How do you feel about the thok being replaced?

I really wish they kept it, because in my opinion, it just seems like the devs want to cater to those little kids who can't even be bothered to look at the tutorial, even i had trouble using the thok, and still do, but everyday i get better and better because i learn and find new strats! So maybe, just have them have a vote of the thok against the new move and see how that plays out!

i have one last idea: removing sonic's ability entirely (no, still leave the spindash) i mean, both are getting complaints, so why not just have nothing?

SonicHacker141 said:

i have one last idea: removing sonic's ability entirely (no, still leave the spindash) i mean, both are getting complaints, so why not just have nothing?

Click to expand...

Making both sides unhappy is not the same thing as making both sides happy. Doing that would just double the amount of people complaining and we'd be worse off than we are now

On God can we just not get rid of this game's staple move?

I feel like Sonic has too many moves already. Running AND jumping? What am I, Albert Einstein? Just make him vibrate in place, that way you don't even have to design levels.

It's so weird to me the way people act like the design of a fan game is this precise balance of mechanics that will be completely destroyed by the slightest change. This game gets insanely old after a while and the mods are the only things that keep it fresh. They do so by introducing new mechanics that ideally play well within the established level design framework. The idea that giving Sonic players a choice between a homing thok and a regular thok would somehow destroy the game is almost, repeat, ALMOST as hilarious as the idea that removing a staple traversal mechanic would somehow make it more fun. The amount of hand-wringing that goes on in these discussions is genuinely depressing.

NormalGraham said:

I feel like Sonic has too many moves already. Running AND jumping? What am I, Albert Einstein? Just make him vibrate in place, that way you don't even have to design levels.

It's so weird to me the way people act like the design of a fan game is this precise balance of mechanics that will be completely destroyed by the slightest change. This game gets insanely old after a while and the mods are the only things that keep it fresh. They do so by introducing new mechanics that ideally play well within the established level design framework. The idea that giving Sonic players a choice between a homing thok and a regular thok would somehow destroy the game is almost, repeat, ALMOST as hilarious as the idea that removing a staple traversal mechanic would somehow make it more fun. The amount of hand-wringing that goes on in these discussions is genuinely depressing.

Click to expand...

The same principles that make any game good apply to fan games. There's a reason why the vast majority of fan games go almost entirely forgotten, and only a rare few are regarded as timeless classics. Additionally, fan games serve to fill in the gaps left by official companies. They can provide features and gameplay styles that fans want but aren't being given officially, and can even serve as a reminder or inspiration for the official company of their own roots and one possibility for how to properly innovate on top of said roots.

That all is to say, just because a game is a "fan game" doesn't immediately make it "lesser than" official products or cause it to function on an entirely different standard of what makes games good to begin with. Just look at AM2R and the controversy surrounding it. There's many people who regard it as their favorite 2D Metroid game period, while there's others who prefer Samus Returns over it.

Fan game developers often also go on to make their own games, such as is the case with the Sonic GT devs. Fan games can be good practice for getting into the game dev industry.

SonicHacker141 said:

i have one last idea: removing sonic's ability entirely (no, still leave the spindash) i mean, both are getting complaints, so why not just have nothing?

Click to expand...

Because then there'd be no practical reason to play as Sonic. He'd be relegated to a simple "challenge character" that people only play when they want to deliberately handicap themselves. You can already fill in this niche by just not using thok, so taking away Sonic's ability to do a double jump ability entirely would be an objective downgrade from a practical standpoint.

I'd like to come back to this popular discussion after taking some time to reflect on SRB2 as a whole.

I've realised that the reason my progress on mods has stagnated is because I have become bored of this game, and I have become bored of this game because it is stale. SRB2 is, in my opinion, a very basic and straightforward game. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it provides weaknesses as well as strengths.

My main issue with this game is the relative lack of room for skill expression. The most advanced tech we have in terms of movement is spinfly, badnik bouncing, and thokking onto slopes at precise angles to gain extra height from a jump. Aside from these it really is just run and jump.

