Sonic's Ability Discussion

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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.
 
The only issue I'd have with the Jump Thok: we'd no longer have a character that serves as 'vanilla' for the game's platforming challenges until unlocking Thok Metal Sonic, since Tails can easily fly, Amy/Fang have higher natural jump heights, and Knuckles jumps lower than average...

I don't think that's a problem at all, the Jump Thok is as vanilla as it gets and platforming is not being damaged, contrarily! it even makes platforming easier for those who don't want to master the game (as if there weren't enough characters for them already.); for us the more experienced players, we still have Metal Sonic to spam-thok all we want.
 
So, this thread seems to be missing the point in a lot of places. The problem is that Sonic is way too difficult for new players to use. New players select their character based on who is their favorite, not what the description text says they should do. That's the core issue, and this core issue has been around for a long time. It turns out that in early 2.2 development, when we were first discussing having Metal in the game, one of the suggestions was exactly the thing I'm championing now, moving the thok to Metal and replacing Sonic's ability with something less newbie-hostile. The core issue both then and now is "what do we replace Sonic's ability with?"

So first off, let's remember some basic goals. Any new ability for Sonic needs to be the following:
  • Simple to understand. This doesn't necessarily mean simple overall and lacking depth, but it needs to be easy to grasp initially such that players don't struggle to figure it out. Unlockable characters are allowed to be complicated conceptually, but Sonic is part of the basic three and needs to be simple enough to figure out quickly.
  • Easy to use. This isn't the same as simple to understand, either. The thok is very simple to understand. Press jump twice and you go fast. It's not easy to use, though. We need the new ability to be easy to use effectively right from the start.
  • Work well with our level design. This sounds silly to say, but we've got a lot of levels that already exist designed around the abilities we already have. While minor changes can be made to levels that exist to support the new ability better, whatever the ability is would need to work well even in unmodified stages.
  • Keep what makes SRB2 unique. This is a lot more complicated than the other three and primarily has to do with how it affects momentum, so I'll get back to this a little later with some examples.
There's a lot to digest out of that, so I'm just going to start listing some abilities that people have brought up and check them against that list.

Homing Attack
This is a commonly requested ability for obvious reasons. It has become official Sonic's standard ability for a long time now. It's simple to understand and almost too easy to use. The first problem is that the homing attack not only doesn't mesh well with our level design, it encourages a completely different, more linear style of level design we don't want to encourage. When using the homing attack, enemies, springs, and other targetable objects become non-interactive beyond being that target. The player's goal becomes to mash jump through the targets as quickly as possible to move through a chain of objects efficiently. Stopping to check something actually becomes counterproductive since so much efficiency is lost from landing and jumping again. This is entirely what led to modern Sonic's level design, being completely linear and based around optimizing the homing attack through areas that absolutely mandate its usage.

Another problem is that it completely resets momentum. One of the things SRB2 tries to do wherever possible is to not reset parts of momentum that are not necessary to change. For instance, vertical springs don't need to reset your horizontal momentum, so they don't. Diagonal springs need to reset both horizontal and vertical, so they do. A huge part of what makes SRB2 what it is is that everything tries to keep your momentum as much as possible. In fact now Knuckles's glide, the previous exception, is following this as well. The homing attack is basically the exact opposite of this design. This is the reason why the attraction shield's activation doesn't reset momentum after usage, and the previous paragraph about level design is why it cannot be chained.

Finally, unlike a lot of the other suggestions to follow, there's an extra reason why the homing attack isn't being considered: you can already play a ton of 3D Sonic games that follow that formula. Just pick up one of the tons of official Sonic games if that gameplay style is what you're looking for. There can and will inevitably be mods for SRB2 that implement the homing attack, but our goal in vanilla isn't just to make an unofficial version of what SEGA is already making. We'd rather embrace something else and create something unique and different, like we have been for over two decades.

Drop Dash
This is another commonly requested ability since Mania came out, being an official attempt at giving classic Sonic a new ability. However, there's even more wrong with this idea in SRB2. The drop dash is in fact quite hard to understand, being a delayed ability you press and hold for, requiring some time to activate in the air. It's also hard to use effectively, requiring you to hit the ground after holding to get any benefit from it. Additionally, while we have them now, slopes are not a constant in our level design to enable the drop dash to allow you to gain serious momentum going downhill after using it, limiting its use in our levels compared to Mania. Basically, the drop dash ends up just being a clunky, weaker thok. The problem we have with the thok isn't the power level, so the drop dash ends up adding extra steps for a weaker, even harder to use payoff. That's exactly the opposite of what we're attempting to accomplish here.

