Armageddon shield usefulness discussion

If we are talking about buffing the Armageddon shield, I would say give it a meter. If the player takes a hit with it, it functions like it does now; Nukes the area and the player loses the shield while taking a hit that kills their momentum. However, if the player uses it manually, they can choose how much meter to use when using it. The more meter they use, the greater the range, but used up meter recharges super slowly and it would be better to find another monitor with the same shield to replenish it faster. As such, the player can choose between using a few big blasts, one full nuke, or a bunch of smaller blasts. When the meter runs out, the player must wait for it to fill enough to use their desired blast size. The player chooses how much meter to use by holding spin in midair, with a visual indicator on the meter of how much blast is being used.

I would also give it the passive of allowing Sonic and friends to breath in a vacuum, but not underwater. This would give it some additional usefulness.
 
Its design as a single use enemy nuke is an outdated relic of 1.0 era crawla army design.

The Armageddon shield concept is a actually lot older than Final Demo, it first appeared alongside the Elemental Shield (then just a shield that protected from drowning) way back in SRB2 Christmas 0.94, making it probably one of the oldest original shield concepts in SRB2. Back then apparently it was activated by double-jumping instead of spin. I've even found an old Google Groups discussion (probably absorbed from Usenet or something) from around 1998/9 where Sonikku mentions the concept of a bomb shield in a thread where people could come up with other shield ideas.

As to whether it has much usefulness in-game... to me it's not really about being useful but more being a gratifying way to destroy a ton of enemies around you. Honestly on that point I think it does a good job. But obviously it does not help you progress through a level other than killing enemies, which means it is pretty limited in usefulness depending on the level.


EDIT: Btw here's that Google Groups discussion I was talking about: https://groups.google.com/d/topic/alt.fan.sonic-hedgehog/vjK4iYLQ-ZI/discussion
 
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Just to throw out a random suggestion, maybe the Armageddon shield blast could pop monitors as well? Level designers could then add little caged monitor areas similar to the GFZ1 Crawla Cage throughout the game- spots where you're more directly rewarded for carting the Armageddon shield to a certain area.



Adding another interaction like that could go a long way towards making it feel more dynamic.
 
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That would pair extremely badly with the idea of making it reusable. Use it in the wrong spot and it gets replaced with a different shield you didn't know was close by. Better than that might be having walls that can (maybe only?) be busted down by an nuke blast. You'd still have the little caged monitor areas but you'd use the blast open a nearby wall or something to get access inside.

Anyway, yeah, Whirlwind is perfectly fine even without a passive and Attraction seriously needs to be chainable but is otherwise very good as-is. I like the "divekick" idea for Elemental though I think it'd be best to keep it simple and have it either always stomp through enemies or always bounce off of enemies. Force is fine IMO, it still protects you from two hits even if the ability is a waste. Maybe have it so that the ability zeros your vertical speed for a second? People could use that to extend jumps but it still wouldn't make Force the best shield of them all.

As for Armageddon, I don't oppose the charge but it sounds like a band-aid solution to me. The enemies need to be more dangerous, like you can't just sidestep around them. That's what causes the blast to be underwhelming.
 
As for Armageddon, I don't oppose the charge but it sounds like a band-aid solution to me. The enemies need to be more dangerous, like you can't just sidestep around them. That's what causes the blast to be underwhelming.

I recommend watching people on YouTube play SRB2 for the first time. The last thing the game needs is more dangerous enemies. There are a number of them (the crabs, multiple enemies in Arid Canyon and Red Volcano) which should arguably be nerfed.
 
It's a little off-topic, but I'll take the bait. I've seen the request to nerf the Crushstaceans in a few places - why? I won't say that the belief they're difficult is baseless, but it's not something I agree with. They are vastly kinder than the ones in Metropolis, which actively do everything in their power to prevent you from damaging them. The specific challenge is that you have to jump over the spiked claw, which only moves on a horizontal axis. That's not an unreasonable request to make of a player in a 3D platformer in order to successfully engage with it, especially with theming as adorable as that.
 