That's not to say the game is completely hopeless, however. What I like about the thok is just that: the skill expression. All of the tech involving the thok is emergent and wasn't designed intentionally. I think that's what makes it beautiful. The game doesn't teach you to thok at a slope and jump right after hitting it for big air time. The game doesn't teach you to use the thok to adjust your trajectory to bounce on a badnik at just the right time. The game doesn't teach you to jump right after hitting the ground to keep the momentum from a thok (yes, this counts as tech). These are all skills you have to stumble upon, practice, and master yourself. You use these to express your skill.

I think this is what people are trying to capture when they praise the "simplicity" of the thok. In itself, the thok is a very simple concept: press jump again to go fast. The quality comes from how this simple concept interacts with other elements of the game to become more than the sum of its parts.

When you design a "Swiss army knife" ability, you give yourself more control over the player's interactions with the level. When you give the player a dropdash, you add "dropdashing" to the player's interaction options with the floor. When you give the player a wallspin you add "spinning up a wall" to the player's interaction options with walls. My own opinion is that adding more movement options limits the opportunity for emergent gameplay and skill expression.

By adding more abilties you give yourself more scenarios to accomodate. By definition, scenarios that are accounted for are not conducive to emergent gameplay. You limit the player's ability to invent something new to do themselves by essentially telling them what to do in any given scenario.

I don't think this is objectively a good or bad thing. However, I do know it's not what I want for this game.

To summarise: What I like about the thok is the capacity for emergent gameplay and creative techniques. Its simplicity is a strength. I think the thok's successor should match or surpass it in that regard.

PencilVoid said:

What I like about the thok is just that: the skill expression. All of the tech involving the thok is emergent and wasn't designed intentionally. I think that's what makes it beautiful. The game doesn't teach you to thok at a slope and jump right after hitting it for big air time. The game doesn't teach you to use the thok to adjust your trajectory to bounce on a badnik at just the right time. The game doesn't teach you to jump right after hitting the ground to keep the momentum from a thok (yes, this counts as tech). These are all skills you have to stumble upon, practice, and master yourself. You use these to express your skill.

Click to expand...

PencilVoid said:

When you design a "Swiss army knife" ability, you give yourself more control over the player's interactions with the level. When you give the player a dropdash, you add "dropdashing" to the player's interaction options with the floor. When you give the player a wallspin you add "spinning up a wall" to the player's interaction options with walls. My own opinion is that adding more movement options limits the opportunity for emergent gameplay and skill expression.

Click to expand...

I generally agree with this, although I would like to point something out about a later point you make in relation to these snippits I just quoted:

PencilVoid said:

What I like about the thok is the capacity for emergent gameplay and creative techniques. Its simplicity is a strength. I think the thok's successor should match or surpass it in that regard.

Click to expand...

I would also prefer for Sonic's new ability to have this quality (quality in this case being moreso in reference to substance rather than how good it is, such as metal being shiny being a quality of said metal.), however I would also like to once again stress that I'd like the thok itself to remain in the game in some form. It doesn't have to be Sonic's double jump ability, but I feel that removing it from the vanilla experience entirely is a mistake. I stress this because it's all too easy for many to fall into the "just mod it in" mindset without considering the full implications of this thought process. Any ability that has to be modded in is as such not taken into account with the actual level design, and a large portion of fan made maps are going to be designed around the vanilla cast's abilities and the shield powers as well. If thok has been removed from the vanilla game, it has been removed from the design of a large portion of the content in and for the game.

I realize that this sounds contradictory to the point you are making here; much of the thok's nuance comes from spontaneous and skilled application that isn't taught to the player or directly baked into the levels themselves. However, just because much of the thok's appeal comes from it's spontaneous practicality in the right hands, that doesn't mean that all of it's practical application is spontaneous like this, and there are a number of places throughout the game even mentioned in this very thread in which the skill is more obviously and less spontaneously useful, and even some examples others and I have given for additional design that could take advantage of the thok's unique attributes. Admittedly too much of the level design isn't made with the thok in mind, and this I still insist is the bigger problem than the thok itself, but there are still some places in the game in which it's obviously usefull and was all to likely intentionally so.

