higher ranks. It kind of sucks when you get a Glowflies wave and you die in 5 seconds because someone just got into VP and doesn't know any strats

I just did 999 on hydroplant yesterday, I can say that you should try to stay with good coworkers and leave when your coworkers are not that good, I think that the wildcard rotations are more fun since you’re not always playing the same weapons and the grizzco weapons are extremely useful later on. Also having coworkers on lower points than you to reduce the hazard level is a good option as well. Also taking breaks is something that helped me.

I reached P3 and now back to ProFresh. The amount of people that didn't know what to do was shocking. I am starting to understand those complaints.

I'm super glad they added checkpoints in the newest update. I grinded to 999 before checkpoints were added, and can confirm it SUCKS. Having a checkpoint at 400 relieves a lot of the annoying time sink while retaining the challenge.