I will note, though, that in terms of theming and keeping SRB2 unique, the drop dash doesn't go against what SRB2 is about. It's simply clunky and even harder to get used to than the thok.

Jump Thok
This one has really vocal fans, but there are some significant issues here from a game design perspective. Understanding and ease of use aren't the issue, as the jump thok is pretty easy to understand and use. The level design handles it just fine, too. The problem is that momentum preservation thing. The jump thok resets momentum entirely by design. This makes sense considering it's a combination of a double jump (which resets vertical momentum) and the thok (which resets horizontal momentum). This makes the standard double jump, which I'll get to later, superior because it allows you to actually combine it with other effects, such as the spindash.

Insta-Shield
This is the last of the ones I'll go over that we shouldn't use, but I think more people at least understand why the insta-shield isn't in consideration. Sonic 3K proves quite dramatically that understanding is a massive problem. I know many people who beat the game without understanding any of the uses. Once the player understands what's going on, it's not too hard to use, although it does require good timing. That timing isn't all that hard in 2D but becomes incredibly difficult in 3D perspective. We tested this extensively for the force shield's ability in 2.0's development, and even in modes like ringslinger where reflecting projectiles and blocking damage sounds great in theory, it's extremely weak in practice. There are indeed places in our level design where the insta-shield could be used cleverly, but it's such a narrow mechanic that it's not viable overall.

Double Jump
Finally, this is the option I actively suggest. It's easy to understand and use, and has the benefit of being good for platforming while not trivializing things. I think a lot of people underestimate the amount of depth it has just because a lot of people have been using similar mechanics with the whirlwind shield for ages, but most of the time people aren't limited to just the double jump so many of the deeper things to do, like spindashing into it, aren't explored much. There's nothing wrong with it in our level design and it interacts well with the momentum mechanics we already have.

The only real issue is that it's simply not exciting. A double jump is such a basic part of video gaming at this point that nobody is going to gush over it. On the other hand, it's a staple of the genre and even has precedent in classic Sonic's official early 3D implementations in Sonic R. I think this is the way to go, barring a new, better idea we haven't thought of yet.

New, better ideas
So, on that thought, I'd like to point out that the reason I'm suggesting the double jump isn't because I necessarily think it's perfect. We talked about using the double jump five years ago and decided against it after all. I'd love to hear of some miracle brilliant idea that solves our problems, should it exist. I just want to remind everyone before they spam their pet ideas in this thread that all four of the points above need to fit. In particular a lot of the ideas people put forth are exceptionally complicated and would overwhelm both newbies and my ability to write a description explaining it on the character select screen. Also, as a reminder, SRB2 is a strictly two-button, three-axis game. Even if your idea is otherwise flawless, if it requires a third button or replacing jump-spin, it's not going to fit our needs. We already have enough problems getting Amy working in our setup, after all.

It's kinda unfortunate we didn't go for changing it in early 2.2 dev and see what happens, but that's how it goes. We did at least discover that editing the thok doesn't really help, and just makes everyone super irritable. We're definitely not just reducing the power level of the thok because that is not the issue, no matter how much people complain about it. The point is that the thok is fun for a lot of people; if it wasn't fun we wouldn't still be here 20 years later, considering we designed around it and only it for a majority of those 20+ years. We just need to stop starting newbies with it because it's the most difficult ability to use and master, just like how we don't start newbies off in Azure Temple or Black Hole either.
 
Not the most original idea but I was going to suggest a less overpowered homing attack that doesn't fully kill your momentum akin to the one in Sonic Utopia but also doesn't allow players to chain-attack using it, with a weaker forward force than thok, similar to the Electric Shield's ability but doesn't tamper with the bouncing force.

I feel like this could help resolve the problem of linear chain-attack paths since it's only a 1-time use until players land on ground again, and would be more newbie-friendly since it won't send them flying forward like crazy, I feel that with a weaker forward force they wouldn't have as much trouble redirecting their momentum after using it, I would assume that the logical thing they would do is press the key that moves them to opposite direction of their momentum to slow it down, and since it's a bit weaker than thok I imagine it wouldn't be as hard to use or take as long as thok to slow it down.