I firmly hold the belief that the thok's appeal comes from a combination of its spontaneous practicality and it's more direct usefulness baked into the level design. If the levels were designed more to take advantage of it, I'm sure that more of the people who don't see the appeal right now would start to convert to loving the thok in the same way so many of us veterans do. It can be admittedly unwieldy in inexperienced hands, but the process of learning to use it better and eventually experiencing the thrill that comes from higher level application starts with familiarizing yourself with its more obvious use cases and experimenting from there. For instance using it to cross a large gap, then learning to quickly turn around after accidentally jumping off a cliff so you can thok back to safety in time, and eventually combining it with bounces to achieve extreme air and distance Sonic normally isn't capable of. The thok may be a more advanced ability that might not necessarily be a perfect fit for the starting cast, but it's simply just too fun to remove from the vanilla experience entirely. That's my perspective.

My point wasn't that fan games aren't real games, it was that this is art, not science. Yes, it's important to give design decisions careful consideration, but SRB2 is simple to a fault. Its problem is a lack of variety, which wouldn't be such a big deal except for the other problem: SRB2 fans who treat the game like an unstable Jenga tower that will collapse under its own weight if a single element is altered.

I hate to break it to everyone, but SRB2 is not perfect. It's wonderful and well-designed and clearly the product of love, but NO GAME IS PERFECT. Mario 1 isn't perfect, because it lacks the depth and complexity of Mario 3. Mario 3 isn't perfect, because it demands less pinpoint platforming accuracy than (and lacks the simplicity of) Mario 1. You can invent any argument to defend or attack design philosophies because art is subjective, but the idea that a game HAS TO be one way or another is simply confirmation bias at play. These are feelings, not facts. I brought up selectable moves as an example of an idea I'd like to see over the (to me) equally unwelcome idea of removing the thok. Clearly, to some people that's like saying someone should draw a mustache on the Mona Lisa (ignoring the fact they're basically planning to shave her head). But I LIKED it when SEGA went back and added the spindash to Sonic 1. I LIKED playing as Knuckles in Sonic 2. I LIKE being given more options on how to play, rather than being told "you can't be trusted to play with more than one toy at a time because we're aiming to please the lowest common denominator."

If the game is basically done at this point and we're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic that's cool, I've had my fun and will gladly move on. But if they're going to bother continuing development maybe they should finish the missing levels before they go deciding to overhaul the physics system and remove the staple traversal mechanic of an unfinished, quarter-century-old Doom mod.

NormalGraham said:

My point wasn't that fan games aren't real games, it was that this is art, not science.

Click to expand...

There can be overlap, even when it comes to other forms of art such as music and paintings. Slap together a bunch of random notes with random instruments and you'll more likely than not produce a sound that can scarcely be called "music". Art is art because of the underlying artist intentions, and the meaning that those experiencing it are able to derive from it. While there are more abstract genres of painting, most paintings are meant to invoke a more specific emotion within their viewer, and the way that the artist goes about capturing this feeling is just as much science as it is art, and has a lot to do with how the human mind works.

Video games are no different. Certain game mechanics are generally regarded as more fun than others because of the way that the human mind responds to them. There's a subjective element to this, but it's not strictly subjective and it's entirely possible to make a game that nobody could possibly enjoy. The opposite isn't true however, you can't make a game that literally everyone would love. The best you can do is increase your numbers by following tried and true development principles that are known to produce better results. Design your game with pleasing a particular audience in mind and the odds are that those who fit into that demographic will enjoy it.

NormalGraham said:

I hate to break it to everyone, but SRB2 is not perfect.

Click to expand...

Who said it was? All I see here are people giving their two cents on how to make the game better, not so much saying it's already perfect as-is.

I don’t care about the thok anymore. My opinion on it has gone downhill for months now. My loyalty now lies in the Rebound Dash.

