First off, on the subject of the thok: I'd like to note that the problem I have with the thok is that it's problematic for new players learning how to play the game. I don't care about the power level here, and I wouldn't mind replacing it with something even more powerful if it meant that new players immediately grasped our game mechanics and were able to start having fun playing Sonic immediately without having to learn all the ins and outs of the thok.
An important thing to understand is that we're not really worried about the character balance in the same way a lot of players are. These are the priorities for the character abilities, in order:
- The character is fun to play in single player.
- The character's abilities provide different approaches to hazards than other characters in single player.
- The character is not overpowered compared to the other characters in match and capture the flag.
The most important thing, above all else, above how good he is in match or how badly he wtf pwns some kid in race on GFZ1 is how much fun he is to play, offline in a single player game. This means that while we do care about how powerful the thok is, stuff like how awesome you feel when you use it properly and how hard it is for newbies to get the hang of it are more important. I love the thok and I assure you if we replace the thok on Sonic I'll find a way to get the thok in the game somewhere, even if it's something you have to unlock to assure newbies aren't presented with it immediately.
Another thing is that only giving sonic his super form and not the other two, just makes everyone in co-op netgames only use sonic to truly get the well deserved benefit of collecting the emeralds, which as a result just makes most of the co-op netgames I play almost the same thing: Play as Sonic and only Sonic; Get the emeralds; Kick ass with your overpowered recolour. So by not allowing Tails and Knuckles to enjoy the reward too, it pretty much just encourages everyone to play as Sonic, because let's be honest, we all wanna become super saiyan, especially since we earned it together so I would feel very entitled to have that reward.
We don't worry about cooperative at all when dealing with the balance of anything in the game. While we could remove super entirely for coop if the people who play it think it's that much of a problem, I've never heard of it being much of a problem outside of servers where people just cheat rings at the start of the map.
I think what most people dislike about this is that Sonic just gets an extra thing and Tails and Knuckles get nothing as compensation. Playing as Sonic is just the correct option. If there were an extra thing besides Super for Tails and Knuckles, I don't think anyone would have an issue. The problem is that Sonic just flat out gets more rewards for collecting the emeralds.
This is an option, but then the obvious question becomes "What could we give Tails or Knuckles that support their gameplay style instead of turning them into Sonic?"
Anyway, liberation without the struggle is just empty calories, easily mistaken for fun, because exploring that space is still going to be fun to some degree no matter how you're doing it- but it'd be more fun if you weren't cheesing your way past all those jumps that were meticulously crafted for Sonic.
So I can make the case for gliding and climbing not being fun all day, but if there's any way of proving that, I'd ask: How many players that actually have the skill to handle Sonic competently still prefer using Tails or Knuckles?
While there is a bit of truth here, I would like to note that in some cases, this is a different strokes for different folks thing. While a majority of the serious players of this game have preferred Sonic over the years, there is and always has been a dedicated minority who do prefer either Tails or Knuckles, and not just in the unskilled players. Some players simply do prefer less tension and like exploration more than action. I'd also like to note that as time has gone on I've been trying, albeit to limited success, to try to differentiate Tails and Knuckles a bit more in how we use them, with the addition of more Knuckles paths. Essentially, the end goal is:
- Sonic: Fast-paced platforming.
- Tails: Casual exploration.
- Knuckles: Methodical platforming with a side of exploration.
While obviously we haven't gotten here yet, but I do think the key to the character choice is to make sure that there is a difference in play style, not just a different in abilities. If you've played 2.1's AGZ and ATZ, that's the type of thing I want to do to Knuckles for a lot of the game. Given areas that test Knuckles's abilities and bring his limitations to the forefront, Knuckles can be quite interesting to play, even for those who care about tension in their platforming. We just have to be smart about it.
All these comments in this thread have been about wanting more characters to have a Super form, while I have the opposite problem. I hate playing as Super Sonic and deliberately avoid getting the last Chaos Emerald whenever I play through the game as Sonic. It's way too easy to accidentally activate otherwise.
This is the reason why shields block the activation, like S3K. I often feel that way as well and like being able to block it when I don't want to activate it. I do think it's important for it to be something players will activate on their own, though, which is why I don't want it on jump-spin, because then we'd have to explicitly tell players how to do it.
