Character Balance Discussion
- Thread starter ZarroTsu
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Vaguely thought out idea regarding Tails' mobility while flying: What if he felt recoil from his shots while flying? e.g., Tails is flying West, sees someone on the ground shooting towards him. The player has time to react, but under the current mechanics can't redirect Tails' momentum fast enough to avoid the shots, resulting in frustration. Under this suggestion, the player would have the opportunity to fire some rings West, helping Tails redirect his momentum Eastward.
Of course, different weapon rings would have different amounts of recoil. I'd imagine Auto and Rail would have to have the most, for stylistic purposes if nothing else; Auto would probably become fairly unusable offensively but Rail would be the same high risk/reward it always has been. Bounce would also have a fairly high amount of recoil; this would help make the ring more useful to Tails as the Bounce ring is generally pretty useless while he's flying.
Scatter would have a moderate amount, and Bombs, Grenades, and Red Rings would have little to none; possible exception: bomb-jumping if Tails fires a Bomb into a wall next to him or the floor? I feel like this would be very situational and maybe over powered as well, though. It would allow Tails to hit-and-run an opponent at close-quarters by flying next to him and shooting a Bomb into the ground which is almost too close to Sonic's playstyle imo.
Of course, different weapon rings would have different amounts of recoil. I'd imagine Auto and Rail would have to have the most, for stylistic purposes if nothing else; Auto would probably become fairly unusable offensively but Rail would be the same high risk/reward it always has been. Bounce would also have a fairly high amount of recoil; this would help make the ring more useful to Tails as the Bounce ring is generally pretty useless while he's flying.
Scatter would have a moderate amount, and Bombs, Grenades, and Red Rings would have little to none; possible exception: bomb-jumping if Tails fires a Bomb into a wall next to him or the floor? I feel like this would be very situational and maybe over powered as well, though. It would allow Tails to hit-and-run an opponent at close-quarters by flying next to him and shooting a Bomb into the ground which is almost too close to Sonic's playstyle imo.
Joosp
The journey no one knows but you
I really like this suggestion because it would be a more creative way to get out of harm's way and possibly to put yourself into a good position for countering other attacks. Another use for it would be to shoot behind you to speed yourself up as well. The only problem I might have with it is if someone simply shoots downward to increase their vertical height to cheat the system and abusing recoil to stay in the air longer.
Superjustinbros
Member
In that case, perhaps the recoil could only work horizontally, thus shooting straight down wouldn't change Tails' height.
Saturn Ross
The Local Bird-Brain
Well, if you were to aim down, but on an angle, it wouldn't be too powerful. Take the Force-a-Nature from Team Fortress 2, it isn't perfect for gaining height. However, it's just right for pushing you out of harm's way, or just boosting you forward a bit. And if we do get a way to blast us off and gain height, it should be a Rocket Jump. It's balanced and effective.
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742mph
My work is never done yet
Actually, I kind of like the idea of Tails players gaining vertical momentum through recoil. It would have the effect of making Tails even more mobile, but not in an overpowered way since you'd need rings and proper aim, and it would also raise his skill ceiling without complicating his basic gameplay.
No it wouldn't lol, because you'd need to face away from the person that's shooting at you in order to dodge their incoming fire. And that's retarded.
If your facing them, you could just shoot towards them to back up away from a fired ring and mess up their aim. No need to do an 180 to turn around and then a another 180 to see your opponent again.
If I was trying to get away from enemy fire, I wouldn't be going towards the source.
If I was trying to get away from enemy fire, I wouldn't be going towards the source.
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As opposed to...? Remind me again how to dodge imminent projectiles as Tails?
I picture it like this: I jump and shoot diagonally at the ground, and quickly do a 180 into flight. Suddenly I'm not only mobile, but ascending. I have diagonal movement. I have options as Tails, suddenly. I'm playing a viable character that takes skill to play. I'm having fun.
Knuckles idea:
What if ring weapons only stun Knuckles momentarily when hit? ie. He's mid-glide and gets hit. But instead of having to plummet to the ground, he curls back into a ball after a moment, and can possibly resume gliding.