It's easier to use, simple to understand, preserves the player's momentum and doesn't ruin the level design.
 
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Whilst i do like the Thok and how it works, I can see how tricky/annoying/non-newbie friendly it can be based on what people have said.

If i had to go for anything else besides a thok it would be either the Jump thok or Double Jump due them helping sonic with vertical platforming. Leaning towards Double atm since the awkward jump thok momentum does screw me over and needs some time to get used to.
 
Honestly I think just making the thok weaker would be a fine solution. Sure it would ruin some expert strats for speedrunners or regular veterans, but I believe they can adjust or even find new routes to take with the adjustment. Plus it would stop people whining about thok being annoying to deal with in some multiplayer modes.

If we had to replace thok, I'd would prefer a double jump even if it is a bland alternative. It would make me want to use the Spindash more often so that's a plus.
 
In most 3D platformers that use a double jump, the double jump is designed as a jump correction tool (much like the homing attack) to allow players to fix failed jumps and get themselves out of danger.

The double jump in SRB2 does not do this.

I feel that the best way to demonstrate the issue is with animations. Let's look at this section in Arid Canyon Act 1:

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The player sees some rings, and may immediately jump towards them, having not realized that this is intended to be a Knuckles section. How do they extricate themselves from this situation?

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Tails, of course, can just fly back to where he was.

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Knuckles can glide back to his platform, unless he's already fallen too far. In that case, he can latch on to the nearest wall and climb back to where he was.

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A Sonic with the Jump Thok can cleanly return to where he started.

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And a Sonic with the Double Jump dies.

The Whirlwind Shield is my favorite shield in the game, and I imagine that sentiment is widespread. When I pick up the Whirlwind Shield, my thought is not "I have a tool to correct my jumps". My thought is "now I have a tool I can use to skip over platforming sections entirely by doing a jump from a high point and double jumping over the level." It is far worse than Knuckles/Tails/Metal's tools for correcting a mistake, but still similarly effective for skipping levels, which is the exact opposite of what the 'vanilla' character should do!

But most damningly,

q18BgIJ.gif


Thok Sonic doesn't die here either! The Thok is an invaluable tool for fixing bad jumps, because, as Mystic said when describing the Thok:

Another problem is that it completely resets momentum.

I always pick Sonic when I play a new community level pack for the first time, and I've saved myself from bad, blind jumps with the Thok innumerable times. The Thok is an extraordinarily powerful tool for platforming, not just speedrunning, because the player gets to pick a new direction once per jump, ignoring the game's momentum. The issue here is that the Thok is just too fast and requires too much quick thinking for new players to use.

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This is a very common situation I run into with the Thok. A player can panic-Thok to attempt to correct a jump, but once one's started panic-Thokking, they can't stop! They have to immediately jump back in the air the instant they touch a platform so that they regain the ability to redirect their momentum again. This situation is stressful and leaves many opportunities to make mistakes; and it's fun! It's a huge adrenaline rush and fixing a mistake by going fast can be even more satisfying than doing a perfect run.

If the Thok was slower, players would be able to decelerate and come to a stop on a platform they Thok to, rather than entering a crazy hail-mary series of thoks. If it had a vertical component, players would have a larger window to make this correction, and the thok can be cover greater lateral distance without making the player go as maniacally fast.
 
My suggestion

...So, on that thought, I'd like to point out that the reason I'm suggesting the double jump isn't because I necessarily think it's perfect. We talked about using the double jump five years ago and decided against it after all. I'd love to hear of some miracle brilliant idea that solves our problems, should it exist. I just want to remind everyone before they spam their pet ideas in this thread that all four of the points above need to fit. In particular a lot of the ideas people put forth are exceptionally complicated and would overwhelm both newbies and my ability to write a description explaining it on the character select screen. Also, as a reminder, SRB2 is a strictly two-button, three-axis game. Even if your idea is otherwise flawless, if it requires a third button or replacing jump-spin, it's not going to fit our needs. We already have enough problems getting Amy working in our setup, after all...

I suggest using FSonic moveset, it combines the instashield, thok and jumpboost while dashing (I know it's not more OP than default Sonic, Sonic's thok just beats it right away).
I think it fits the game well and it's already been tested by DEVs, it also gives Sonic a more advanced move-set by also keeping it easy for beginners because Sonic is not uncontrollably fast for them, Sonic also can go higher if they manage to keep the momentum which gives us that punishment.
It also matches Sonic with Metal.
 
