Few questions regarding character abilities.

First off, how to make your character NOT hit runspeed? Obviously, it would be putting the runspeed higher than the normal maxspeed. But no matter HOW high I set it, he keeps hitting runspeed at a set point no matter what? Any way around it? Or is runspeed just plain broken?

Second...there's been a lot of abilities removed, some of which I can understand the reasons, but also some which makes me wonder WHY?

-Nojumpspin:
Why did this have to be FORCED into the multiability thing? You can't have a character that can spin while not going into those animations when jumping anymore, nor have a multiability character that spins while jumping. It just removes any potential GRAPHICAL options on characters.

-Waterskip:
Removing this usually had a nice physics effect on certain spins, like instead of spinning like a ball, spinning around with a sword.(maxdash 0, usually, but can still spindash while running.) The ability didn't overpower any characters, it wasn't buggy, it was just a nice barely used addon.

-Supercolor:
So...why does EVERY single super character have to be yellow now? Considering you're FORCED to have a superform now due to the match emerald system,(and yet you can't do it outside of match optionally. >>;) you're also forced to be yellow, even though your character might not be yellow in superform, or not be able to go super in the FIRST place.

-Slingitem:
I get it's abuseable, but for most of the characters that usually have weaker and slowerfire than the red ring, it sucks. Slingitem had a hell load of potential for custom abilities and weapons, and seeing it removed is a total loss. It hurts the good characters out there more than the extremely few overpowerd mostly likely unreleased characters (that won't even make it to the board nowadays due to the high quality check in the first place) who had maybe a superfast bomb ring or something.

-Endcolor:
It was there as optional thing in 1.09.4. Had absolutely NO reason to be removed whatsoever, considering ya could change beyond those 15 set colors this way, which was DARN usefull in a lot of occasions.

I dislike the removal of the other things too, although I understand the reasons. Just none of the above settings. Weird thing is how you removed all the overpowerd options, even though overpowerd characters wouldn't even make it to the forums in the first place. In the end, it hurts alot of the new good characters on the forums, since their options to be good custom characters have been strictly limited with the removal of all the handy abilities that could make them different in a non-overpowerd way to Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

Most of this I really don't feel a reason to respond to, but I'll give you the reasons for the ones that were actual design decisions instead of implementation decisions.

Super mystic sonic said:

-Supercolor:
So...why does EVERY single super character have to be yellow now? Considering you're FORCED to have a superform now due to the match emerald system,(and yet you can't do it outside of match optionally. >>;) you're also forced to be yellow, even though your character might not be yellow in superform, or not be able to go super in the FIRST place.

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Super form for characters other than Sonic is now a mechanic for the match gametype, not a gimmick for single player. What this means is that it needs to be set up in a consistent way for play reasons. All super forms are yellow so you know, just by sight, that that player is super and you should watch out for him. This is a simple visibility issue, not an issue for making your character "cool". You can still technically get around this by using Super frames, but I discourage this and still highly suggest using bright yellow for gameplay reasons.

Super mystic sonic said:

-Slingitem:
I get it's abuseable, but for most of the characters that usually have weaker and slowerfire than the red ring, it sucks. Slingitem had a hell load of potential for custom abilities and weapons, and seeing it removed is a total loss. It hurts the good characters out there more than the extremely few overpowerd mostly likely unreleased characters (that won't even make it to the board nowadays due to the high quality check in the first place) who had maybe a superfast bomb ring or something.

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This was removed for design reasons. The main reason is that firing things in single player just does not work from a gameplay perspective. Enemies in SRB2 are sitting ducks to ranged attacks, and being able to shoot completely breaks the game down, especially the bosses. Even simple, "fair" ranged attacks were completely overpowering in single player, and this is why it was removed. Sonic is a game about melee attacks.

Super mystic sonic said:

I dislike the removal of the other things too, although I understand the reasons. Just none of the above settings. Weird thing is how you removed all the overpowerd options, even though overpowerd characters wouldn't even make it to the forums in the first place. In the end, it hurts alot of the new good characters on the forums, since their options to be good custom characters have been strictly limited with the removal of all the handy abilities that could make them different in a non-overpowerd way to Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles.

