Fixed Strafe-fly's younger sibling

If you're pressing strafe when you press jump to fly up higher as Tails, you do not slow down horizontally, no matter how fast you're going.
Pretty easy to see in any level with some room to try this.

That's actually hilarious. Strafe-fly and spindash-fly are gone, but the advantages of both can be achieved with this new 'strafe-spindash-fly'. SRB2 will try just about anything it can to outwit STJr, won't it? :P

That's great! Tails time-attack is not totally ruined.

You know, it's still possible for Tails time attack to be tactical and interesting even without exploitative bugs.

Mystic said:

You know, it's still possible for Tails time attack to be tactical and interesting even without exploitative bugs.

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True, bit a bit more speed wouldn't hurt y'know. I mean, why's Tails' flying speed slower than his running speed anyway?

Because that's how it was in Sonic 3. The issue here is people have gotten used to the wrong controls for the past 10 years, and now it's hard to give them up.

At least it's better than the days when Tails couldn't even run at all; Walking was as fast as he got without speed sneakers back before 2.0, IIRC.

While I usually hate being one of those who complain about gameplay changes, I think the fact that Tails can have an at least decent flying speed could only be a positive thing, and even though "Sonic games are about speed" is a pretty trite expression, that doesn't make it any less true, even in a more platforming-oriented game such as SRB2.

Also, I understand it was that way in Sonic 3, but I see score chains while spinning on the ground, which worked in S3, don't anymore in SRB2, and while I understand the reason why, it always seems to me that whatever decision is made in gameplay mechanics, whether it ends up making the game more or less similar to the classics, usually tends to make the game experience harder for the player (call it more challenging, or whatever).
Tails' flight speed being lower than his running speed is really irritating, and I'm sure not many people would mind if you kept the "wrong controls" we've been used to for all these years, call me shallow but my reaction was really similar to Ors' when I found out I still could play as Tails and have some sort of decent speed while flying.

The thing is that even with Tails having his flying speed slowed down, he's still the fastest at some levels (THZ2, DSZ1 and ERZ3 for example). But I have to agree with gregory_house here: flying as Tails became really irritating. People actually expect some significant velocity when spindash-flying, otherwise they wouldn't do it at all.

PHCC said:

The thing is that even with Tails having his flying speed slowed down, he's still the fastest at some levels (THZ2, DSZ1 and ERZ3 for example)

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Tails will NOT be the fastest one in THZ2. I have found an awesome Sonic shortcut but my skills aren't enough good to exploit it well.I can show you that one.

I'm just glad Tails' flight control doesn't suck shit anymore. I'd say he's borderline OP with his current flight mechanics if it wasn't for the fact that Sonic's thok allows him to still be a top contender in just about any mode.

My only question now is where does Knuckles fit into all of this?

PHCC, I think you're comparing it to the old method more than comparing Tails to the other characters in 2.1. The idea is to actually have character variety, even in Time Attack. When using Tails now, you have to use very different tactics from Sonic, and yes, it's slower. Trying to go fast as Tails now involves planned usage of the spindash as well as landing from flight as quickly as possible to maximize usage of your higher run speed. This is definitely slower gameplay than Tails time attack in 2.0, but it's not "worse" gameplay and I personally really like how different it is. Not everything should involve going through the stage at absurd speeds, IMO.

Ors said:

Tails will NOT be the fastest one in THZ2. I have found an awesome Sonic shortcut but my skills aren't enough good to exploit it well.I can show you that one.

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We will see about that. In 2.0's time I was pretty much obsessed with Sonic's velocity, but right now I'm fighting for the fastest time in each level.

And Mystic, I understand your point of view but my opinion might diverge from yours. All in all, the changes you developers have made to Tails's mechanics were very fair, and I don't think you'll go back and change anything of that just because some speedrunners are complaining about it.

Even then, I still want to write down my opinion here: despite the fact of Tails being able to go insanely fast using the strafe-fly thing (which was really a bug), Tails's gameplay in 2.0 was already a lot different from Sonic's and Knuckles's gameplays. I know Tails isn't meant to match Sonic's speed, but at least he could go considerably fast when the player wanted him to, using his spindash-fly ability. And he still can use it, but now the player has to sacrifice his horizontal speed if he wants to fly up. And IMHO, this only makes Tails's gameplay poorer, instead of making it more interesting. But that's just my opinion anyway.

I don't know how anyone could consider Tails worse than he was in 2.0. The slowdown is easily circumventable by timing your jump presses to happen sporadically or near the end of your flight, and as a bonus you can strafe and maintain momentum way better. Also, his underwater mobility is fantastic now.

Actually Tails is slowed down a little bit every time you press the jump button. Pressing it sporadically is a strategy to maintain Tails's speed, but Tails cannot fly up and fast anymore. Either you fly up, either you fly fast, but not both.

EDIT: Tails's mobility is now excellent, no complaints about that. My complaint is only about Tails's flying speed.

That's what I'm talking about, you can mostly circumvent that by only pressing jump when you absolutely have to. There is a strategy to maintaining speed by planning out your jump presses, so flight isn't significantly speed nerfed in sections that require spin flight. At worst you lose two seconds when you gain like ten-fifteen elsewhere.

Tails and Knuckles fall faster while flying/gliding if you press the jump button while falling. I think this should be fixed by resetting the vertical speed.
Tails' flying is ok but I don't like the delay when flying, it takes a second before tails starts to move up.

r543 said:

Tails' flying is ok but I don't like the delay when flying, it takes a second before tails starts to move up.

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It's always been like that. How it works is that it slowly adds upward momentum until reaching a max speed, whereas in Sonic 3 Tails' upward speed is immediately set rather than added slowly.

I'd like to see Tails' flight become more like Sonic 3's in general; its style of vertical movement is more comfortable, and the horizontal movement is arguably a little more intuitive while still just as flexible.