One thing we'll need to take into consideration is the game's current acceleration curve and air handling, as this will affect the viability of a double jump. I think it's due for an overhaul at this point anyway.
 
I don't panic thok very often. Usually if I fall off a platform playing as Sonic, I either accept getting knocked down to a less desirable path or having to get up there all over again, or just retry altogether. I view alternate paths, especially when some are more desirable than others, as an integral feature of a good Sonic game.

Issues with playing as Sonic are also why I'm not a fan of the rope hanging section at the end of Arid Canyon Zone Act 1. It's one of the few parts of the game that doesn't treat Sonic fairly compared to other playable characters (at least under my rather forgiving definition of treating Sonic fairly). Black Core Zone Act 1 has a similar issue and is another part of the game that I don't really enjoy.
 
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In most 3D platformers that use a double jump, the double jump is designed as a jump correction tool (much like the homing attack) to allow players to fix failed jumps and get themselves out of danger.

The double jump in SRB2 does not do this.

...

lAVpZ2d.gif


And a Sonic with the Double Jump dies.

The Whirlwind Shield is my favorite shield in the game, and I imagine that sentiment is widespread. When I pick up the Whirlwind Shield, my thought is not "I have a tool to correct my jumps". My thought is "now I have a tool I can use to skip over platforming sections entirely by doing a jump from a high point and double jumping over the level." It is far worse than Knuckles/Tails/Metal's tools for correcting a mistake, but still similarly effective for skipping levels, which is the exact opposite of what the 'vanilla' character should do!

This bit, combined with Mystic's talk about the unexplored depth of a double jump + spindash, got me thinking. Could we imagine a version of the double jump that does allow for correcting missed jumps?

Consider a double jump that only gets Sonic maybe half of his regular jump height, but "hangs" in the air a bit as it enters and leaves its apex. It wouldn't have low gravity or a hovering descent, just some extra air time and an appropriately slower starting speed of descent. This would be a tool that lets Sonic reach areas that are only slightly out of reach instead of very out of reach, allows him time to redirect himself in the air without canceling or forcing upon him horizontal momentum, and pairs well in tandem with the spindash for really long jumps.
 
This bit, combined with Mystic's talk about the unexplored depth of a double jump + spindash, got me thinking. Could we imagine a version of the double jump that does allow for correcting missed jumps?

What about a double jump that turns into a backflip if you hold the backwards direction? Towards yourself on analog, or s if you are using wasd. Perhaps have it be like Modern Sonic's double jump usually where the second jump doesn't gain much height but is useful for platforming, but you can also have it be a backflip for jump correction. The backflip takes Sonic out of his spin state, and forces him to jump backwards the direction he is facing so he can attempt to leap back to the platform he jumped from.

Preferably this would be mapped to either spin or custom 1 so as to not replace the thok. If mapped to spin, shields would replace this utility, if mapped to custom 1 they would not.
 
That's just Pointy's Momentum Flip with extra steps. And that is better left to Pointy, not brought into vanilla.
 
That's just Pointy's Momentum Flip with extra steps. And that is better left to Pointy, not brought into vanilla.

Care to elaborate? I don't really know much about this momentum flip ability, but just holding backwards when you press the jump button to jump backwards doesn't sound like "Extra steps" to me. Also, if it's useful then why not bring it to vanilla?
 
The momentum flip is basically a double jump, but with instantly shitfing your horizontal momentum if you're holding a direction. IIRC not holding any direction will make you perform a regular DJ, but e.g. holding left will make him shift into jumping to the left with all of your momentum preserved. I said extra steps mostly because of the meme, because, if anything, your proposal's a lesser version of the ability.
And, being fair, Pointy's ability is kind of hard to use/understand when compared to, say, a regular jump thok. So bringing it into vanilla might cause more issues than it could solve.
 
The momentum flip is basically a double jump, but with instantly shitfing your horizontal momentum if you're holding a direction. IIRC not holding any direction will make you perform a regular DJ, but e.g. holding left will make him shift into jumping to the left with all of your momentum preserved. I said extra steps mostly because of the meme, because, if anything, your proposal's a lesser version of the ability.
And, being fair, Pointy's ability is kind of hard to use/understand when compared to, say, a regular jump thok. So bringing it into vanilla might cause more issues than it could solve.