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As I'm sure you guessed, a lot of these changes were specifically implemented to break SMS-style character designs. The reason is that despite your point about such overpowered characters not being releasable on the forums, it's obvious that you can release such things in other methods and they're spread via free hosts and the master server.

The goal here is to make any game a player joins that involves normal SRB2 to include fair, interesting characters. In 1.09.4 a player joining a random MS server is highly likely to join a game with something overpowered like SMS, and have a bad experience because the game is not properly balanced. Don't even TRY to tell me that a match or CTF game with 1.X SMS would be remotely balanced or fair, because it's not. We spent a large amount of time in development making sure Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles were all balanced and viable in match/ctf, and to have it invalidated on every game on the master server because of our custom character system would just ruin all that effort.

So yes, we did indeed break SMS. On purpose. I hope you're happy with your accomplishment.

If you're thinking about porting SMS to 2.0...

Don't

Besides, you realize that you were responsible for some of those changes, right?

Mystic, I'd just like to point out that slingitem wasn't always used as an Attack - you could have a character that shoots out springs that Dissapear after a moment to create a rocket jumping character, for example.

Kaysakado said:

Mystic, I'd just like to point out that slingitem wasn't always used as an Attack - you could have a character that shoots out springs that Dissapear after a moment to create a rocket jumping character, for example.

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Can't that be accomplished with other things?

I'm aware of the extra applications, Kaysakado. Removing slingitem was a hard decision to make. Instead we'd like to add the cool and interesting mechanics that are possible to do with it as double jump abilities instead of hacking them up as a fire button mechanic.

The new character system is designed to be expanded, and hopefully we can get some cool, interesting, and NOT overpowered abilities to go in there instead of the same ones we've had for years.

Kaysakado said:

you could have a character that shoots out springs that Dissapear after a moment to create a rocket jumping character, for example.

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Kayaskado, do you know that Sinkoo (Senku's inner dark form...wow) has that type of move.

Super form for characters other than Sonic is now a mechanic for the match gametype, not a gimmick for single player. What this means is that it needs to be set up in a consistent way for play reasons. All super forms are yellow so you know, just by sight, that that player is super and you should watch out for him. This is a simple visibility issue, not an issue for making your character "cool". You can still technically get around this by using Super frames, but I discourage this and still highly suggest using bright yellow for gameplay reasons.

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I think it's usually fairly obvious when someone's super. Considering the sparkles, the huge jumps and that the guy's coming going around at 100 kilometres an hour, that nearly everyone uses bright colors for superforms anyways.(Besides those maybe 3 existing wads out there that use "dark" or "darkspine" superforms) It's EXTREMELY obvious, even if not yellow.

This was removed for design reasons. The main reason is that firing things in single player just does not work from a gameplay perspective. Enemies in SRB2 are sitting ducks to ranged attacks, and being able to shoot completely breaks the game down, especially the bosses. Even simple, "fair" ranged attacks were completely overpowering in single player, and this is why it was removed. Sonic is a game about melee attacks.

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I MEANT slingitem at ITSELF, not ringslinger. Hence why I said slingitem and not slingitem&ringslinger. Ya know, using the custom fire only in match/CTF?

Considering ya didn't answer the other ones, I take it ya couldn't find a counter and just removed those things too hastily? Because, be honest...forcing nojumpspin on multiability for example was just a STUPID decision. And what about the runspeed thingy?

Super mystic sonic said:

I think it's usually fairly obvious when someone's super. Considering the sparkles, the huge jumps and that the guy's coming going around at 100 kilometres an hour, that nearly everyone uses bright colors for superforms anyways.(Besides those maybe 3 existing wads out there that use "dark" or "darkspine" superforms) It's EXTREMELY obvious, even if not yellow.