In regards to Crushstaceans, I think they don't have a big enough window for you to attack them after they send their claw out, it winding back too quickly can lead to a hit that feels unfair. It also expects pretty fast reactions from players only three zones into the game, and is in a zone that majorly hinders movement. It should probably take like a second extra for them to wind their claws back if you don't wanna nerf them too hard.
 
The specific challenge is that you have to jump over the spiked claw, which only moves on a horizontal axis. That's not an unreasonable request to make of a player in a 3D platformer in order to successfully engage with it, especially with theming as adorable as that.

The window of time you have to do this is unreasonable for the third zone in the game. You don't have enough time if you jump after the crab attacks you. Most of the time, you have to already be in the air before the claw launches at you to have enough time to hit the crab before the claw retracts.
 
It's a little off-topic, but I'll take the bait. I've seen the request to nerf the Crushstaceans in a few places - why?

They are annoying, that's the only problem I see with them. Certainly not enough to justify a nerf. I wouldn't go so far as to call them 'too dangerous' on their own, you are just liable to take a hit around them if you are too careless, that's all. Honestly I think they appear at just the right point in the game to signify that the easy enemies you can ignore are starting to come to an end and it's time for you to start being more attentive of your surroundings.

In regards to how this relates to Armageddon shield, it's enemies like this that would be made easier to deal with simply through this shield being made capable of more uses. The player is left with the question of if they would rather grab a shield to breath underwater or if they would rather grab a shield to deal with the enemies more easily. This kind of thing would make repeat playthroughs of the level more interesting, especially if the split pathways cater more to one shield or the other in a way that is subtle enough that players are able to figure it out intuitively but not necessarily consciously.
 
It's a little off-topic, but I'll take the bait. I've seen the request to nerf the Crushstaceans in a few places - why? I won't say that the belief they're difficult is baseless, but it's not something I agree with. They are vastly kinder than the ones in Metropolis, which actively do everything in their power to prevent you from damaging them. The specific challenge is that you have to jump over the spiked claw, which only moves on a horizontal axis. That's not an unreasonable request to make of a player in a 3D platformer in order to successfully engage with it, especially with theming as adorable as that.
I think it's mostly that Crushstaceans are such a departure from how others work, which is honestly exactly why I think they're such a great enemy: you have to think strategically for how to deal with them and either walk around their territory or kill the enemy by dodging its attack and then jumping into it, thereby freeing up an area of land. They're easily one of the most engaging and interesting enemies in SRB2.

Anyway, back to the thread's topic: the fact that nobody is weighing in and saying something like "actually, the armageddon shield is very useful in THESE PLACES" really goes to show that Mystic was severely overplaying that shield's usefulness in the shield ability thread.
 
There are occasional uses, it's just extremely situational and you'd never experience it during normal play. For example, you can get a shield at the beginning of DSZ1 and use it to clear a minefield soon afterward (also giving you an extra life), but it's all so obscure and specific. They're placed to help with Score Attack, and... basically nothing else.
 
There are occasional uses, it's just extremely situational and you'd never experience it during normal play. For example, you can get a shield at the beginning of DSZ1 and use it to clear a minefield soon afterward (also giving you an extra life), but it's all so obscure and specific. They're placed to help with Score Attack, and... basically nothing else.
Score attack emblems were removed in 2.2 (aside from bosses, in which they were added), and even in 2.1, only a few of the score emblems actually required you to use the armageddon shield—while a few others required you to do invincible enemy chains, the vast majority of them were just "find as many rings and 10k point monitors as you can", which was really boring and redundant with ring emblems.
 
I know. Record Attack still tracks your score, even though it doesn't award any emblems. I wasn't saying that this usage of the Armageddon Shield is a good thing—the opposite, in fact. The shield's ability and placements within levels seems to still be based on its usefulness in Score Attack, rather than its usefulness as a powerup.
 
"Too quick to withdraw claw" is way clearer feedback than "sucks and needs a nerf" which was the common complaint I've seen around, so thanks for making it clear that you're not just getting mad and its clues are actively confusing.

