time gear
Eternity in an hour
While doing some testing around, I thought of combining the air strafe mod with the Jump Thrust that Cobalt put out in one of the Sonic Ability threads a while back, and found it to be an incredibly enjoyable combination. It got me thinking about how it could potentially be the best thok replacement concept yet, if given a little bit of refinement. My thoughts are as follows:
-Enable Air Strafing specifically as a Sonic only ability. It can be used regardless of if Sonic is Jump Thrusting or not, and can be combined with it to give Sonic an overall significant boost to control in the air. This should result in Sonic being much more easily capable of performing a U turn in the air, reversing his horizontal momentum in the process. This could act as a satisfying (Though very limited) recovery tool and platforming assist.
-Give the Jump Thrust state the property of allowing Sonic to break in midair, canceling his forward momentum the same way as he would if he were on the ground. If Sonic performs a midair break, he remains in his spin state and as such can still damage enemies/monitors if he lands on or collides with them. After performing a midair break, Sonic can still gain horizontal momentum and isn't locked into a straight down fall. This combined with Air Strafing should give Sonic a powerful sense of control in the air, allowing him to more easily maintain a flow state which hopefully would make him easier for new players while at the same time still feeling very satisfying for veterans.
-Increase the height Sonic gets from performing a Jump Thrust slightly so that it feels a little bit more like a proper double jump (but still not a full double jump) that can also be used to increase his speed. The added height would serve the purpose of not only allowing Sonic to reach slightly higher/further platforms, but could also be used to give Sonic more time to aim his jumps when the player is intending on jumping down onto something below such as an enemy or platform. This combined with the above two points (Air Strafing and Air Breaking) should hopefully make Sonic much more beginner friendly.
You might ask "Why make it so that air strafing is a Sonic only ability?", my reasoning is as follows: All of the other characters have a powerful air mobility option already. Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide and climb, Amy can hammer springs to gain additional height, etc. The Jump Thrust on it's own however wouldn't really be on par with these other abilities, especially if they were also capability boosted by air strafing. As such, Sonic being the only one that can air strafe gives him more of a horizontal advantage to make up for his vertical shortcomings. Essentially, Sonic players would be trading verticality for air control. The one exception to this I would make would be the Tails bot that can follow Sonic, so that he can more easily follow him.
-Enable Air Strafing specifically as a Sonic only ability. It can be used regardless of if Sonic is Jump Thrusting or not, and can be combined with it to give Sonic an overall significant boost to control in the air. This should result in Sonic being much more easily capable of performing a U turn in the air, reversing his horizontal momentum in the process. This could act as a satisfying (Though very limited) recovery tool and platforming assist.
-Give the Jump Thrust state the property of allowing Sonic to break in midair, canceling his forward momentum the same way as he would if he were on the ground. If Sonic performs a midair break, he remains in his spin state and as such can still damage enemies/monitors if he lands on or collides with them. After performing a midair break, Sonic can still gain horizontal momentum and isn't locked into a straight down fall. This combined with Air Strafing should give Sonic a powerful sense of control in the air, allowing him to more easily maintain a flow state which hopefully would make him easier for new players while at the same time still feeling very satisfying for veterans.
-Increase the height Sonic gets from performing a Jump Thrust slightly so that it feels a little bit more like a proper double jump (but still not a full double jump) that can also be used to increase his speed. The added height would serve the purpose of not only allowing Sonic to reach slightly higher/further platforms, but could also be used to give Sonic more time to aim his jumps when the player is intending on jumping down onto something below such as an enemy or platform. This combined with the above two points (Air Strafing and Air Breaking) should hopefully make Sonic much more beginner friendly.
You might ask "Why make it so that air strafing is a Sonic only ability?", my reasoning is as follows: All of the other characters have a powerful air mobility option already. Tails can fly, Knuckles can glide and climb, Amy can hammer springs to gain additional height, etc. The Jump Thrust on it's own however wouldn't really be on par with these other abilities, especially if they were also capability boosted by air strafing. As such, Sonic being the only one that can air strafe gives him more of a horizontal advantage to make up for his vertical shortcomings. Essentially, Sonic players would be trading verticality for air control. The one exception to this I would make would be the Tails bot that can follow Sonic, so that he can more easily follow him.