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I beg to differ. "Yellow" is probably the brightest and most obvious color in the game, and is extremely visible even in dark or otherwise hard to see areas, like underwater. If you're playing SRB2 match, and you catch a slight glimpse of bright yellow in the corner of your screen, you know EXACTLY what that is and what's going on, even if you didn't get a full look at what it was. This is the reason why Super Knuckles is yellow in SRB2. If Knuckles doesn't get to be pink when he goes Super, neither does your recolor. This change is ENTIRELY for gameplay reasons.

Super mystic sonic said:

I MEANT slingitem at ITSELF, not ringslinger. Hence why I said slingitem and not slingitem&ringslinger. Ya know, using the custom fire only in match/CTF?

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Well, then I misunderstood you. The answer on this one should be really obvious, but the reason you can't change the fire in multiplayer is because we spent ages making those 6 weapons that ARE in the game balanced. We can't let you add your own via character WAD or you'd generate massive gameplay balance issues.

Super mystic sonic said:

Considering ya didn't answer the other ones, I take it ya couldn't find a counter and just removed those things too hastily? Because, be honest...forcing nojumpspin on multiability for example was just a STUPID decision. And what about the runspeed thingy?

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The reason I said the ones that were "design" and not "implementation" is because I wasn't the person who implemented it. I can't give you a good answer as to why you're having issues with the running frames because I legitimately don't know the answer to that question. Same with why the endcolor isn't there, and other things you previously mentioned. My job in the SRB2 dev team is mainly design, which means outlining what the general plan is. For instance, in the character redesign I was responsible for outlining the system where you now select one of many options for each feature, instead of all the checkboxes and boolean variables that the 1.X character system used. What I didn't do is actually code the new system and deal with the nitty-gritty of actually implementing the changes, so I don't know the answer to a few of your questions. I can only answer questions I know the answer to. Don't assume just because I don't reply to your query that I'm ignoring your question.

I beg to differ. "Yellow" is probably the brightest and most obvious color in the game, and is extremely visible even in dark or otherwise hard to see areas, like underwater. If you're playing SRB2 match, and you catch a slight glimpse of bright yellow in the corner of your screen, you know EXACTLY what that is and what's going on, even if you didn't get a full look at what it was. This is the reason why Super Knuckles is yellow in SRB2. If Knuckles doesn't get to be pink when he goes Super, neither does your recolor. This change is ENTIRELY for gameplay reasons.

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Then at least give us the option for characters to NOT be able to go super in match. Being FORCED a superform upon you in Match sucks, since a hell load characters aren't supposed to randomly go yellow and be "super".

Well, then I misunderstood you. The answer on this one should be really obvious, but the reason you can't change the fire in multiplayer is because we spent ages making those 6 weapons that ARE in the game balanced. We can't let you add your own via character WAD or you'd generate massive gameplay balance issues.

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Nobody's ever made their fire that overpowerd, besides extremely few never released wads, nor in the forum or internet. Besides, the best you can do with it is maybe make your ring have an explosion after it hits, or make it a tad bigger, since the speed is already at it's near-fastest. And that's incase ya'd do that, which is NEVER the case. This just removes custom abilities and power-downs by slower fire, or in most other cases, just allowing the character's fire to look different than a red ring.

By the way, stop referring back to my recolor. I would've complained about waterrun, multiability without losing spin, ringslinger outside of match if that's what I was going for. I'm complaining about the things that had totally to barely no reason to be removed. I'm kind of suprised you didn't remove taunts from characters, considering how you guys usually come up with a reason "n00bs can spam it annoyingly in netplay" or something like that.

Super mystic sonic said:

Being FORCED a superform upon you in Match sucks, since a hell load characters aren't supposed to randomly go yellow and be "super".

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But what if you'd like to use a character, say, Rouge or Hinote, in match? They don't have built-in superforms. So everyone else can go super, and you can't, just because of your character preference. That's why super in match is forced.

Super mystic sonic said:

Then at least give us the option for characters to NOT be able to go super in match. Being FORCED a superform upon you in Match sucks, since a hell load characters aren't supposed to randomly go yellow and be "super".