I had recently played through the entire game after not touching it for years, and I feel like I could provide an interesting outlook to this discussion. I used to be a Thok defender, and I still am, but I can see why people struggle with it. However, I don’t think the thok is the issue, at all. It’s the games controls. I had a really, really hard time re-adjusting to how this game works after all this time. The camera can be finicky, especially when near walls. The way the game controls feel off, it’s like slippery, and stiff at the same time. Mouse sensitivity is like, slow and fast? All of these factors made me struggle with the thok again. I just think this entire debate is focusing on the wrong issue. It doesn’t really help that internet discussions like this only really bring hostility and making people more entrenched (sandwichfaces video provides a good deconstruction on how the thok is good, and I agree with him, but the way he presented STJr and others was just incredibly petty, and makes it hard to actually agree with him) regardless, the thok is, fine. I don’t see a need to replace it, you could design new level designs around any new sonic ability, and it feels like the devs are putting more work on themselves than needed. (I mean, 2.2’s 5 year anniversary is coming up, and I don’t see any indication 2.3 is nearing completion) TL;DR. The doom engine is probably the issue here.

Weird being back here, considering how much controversy it can bring. But if I'm being honest, the Thok is decent enough, not perfect. When mastered, it's such a good tool for Sonic to keep and start up speed and momentum to keep within the level he's in. I'm not gonna go into detail about "what momentum is" and "how we should strive for true momentum in sonic games" because honestly? I really don't need momentum to enjoy a Sonic game. Take Generations for example, just going that fast and the challenge being to react is a lot of fun. If the Thok's gonna get replaced, whatever, I'm pretty much become apathetic to these sort of things (cough cough WS THREAD cough cough), so say what you want on the Thok, but it's good. I HIGHLY recommend watching Sandwichface's videos on the Thok debate, as they actually do a good job on the subject, and I agree with most of it. But nooooooo I can't agree with someone as controversal as him, because he HATES artists and whatnot. Seeing these threads in retrospect, it brings to my attention how toxic we've become. If you agree with someone who as 1% controversy, you're wrong and you deserve hate. Some folks can be chill in these discussions, but others are straight up petty and annoying. Even people I agree with, like Sandwichface, has an unbridled amount of fury for NUSTJR for some reason. I've kinda given up on these matters, and don't care that much for 2.3 anymore. It's not like it's coming out anytime soon, considering DylanDude has stated there's been 0% work done on the matter. Maybe that's change. Good for them. I can and maybe know that I don't feel alone in this matter of 2.3 and all the stupid controversy's around here being so annoying. Sandwichface called it out in his Thok video, but when 2.3 eventually releases, there's going to be a group, majority or minority, who won't like the drastic changes made and will stick to 2.2. From what I've heard of 2.3 and how different it might be, I might as well be with that group. And I won't act antagonistic towards those who like 2.3 and all the other things that will come with it. I frankly don't care anymore.
My only hope is that 2.2 can still be hosted online after 2.3's release. If it's not, and 2.3's changes are too unbearable, I might just give up on this fangame and the community. Until then, I'll be on servers or enjoying mods and whatnot. I won't and can't point fingers here, but it 100% feels like to me that it's the community's fault for reaching to the point we have. I wonder how the creators would feel about all this...
Whatever. I'm done. Cya around.

Banjo268 said:

Weird being back here, considering how much controversy it can bring. But if I'm being honest, the Thok is decent enough, not perfect. When mastered, it's such a good tool for Sonic to keep and start up speed and momentum to keep within the level he's in. I'm not gonna go into detail about "what momentum is" and "how we should strive for true momentum in sonic games" because honestly? I really don't need momentum to enjoy a Sonic game. Take Generations for example, just going that fast and the challenge being to react is a lot of fun. If the Thok's gonna get replaced, whatever, I'm pretty much become apathetic to these sort of things (cough cough WS THREAD cough cough), so say what you want on the Thok, but it's good. I HIGHLY recommend watching Sandwichface's videos on the Thok debate, as they actually do a good job on the subject, and I agree with most of it. But nooooooo I can't agree with someone as controversal as him, because he HATES artists and whatnot. Seeing these threads in retrospect, it brings to my attention how toxic we've become. If you agree with someone who as 1% controversy, you're wrong and you deserve hate. Some folks can be chill in these discussions, but others are straight up petty and annoying. Even people I agree with, like Sandwichface, has an unbridled amount of fury for NUSTJR for some reason. I've kinda given up on these matters, and don't care that much for 2.3 anymore. It's not like it's coming out anytime soon, considering DylanDude has stated there's been 0% work done on the matter. Maybe that's change. Good for them. I can and maybe know that I don't feel alone in this matter of 2.3 and all the stupid controversy's around here being so annoying. Sandwichface called it out in his Thok video, but when 2.3 eventually releases, there's going to be a group, majority or minority, who won't like the drastic changes made and will stick to 2.2. From what I've heard of 2.3 and how different it might be, I might as well be with that group. And I won't act antagonistic towards those who like 2.3 and all the other things that will come with it. I frankly don't care anymore.
My only hope is that 2.2 can still be hosted online after 2.3's release. If it's not, and 2.3's changes are too unbearable, I might just give up on this fangame and the community. Until then, I'll be on servers or enjoying mods and whatnot. I won't and can't point fingers here, but it 100% feels like to me that it's the community's fault for reaching to the point we have. I wonder how the creators would feel about all this...
Whatever. I'm done. Cya around.