...You know, I'm beginning to consider the biggest pain in the ass in combat modes being "lose all rings when struck". I get it from a "Sonic The Hedgehog game" perspective, but it kind of screws the momentum of characters a bit too much, and Knuckles/Tails feel it the hardest since momentum is something that Sonic gets freely (Thok), and something Knuckles and Tails have to earn. This is especially obvious when Knuckles/Tails are in the air, where their skills tell them to go... Only for their rings to plummet uncollectably to the ground (and back into the air in all directions) when struck. If anything, that's the biggest deterrent from playing either of those characters, even if it's an uncommon occurrence.
Has it been considered in the past to have players only lose a portion of their rings or weapons, instead of 'all of them'?
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I can see recoil on Tails' thrown rings during flight being pretty clunky to use, and could possibly even screw up your aiming more than it helps you a lot of the time. It just sounds like something that could be so difficult to control that it makes him far too difficult to use for anyone that hasn't played much of him with it.
Saturn Ross
The Local Bird-Brain
Well, maybe the weapons should only affect the recoil, or have recoil affect all players in mid-air. That, and a recovery technique is necessary.
If someone is shooting you, they're pointing at you. If you try to dodge by pointing at them, and then just backing away, then you're still right in the line of fire. It's like a cartoon character running all the way under a falling tree instead of just taking two steps to the side and being safe.
By making Tails more mobile while in mid-flight? "My idea is better than nothing" is not a good argument for game design.
This would be fine and dandy in a game like Portal where the player is a pacifist agent and their only objective is to dodge the incoming fire and keep moving. But in a deathmatch setting, in which the primary objective is to shoot other people, forcing the player to stop shooting whenever someone is shooting back is a dumb idea.
Apologies, my response was in context of the current game, not the context of potential other changes.
Perhaps the recoil only happens in the air? Perhaps different weapon rings have different types of recoil?
(Regular) - Very little recoil
(Spread) - Moderate recoil
(Bomb) - Very little recoil, however the explosion itself has very strong recoil
(Bounce) - Very little recoil, but getting hit in midair by your own bounce has moderate additional recoil
(Rail) - No recoil.
Rumia1
Backseat Developer
Here's my two-cents on the topic,
1. Drop the Thok, or if you insist on keeping it, make it only send you somewhere between half speed or full speed, you shouldn't be going over since that's the entire reason circuit maps were removed. or, even better, replace the Thok with the newly added vanilla JumpThok. The current Thok feels unneccicary and quite frankly overpowered in any mode you use it, be it in race, match, or even single-player. In single-player all it does is change your direction and give you more reason to press the jump button, it serves no purpose otherwise.
Thinking about the two jump actions Sonic's had ever since he had one, it's always been there to benefit the player in some manner and help them, it's not there just to be flashy and overpowered. For instance, there was the insta-shield which granted you temporary invincibility from certain enemies such as orbinaughts and other enemies with external shield-type attacks, and the homing attack everyone complains about was designed to assist in attacking things in 3D, since most of the time you're going to be above the enemy and not being able to see where your shadow is (there isn't even a shadow in (non-OpenGL) SRB2 and we all seem to be pretty dang good at jumping on enemies, aren't we?).
All the Thok does is, again, push you past Sonic's max normalspeed and change your direction, making it incredibly hard to hit sonic players because that's the entire premise of it, sometimes helping you cross the incredibly rare gap that is too big for you to jump over normally. Yet we can already do such things by waiting a few seconds and holding down a spin button and then releasing it and jumping, or just turning on our own, there is no need for a mechanic that does this, and it's a poor excuse to give an air action to Sonic.
2. Boost Tails and Knuckles normalspeeds up to near-par with Sonic's, I'm not saying you should keep everyone the same speed, I'm saying that you should at least bring Tails up to Knuckles' speed so they are at least some challenge to people in things like circuit, you can make shortcuts that only they can take all you'd like but no one's going to pick them if A: they're too slow to keep up with the lead competitor (Sonic) or B: not worth using because other characters are much more adept at keeping up. Let's consider for a moment the classic games SRB2 tries so hard to emulate; Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all have the same speed, making their abilities what sets them apart (and in the case of Sonic 2, the skill of the person using them) this is fine and all in a game like this, but in the event that we did nerf or remove the Thok completely, no one would play as Sonic anymore. So rather than make everyone run the same speed, make Tails and Knuckles actually quick enough to keep up with sonic in something like race or competition, while keeping sonic a good 5 or 10 fracunits ahead in terms of the normalspeed department.