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That's not how it works. Super is a mechanic in match. When you get all 7 emeralds and 50 rings in match, you get to go insane and beat everyone down. I don't care if you don't think your pet character should be able to do that, it's important for the gameplay in match and a player who managed to get all 7 emeralds and 50 rings on your hypothetical "no super" character would feel really let down that he couldn't use such a mechanic because the designer of his character turned the option off.

Super mystic sonic said:

Nobody's ever made their fire that overpowerd, besides extremely few never released wads, nor in the forum or internet. Besides, the best you can do with it is maybe make your ring have an explosion after it hits, or make it a tad bigger, since the speed is already at it's near-fastest. And that's incase ya'd do that, which is NEVER the case. This just removes custom abilities and power-downs by slower fire, or in most other cases, just allowing the character's fire to look different than a red ring.

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The weapons are balanced VERY specifically around their speeds, range and knockback values. We don't want you messing with them at ALL, not even a little. The visuals of all the weapons are also very important, as you can look at the opponent's fire and immediately know what weapon they're using. This kind of information is exceptionally important in match and you would lose that if you could mess with the visuals.

Super mystic sonic said:

By the way, stop referring back to my recolor. I would've complained about waterrun, multiability without losing spin, ringslinger outside of match if that's what I was going for. I'm complaining about the things that had totally to barely no reason to be removed. I'm kind of suprised you didn't remove taunts from characters, considering how you guys usually come up with a reason "n00bs can spam it annoyingly in netplay" or something like that.

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Wait, taunt is still around? One second, lemme ticket that.

SMS, how much SOCing do you do? There is a LOT more you can do with control over slingitem. Especially with the addition of A_RemoteAction into the standard game. I for one made the eggman missile in 1.09.4 drop Jetty-Syn bombs as a trail. Now if that wouldn't be gamebreaking, then I'd like to see your definition. "People don't do that" is not a reason for not making it possible to break balance, because when someone DOES, and they will given a chance, you can't do anything but retrospectively patch it. This is just removing the step where people can do so.

I think instead of removing the option to remove spinning they should've made an option called runspin that uses the run frames rather than ball frames, so that way people who can spin can still have their own jump frames.

Sure, you removed the overpowerd balance thing, great for you. Now what about the characters that actually used the abilities to be original theirselfs, not overpowerd?

All you're basically doing is just remove the option to set your game. Soon you'll remove console and options, and the ability to add wads and SOCs in the first place, 'cause it might break balance in netgames and single player. >>;

Don't you see you're removing MORE than just the few overpowerd characters? You're removing the customization in the game, for every character maker. Sure, we all love to see new levels, but those too get dang boring after a while. Running through a bunch of new levels...again, everything feeling the same 'cause ya can't customize physics, or **** around a bit outside the soon overstayed official levels and gametypes. Characters basically only have a slight difference in speed and accel, and totally boring set abilities we all know of already. There's nothing interesting about the character if ya can't do a thing about it besides make the graphics good.

If a character doesn't have an advantage the other player can't get with the official characters, it's simply boring. Yay, Sonic with a slower thok. A slightly faster Tails. Or a Knuckles without climb. Double jump? Everyone can fly besides Sonic anyways, what's the use? 'sides, the effect has already been seen a million times thanks to Wind Shield. Super Sonic float? Who'd want that if you can fly UP, or glide with nearly the same effect with slight gravity AND climb, or just be godfreaking fast with speedthok and thokdash? Swimming? So? Tails has it, and he can do it OUTSIDE the water too. Slowfall? Uhh, guys, we've got glide for that, only glide brings ya further and speeds ya up eventually, bring even climb in? Homing Attack? With a thok that's slower than Tails' runspeed? Call it the air brake next time, will ya?

Look, it doesn't have to overpowerd, but just something that's actually usefull, with other setting such as running speed, accel, spindash speed, whatsoever, tuned down to make it balanced. Due to removing all the settings, ya only removed the options to be usefull next to Sonic. Set abilities suck, there should at least be some power to screw around a little and make your custom character actually custom.

This isn't going to work in the long run.

tl;dr

The only thing people ever used those abilities for IS to be overpowered, only a certain select few have ever used them appropriately.