Click to expand...

Sandwichface is controversial because he rarely has much to positively say on things, I personally think he can go too far sometimes but I think it’s massively overblown from what I’ve gauged. I binged his videos recently and I just think he needs to tone down occasionally. I think his newer videos are much better though, and Instead of just complaining, he actually does give some critiques towards stuff.

If there is one takeaway from this entire discussion, it's that some debates are just not worth having (especially not in the Sonic community where the simple mention of the word "momentum" can cause endless disagreements among people who don't even seem to understand what this term really means).

This is one of them.

We can argue as long as we want, but at the end of the day, we all see things with blinkers that only allow us to understand our point of view.
Some will say the thok is a deeply nuanced game mechanic that takes hours if not days of experience with the game to fully master, others will say it's a stupid move that requires no skill to use and breaks the game.

I don't necessarily agree with what the team envisions for the game's future, but considering it can be modded anyway... it doesn't matter.
Someone will make a mod of it for whatever future version of SRB2 will replace the thok as Sonic's main move, and everything will be fine.

There is no point in writing paragraphs after paragraphs, posts after posts, etc. None of you will change anyone's minds. We just end up agreeing with those who agree with us and reject others' opinions, so stop wasting your time because we only live once, and just, enjoy the game.

Hoping I didn't come off as aggressive because that'd be the last thing I'd ever want. Just, tired of this pointless debate that seems to never end.

I think its cool, the thok is so fast and not proper for a game of platforming

I feel like it should get replaced.

The thok gives us automatic speed. The thing about Sonic is to GAIN speed, and if you did automaticly gain speed, there were limits. You can say the Spamdash from SA1 automaticly gave you speed but at least it allowed better movement and didn't make the homing attack useless, Heck, the boost automaticly gave you speed but there were limits to it that made it fun to master. The thok is just "HIT ONE BUTTON AND GO ZOOM!!!!11!!!111!!1!" basically making the spindash useless most of the time. If the thok was slower, I'd appericate it more.

SpeedyHedgehog said:

I feel like it should get replaced.

The thok gives us automatic speed. The thing about Sonic is to GAIN speed, and if you did automaticly gain speed, there were limits. You can say the Spamdash from SA1 automaticly gave you speed but at least it allowed better movement and didn't make the homing attack useless, Heck, the boost automaticly gave you speed but there were limits to it that made it fun to master. The thok is just "HIT ONE BUTTON AND GO ZOOM!!!!11!!!111!!1!" basically making the spindash useless most of the time. If the thok was slower, I'd appericate it more.

Click to expand...

Max speed of the spin dash is way higher than the thok. Also, it decelerates quickly, compared to the spin dash, which the player can keep up if playing well.

HPR said:

Max speed of the spin dash is way higher than the thok. Also, it decelerates quickly, compared to the spin dash, which the player can keep up if playing well.

Click to expand...

I never knew that, but I feel like it should decelerate quicker, or at least be slower.

The thing about replacing the thok Is that there really isn't a way you could replace the thok without causing a lot of problems.
You can't just replace It with an existing ability like the drop dash since it doesn't really work with what there going for in 2.3, but you also can't replace It with something like the one shown on #development since you're basically adding 3 new abilities into one character that people who are playing for the first time aren't going to know how to use.