1. Drop the Thok, or if you insist on keeping it, make it only send you somewhere between half speed or full speed, you shouldn't be going over since that's the entire reason circuit maps were removed. or, even better, replace the Thok with the newly added vanilla JumpThok. The current Thok feels unneccicary and quite frankly overpowered in any mode you use it, be it in race, match, or even single-player. In single-player all it does is change your direction and give you more reason to press the jump button, it serves no purpose otherwise.
Thinking about the two jump actions Sonic's had ever since he had one, it's always been there to benefit the player in some manner and help them, it's not there just to be flashy and overpowered. For instance, there was the insta-shield which granted you temporary invincibility from certain enemies such as orbinaughts and other enemies with external shield-type attacks, and the homing attack everyone complains about was designed to assist in attacking things in 3D, since most of the time you're going to be above the enemy and not being able to see where your shadow is (there isn't even a shadow in (non-OpenGL) SRB2 and we all seem to be pretty dang good at jumping on enemies, aren't we?).
All the Thok does is, again, push you past Sonic's max normalspeed and change your direction, making it incredibly hard to hit sonic players because that's the entire premise of it, sometimes helping you cross the incredibly rare gap that is too big for you to jump over normally. Yet we can already do such things by waiting a few seconds and holding down a spin button and then releasing it and jumping, or just turning on our own, there is no need for a mechanic that does this, and it's a poor excuse to give an air action to Sonic.
2. Boost Tails and Knuckles normalspeeds up to near-par with Sonic's, I'm not saying you should keep everyone the same speed, I'm saying that you should at least bring Tails up to Knuckles' speed so they are at least some challenge to people in things like circuit, you can make shortcuts that only they can take all you'd like but no one's going to pick them if A: they're too slow to keep up with the lead competitor (Sonic) or B: not worth using because other characters are much more adept at keeping up. Let's consider for a moment the classic games SRB2 tries so hard to emulate; Sonic, Tails and Knuckles all have the same speed, making their abilities what sets them apart (and in the case of Sonic 2, the skill of the person using them) this is fine and all in a game like this, but in the event that we did nerf or remove the Thok completely, no one would play as Sonic anymore. So rather than make everyone run the same speed, make Tails and Knuckles actually quick enough to keep up with sonic in something like race or competition, while keeping sonic a good 5 or 10 fracunits ahead in terms of the normalspeed department.
That's the thing. It's not something that's being forced. It's merely an enhancement to Tails' escape "options".
This whole style of deathmatch is pretty much hit-and-run. Sonic clearly dominates in this regard, thanks to his thok getting him out of harm's way the moment he lands a shot. Giving Tails this added little recoil technique would give him a better opportunity of escaping from a fight, due to either an invincible player, being low on rings, or just too many players to deal with at once. Of course there is just increasing his mid-air mobility, but I don't see the harm in giving him ring recoil. It's worth experimenting with at least.
I dunno about Rail and Bomb there. I feel like the recoil should be little if the fire-rate of a weapon is quick and vice-versa. The additional recoil effects of the Bomb and Bounce sound pretty cool though(The Bounce one seeming a little gimmicky in my opinion, but given that the best place to use Bounce is in tight areas, it could work out.).
I feel like the idea of recoil is a great concept that can be combined WITH extra mobility, there's no reason you can't have both. Aiming in a direction to push yourself the other way takes no effort because mouse look is fast as fuck, as long as the push it gives you is beneficial and worth while. With this, aiming is more difficult though, so it'd be nice if his rings were physically faster by a percentage somehow.
I think that this graph that Sryder posted a couple pages back...
...brings up a good point. I don't see what harm increasing Knuckles and Tails acceleration could do, and would largely improve their dodging and mobility.
...brings up a good point. I don't see what harm increasing Knuckles and Tails acceleration could do, and would largely improve their dodging and mobility.
Monster Iestyn
Fangtastic
The real problem with character speeds as shown in the graphs is, while the "accelstart" stats allow Tails and Knuckles to just beat Sonic in speed for the first few tics after they start moving (well, with friction effects applied at least), the "thrustfactor" stats make all the difference when the effects of the "acceleration" stat start to kick in, which is where Sonic overtakes everyone again despite the misleading implications the stats give.
So really the graphs there are all the fault of the superfluous stat "thrustfactor". =V
So really the graphs there are all the fault of the superfluous stat "thrustfactor". =V
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