On the original topic, I've always thought the Armageddon was equivalent to a POW block where your gameplay is interrupted by a choice to cause a bunch of damage, and I don't think it's necesary for it to have a movement ability when viewed through that lens, but y'know what actually comes to mind when I think of it? The deathpit bouncing from SRB2 Christmas' "Cakewalk" difficulty, delivered via involuntary rocket jump rather than momentum inversion. Applying that for any manual activation of the shield too COULD lead to some really fun moments where you have to choose between cheesing a single platforming challenge (or protecting you if you fail one) and the level-designer-suggested enemy obliteration moment.
 
Honestly, I think the Armageddon Shield should just be removed from the main campaign (only keep it as a resource for custom maps).
The ability to destroy many enemies at once sounds cool, but it's only actually useful in those situations where you are either being attacked by multiple enemies (which is rare) or trying to get a large score (which is mostly pointless).

Also, I've always thought that having five different shields in vanilla is too much. Just three or four shield types per level is enough, in my opinion.
 
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The deathpit bouncing from SRB2 Christmas' "Cakewalk" difficulty, delivered via involuntary rocket jump rather than momentum inversion. Applying that for any manual activation of the shield too COULD lead to some really fun moments where you have to choose between cheesing a single platforming challenge (or protecting you if you fail one) and the level-designer-suggested enemy obliteration moment.
This is a great mental image! Why not let it happen for damage activation of the shield too? Hurt-thrust the player upward like Brak's hitscan attack.

I do think it might encroach on the Whirlwind? A much stronger jump, but one use only, hmm.... could be interesting, if (as someone mentioned earlier) the Armageddon was relegated to a secret stage shield, like the S3&K are rn.
 
i have to be completely honest that i never use the armageddon shield aside from 'its a shield that i got to protect myself'. the passive (active? whatever) of exploding nearby enemies when hit is nice but i literally NEVER found any use for it. could it be because i play with fang so i can just pop these enemies myself from a safe distance? i mean, maybe. but even before 2.2 it was simply never useful to me. i honestly wouldnt miss it if it were removed from the main campaign and kept just for custom maps. the only real use i see it having is that one area in GFZ, but like. who cares. who cares about that area. nobody does


making it rechargeable would help a ton on making it a bit more useful though, but i cant say id care either way. id rather just have the magnet/whirlwind shield instead.
 
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That one area in GFZ was literally designed as a tutorial for the shield as far as I recall, so it probably doesn't even really count as a "use" for the shield. On the other hand, there's that one emblem in Azure Temple Zone, but that's making use of the fact that the shield works on those crystals that light up when hit. And it's also a one off.

Again, I don't think the shield was ever really about being useful, just a way to destroy loads of enemies and perhaps gain tons of points.
 
My two cents:

The rechargeable Armageddon Shield idea is interesting, but it has the disadvantage of making the Armageddon Shield's mechanics a tad more complicated than those of the other shields. Plus, it doesn't solve the underlying issue that the Armageddon Shield's special abilities only help with destroying enemies, and enemies in SRB2 aren't that big of a threat compared with level hazards.

On the other hand, I love the "rocket jump" idea - having the Armageddon Shield launch you really high, in addition to nuking enemies, when you use its active ability. I don't think it'd be too similar to the Whirlwind Shield, since a reusable double jump is very different from a one-use massive launch that can let you skip some entire platforming sections if well-placed. I imagine speedrunners would love it, and it'd create some interesting challenges where, if you want to skip some particular section, you have to find an Armageddon Shield earlier in the stage and carry it with you for a while without getting hit.

As for the shield's passive ability... I think making it so the rocket jump occurs even if you get hit (and even if now is a really bad time to be launched really high) would give the Armageddon Shield an interesting high-risk/high-reward dynamic. On the other hand, though, it might make the shield too much of a liability and send it right back to being undesirable. Perhaps the on-hit rocket jump could put you in your falling state, rather than your pain state, and give you the usual amount of invulnerability time starting at the moment of the launch? That'd give you some amount of control over where you land, at least.
 

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