So it is a jump thok but it goes to the direction you're imputing instead of going towards the camera? More like the static jump thok Metal Sonic had in SRB2FE when not moving and once you start imputing a direction it follows it.
I am starting to believe people are actually wanting to add jump thok without the thok effect in it.
 
The momentum flip is basically a double jump, but with instantly shitfing your horizontal momentum if you're holding a direction. IIRC not holding any direction will make you perform a regular DJ, but e.g. holding left will make him shift into jumping to the left with all of your momentum preserved. I said extra steps mostly because of the meme, because, if anything, your proposal's a lesser version of the ability.
And, being fair, Pointy's ability is kind of hard to use/understand when compared to, say, a regular jump thok. So bringing it into vanilla might cause more issues than it could solve.

I'm not really sure about how hard Pointy's ability is, but a simple backflip ability wouldn't be all that difficult to learn. Simply hold the backwards direction before pressing the double jump button to jump backwards. Easy. Could even include it in the tutorial just to make sure new players are given the chance to familiarize themselves with it before being thrust into the game proper.
 
1. What are your current feelings on Sonic's thok?
I wouldn't say it's unbalanced, but i don't really think it fits sonic. As many others have said, I think it would fit metal way better, the hover is just kinda dumb imo


2. Would you change Sonic's double-jump to something else if you could?

Probably a drop dash that works like mania's, i've never been too big on the way pointy's works. basically would be the thok that activates when you hit the ground and puts you into a roll. Would also want CobaltBW's momentum mod to be in this so that you can actually retain the speed you gain from the dropdash when you have to start running. Probably could use uncurling from sa1 aswell. Sonic needs to be the fastest of the bunch, so i'm very against giving him the double jump like mystic is suggesting, if that was to happen then metal would instantly become the speedrun character since sonic would no longer have a way to get extra speed. If you wanted to go with doublejump however, maybe gradual acceleration past your normal limits as sonic could work, sorta like a less ridgid boostmode without boostmode's extra properties.


3. Everyone has already been a beginner once. So, in your first ever playthrough of SRB2, how hard was it to get adjusted to Sonic's playstyle?

Personally, I adjusted to it quite quickly. I do like how sonic plays, he's my main afterall, but i definitely think sonic needs something new.

---------- Post added at 12:34 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 AM ----------

Honestly I think just making the thok weaker would be a fine solution. Sure it would ruin some expert strats for speedrunners or regular veterans, but I believe they can adjust or even find new routes to take with the adjustment. Plus it would stop people whining about thok being annoying to deal with in some multiplayer modes.

If we had to replace thok, I'd would prefer a double jump even if it is a bland alternative. It would make me want to use the Spindash more often so that's a plus.
Simply nerfing the thok is only a bad thing. You'd need to add something big as a replacement for the thok's utility if you was to just nerf it since as-is, it really isn't that overpowered in non-ringslinger modes (maybe just make him not able to thok in ringslingers and make him get 2 rings for every ring you pick up or something)
 
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I can agree with Mystic's thoughts that a double-jump currently strikes the best combination of easy to grasp and effective in platforming, at least out of everything that's been brought up so far in the thread. A double-jump is practically the standard platformer ability, so someone picking up the main character would always be expected to understand it, and even if they've never touched a platformer before it's not hard to grasp that you can jump again in the air. As for how much Sonic should be able to redirect his momentum, I'm kinda feeling like he shouldn't be able to make that ACZ return jump if we're trying to maintain the goal of keeping the player's momentum wherever possible. Any second jump that could save him there would need so much airtime as to make it overpowered, or instant redirection of his horizontal momentum like the current thok.
 
Alternatively: areas such as that screenshot may need to change its ring placement in order to avoid miscommunicating to the player that they should take a leap of faith.

Not a huge deal, but giving the player an ability with some vertical lift changes the player's perception of what they are capable of. This is a good thing in the sense that it will make new players less reliant on Tails flight for campaign progression, but it has the potential of also leading them into a false sense of security if the level design tricks them into thinking Sonic can make certain jumps that they can't. (I should note that our current level design already has this problem, but it's specifically due to the fact that Sonic's low jump height makes it harder to discern which jumps Sonic can make or not, and a double jump would help in this specific regard.)
 
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