time gear
Eternity in an hour
I've mentioned it before, but I feel like elaborating on a concept that I brought up in an earlier post. That concept being allowing the speed you gain from the thok to be preserved on the ground when you land, at least as long as you keep holding your movement button. My thoughts on this are as follows:
Something that I think most of us can agree on is that the thok being constantly spammed is something of a problem. The reason why the player feels incentive to do this is because when you land after a thok, you are limited back to Sonic's regular top running speed. Basically, the player is just trying to keep the speed they gain from the thok.
The classic games capped Sonic's running speed when he started from a standstill, but if he managed to gain more speed he was allowed to keep it until something stopped him, such as a shift in momentum or a collision with an obstacle. I feel as though this is something that should happen in SRB2 as well. By allowing Sonic to preserve his speed on the ground after performing a thok, you are effectively cutting off the need to spam the move at the source.
This might raise a few questions, namely 1. Why Sonic's base speed shouldn't just match the thok whether that be through a speed increase in his running speed or a decrease to the thok's speed, and 2. Why Sonic should be given such easy access to ground speed to begin with. As such, I shall address these in the order I listed them.
First of all, I'm actually quite fond of the idea of Sonic having a slower running speed by default, but easy access to a faster speed. This gives the player a choice in how fast they wish to go to suit the situation, the choice of whether they would rather be slower but in more control, or faster at the cost of control. There would never be a situation in which the player is forced to go fast as a result of the moveset, it would be something the player decides on their own. As such, my preference on this matter is that the thok should remain faster than his default running speed, and he is allowed easy access to that speed whenever necessary. It doesn't have to be as fast as it is now, just something faster than default running speed.
Second of all, while Sonic would indeed be given access to a faster speed without really having to do anything to earn it, this wouldn't be the fastest speed possible. To obtain even faster speeds, the player would have to work for it. Taking advantage of slopes and the like to get Sonic moving even faster than the thok could normally allow for. This way, it doesn't betray the design mentality that went into the classic titles SRB2 is inspired by.
I feel as though this simple change would not only give the player less of a reason to spam the thok, but would also give the player more of a sense of control over Sonic's speed. The thok would go from something you spam to keep going fast, to something you use once to gain speed to begin with and then attempt to maintain. This should, in theory, eventually click with the player that the thok isn't something to rely on constantly, but rather something suited to particular situations in which going fast is something that is actually desirable.
Optionally, what might further remove incentive to spam it would be if it's not able to entirely change the direction of your momentum, but rather adds new momentum in the horizontal direction you are aiming in such a way as to help steer Sonic or even slow him down if you turn him around an entire 180 or close to it. That is to say if you are rocketing forward at high speed and you try to thok at a 90 degree angle to the direction you are moving, you will end up moving diagonal to the direction you were moving in before the second thok. While this would make Sonic feel heavier and less easy to use, it would help to hammer in that the thok has risk to it and isn't something you should constantly rely on for movement. The increased difficulty from this might be too much however, so I can understand if this part of the suggestion be dismissed entirely.
Something that I think most of us can agree on is that the thok being constantly spammed is something of a problem. The reason why the player feels incentive to do this is because when you land after a thok, you are limited back to Sonic's regular top running speed. Basically, the player is just trying to keep the speed they gain from the thok.
The classic games capped Sonic's running speed when he started from a standstill, but if he managed to gain more speed he was allowed to keep it until something stopped him, such as a shift in momentum or a collision with an obstacle. I feel as though this is something that should happen in SRB2 as well. By allowing Sonic to preserve his speed on the ground after performing a thok, you are effectively cutting off the need to spam the move at the source.
This might raise a few questions, namely 1. Why Sonic's base speed shouldn't just match the thok whether that be through a speed increase in his running speed or a decrease to the thok's speed, and 2. Why Sonic should be given such easy access to ground speed to begin with. As such, I shall address these in the order I listed them.
First of all, I'm actually quite fond of the idea of Sonic having a slower running speed by default, but easy access to a faster speed. This gives the player a choice in how fast they wish to go to suit the situation, the choice of whether they would rather be slower but in more control, or faster at the cost of control. There would never be a situation in which the player is forced to go fast as a result of the moveset, it would be something the player decides on their own. As such, my preference on this matter is that the thok should remain faster than his default running speed, and he is allowed easy access to that speed whenever necessary. It doesn't have to be as fast as it is now, just something faster than default running speed.
Second of all, while Sonic would indeed be given access to a faster speed without really having to do anything to earn it, this wouldn't be the fastest speed possible. To obtain even faster speeds, the player would have to work for it. Taking advantage of slopes and the like to get Sonic moving even faster than the thok could normally allow for. This way, it doesn't betray the design mentality that went into the classic titles SRB2 is inspired by.
I feel as though this simple change would not only give the player less of a reason to spam the thok, but would also give the player more of a sense of control over Sonic's speed. The thok would go from something you spam to keep going fast, to something you use once to gain speed to begin with and then attempt to maintain. This should, in theory, eventually click with the player that the thok isn't something to rely on constantly, but rather something suited to particular situations in which going fast is something that is actually desirable.
Optionally, what might further remove incentive to spam it would be if it's not able to entirely change the direction of your momentum, but rather adds new momentum in the horizontal direction you are aiming in such a way as to help steer Sonic or even slow him down if you turn him around an entire 180 or close to it. That is to say if you are rocketing forward at high speed and you try to thok at a 90 degree angle to the direction you are moving, you will end up moving diagonal to the direction you were moving in before the second thok. While this would make Sonic feel heavier and less easy to use, it would help to hammer in that the thok has risk to it and isn't something you should constantly rely on for movement. The increased difficulty from this might be too much however, so I can understand if this part of the suggestion be dismissed entirely.