Super mystic sonic said:

Sure, you removed the overpowerd balance thing, great for you. Now what about the characters that actually used the abilities to be original theirselfs, not overpowerd?

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Pretty much all the good characters have no issue running on 2.X. I agree a few removals did hurt, but we can make up for that later.

Super mystic sonic said:

All you're basically doing is just remove the option to set your game. Soon you'll remove console and options, and the ability to add wads and SOCs in the first place, 'cause it might break balance in netgames and single player. >>;

Don't you see you're removing MORE than just the few overpowerd characters? You're removing the customization in the game, for every character maker. Sure, we all love to see new levels, but those too get dang boring after a while. Running through a bunch of new levels...again, everything feeling the same 'cause ya can't customize physics, or **** around a bit outside the soon overstayed official levels and gametypes. Characters basically only have a slight difference in speed and accel, and totally boring set abilities we all know of already. There's nothing interesting about the character if ya can't do a thing about it besides make the graphics good.

If a character doesn't have an advantage the other player can't get with the official characters, it's simply boring. Yay, Sonic with a slower thok. A slightly faster Tails. Or a Knuckles without climb. Double jump? Everyone can fly besides Sonic anyways, what's the use? 'sides, the effect has already been seen a million times thanks to Wind Shield. Super Sonic float? Who'd want that if you can fly UP, or glide with nearly the same effect with slight gravity AND climb, or just be godfreaking fast with speedthok and thokdash? Swimming? So? Tails has it, and he can do it OUTSIDE the water too. Slowfall? Uhh, guys, we've got glide for that, only glide brings ya further and speeds ya up eventually, bring even climb in? Homing Attack? With a thok that's slower than Tails' runspeed? Call it the air brake next time, will ya?

Look, it doesn't have to overpowerd, but just something that's actually usefull, with other setting such as running speed, accel, spindash speed, whatsoever, tuned down to make it balanced. Due to removing all the settings, ya only removed the options to be usefull next to Sonic. Set abilities suck, there should at least be some power to screw around a little and make your custom character actually custom.

This isn't going to work in the long run.

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This is a bunch of tl;dr rant, so I'm going to ignore it.

Instead, here are the design goals going forward:

* Add more abilities to the options so there's actual variety in possible characters
* Restrict character statistics so you can't set every statistic to maximum
* Fix bugs and issues in the system (such as the runspeed glitch you mentioned)

We gutted the system entirely to rebuild it from scratch. 2.0.X does not have many character options, but the basic design is what we're going to use going forward. If you don't like it, I suggest you play 1.09.4 instead.

Well, I see. Guess I'll just have to wait what improvements you'll come up with. Will be hard to make new abilities usefull and yet not easily overpowerd if abused, though.

I would still wonder why stuff like waterskip, nojumpheight and endcolor is removed, though. (I know you're not the one who knows why, but I can still wonder either how.)

Super mystic sonic said:

Well, I see. Guess I'll just have to wait what improvements you'll come up with. Will be hard to make new abilities usefull and yet not easily overpowerd if abused, though.

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The new abilities won't stack. The whole point of the new system is that there aren't a ton of abilities you can turn all to "on". New abilities would be more options you can replace the thok and spindash with. For instance, one of the ideas put forth while we were setting up the system would be the ability to replace the spindash with a Super Peel-Out style dash move.

The idea is that you give up an ability for something else, instead of adding a ton of abilities together to make a character.

Mystic said:

Pretty much all the good characters have no issue running on 2.X. I agree a few removals did hurt, but we can make up for that later.

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Yea, except all the good characters are practicality CLONES! Rouge is a Knux Clone, Hinote is a Sonic clone (With good sprites), Tails Doll can only Slow Fall, and Robotnik is the only real original one here. I'm sorry Mystic, But I have to side with SMS here, even if he did make one of the more over powered characters in SRB2, he still has a point.

Even the current Senku wound up being a slow sonic clone, even in thock speed. (Good luck clearing SS7 with him.)

Sonic CE left out because it's just Sonic with a new set of sprites.