Sonic's Ability Discussion

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Overall, I think the spring physics are a mistake. There should be half-second grace period between touching a spring and regaining control over your character.

For sure. However, it is still fun to control your character after hitting a spring, so that should stay.
 
Myself and quite a few other veterans are heavily against moving the thok to a character that needs to be unlocked, and it would be far worse to be restricted to add-ons since those disable progress. To understand how we feel about it, imagine if Tails was your main and suddenly he was given the Double Jump instead of his fly and swim ability one update, and to make use of the old fly ability you had to unlock another character or worse, use an addon that disables progress. Players have been using thok Sonic for decades, and to suddenly not have access to their preferred playstyle right off the bat would be incredibly jarring, especially when there are other ways to make Sonic more accessible to new players than to remove or heavily change the thok.

How long does it take for a veteran to complete a single playthrough of SRB2? I generally alternate between Sonic and Amy as my favorite vanilla characters, primarily because they are the most challenging characters to platform with and lend themselves well to replays. It would be silly to get upset that a challenge character like Amy isn't available at the start. Sonic is nearly as challenging to play; arguably harder than Amy in many sections due to his lower jump.

I have been playing SRB2 for a decade because I very much enjoy playing SRB2. Cumulatively across the various versions, I've played through the main campaign hundreds of times. Playing through the campaign [one] more time to unlock Metal Sonic is a drop in the bucket, and after unlocking him, I'd be able to Thok through the content I'm already familiar with in a flash to reach whichever content is new to the latest release.

You totally misunderstood what those three springs are trying to teach you. You are not supposed to manually aim spring jumps. Springs always chain together correctly as long as you don't touch the controls whatsoever. The lesson it's trying to teach is that you always have control over your character, even during spring jumps. In that particular case, if you're doing a speedrun, it's faster to avoid the third spring.

Overall, I think the spring physics are a mistake. There should be half-second grace period between touching a spring and regaining control over your character.

Wholly in support of a grace period. Not only would that help players that instinctively hold forward after touching a spring, it would also remove the bizarre advantage of performing a 90-180 degree midair turn after touching a spring to end a chain early.

Diagonal springs already break SRB2's general rules on momentum preservation, so breaking the rule on player control does not seem out of place.
 
How long does it take for a veteran to complete a single playthrough of SRB2?

I can only speak for myself but playing as Sonic I could probably do a full playthrough with no emeralds in under two hours. With emeralds, probably closer to three because I always seem to get stuck at the 6th special stage. The 7th is a breeze.
 
You totally misunderstood what those three springs are trying to teach you. You are not supposed to manually aim spring jumps. Springs always chain together correctly as long as you don't touch the controls whatsoever. The lesson it's trying to teach is that you always have control over your character, even during spring jumps. In that particular case, if you're doing a speedrun, it's faster to avoid the third spring.

Overall, I think the spring physics are a mistake. There should be half-second grace period between touching a spring and regaining control over your character.

You're right, although I was trying to say the same thing actually -- it teaches you you do need to specifically aim a jump for the first one, then learn to not aim on the subsequent ones; you aim your jump momentum, then let go.

It's also why I advocate for a flying enemy in GFZ, because until the springs, you don't need to really line up a jump for anything yet. The crawlas invite rolling attacks more than head-bopping.

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It's not so much that the Homing Attack is overpowered (It's not) or even that it would break level design (Rather, the level design in SRB2 simply isn't made for it so Homing attack itself is less useful than one would imagine. You can't hit anything with it you wouldn't be able to hit anyway). The problem is that the Homing Attack fails in one critical regard compared to other moves in the game: Mobility. Because the levels aren't designed around homing chains, the Homing Attack doesn't help the player reach anywhere they can't get to by simply jumping normally or by thokking instead. As a result, compared to the thok it is much more limited on account of the fact that it will always activate if there's a valid target in range. You either use the homing attack, or you don't have any other option other than to jump normally. Regardless of if it only targets badniks or can also target things like springs, this brings you at risk of using it when you don't want to and potentially dying because of it.

SMS Reborn attempts to solve this issue by making it so it doesn't home in on valid targets unless you press a button to activate the lock on. This is an interesting idea in concept, however trying to hold a button other than jump down to make the double jump action different is rather awkward.

There's also the problem of how the homing attack hits enemies at the same speed every time and bounces up the same distance every time, only compounding the problem of how the homing attack doesn't contribute to mobility. The attraction shield solves this issue and isn't character bound. Needing to find the shield to make use of it also allows the devs to decide when they want to encourage the player to make use of this particular mechanic in the level design and when not to.

I wouldn't be entirely opposed to Homing Attack as a toggle for if the player really wants it, but Mystic seems generally opposed to adding in toggles for things like this so I really wouldn't get your hopes up for it.

Overall, between Homing Attack and Thok, the thok is simply just a lot more useful a lot more often than the Homing Attack would be. The Homing Attack simply doesn't provide much in the way of a platforming utility since it can only hit things lower than Sonic himself, whereas the thok gives Sonic easy access to a burst of air speed that can help him cover great distances regardless of the presence of things to hit with it. The only way the homing attack would help with platforming would be if there were simple enemies placed on platforms for the player to home into to help them land on the platforms, but this isn't really much different from homing chain mentality and isn't as practical as the open ended nature of the thok.

Okay but this is still approaching it like an either/or, and my position has always been "both."

Toggle seems like such an easy compromise, and I don't understand really how it's conceptually so different from Autobrake?

Homing coming attached with the Double Jump, plus Thok. It's OP in the sense that it gives a default ability to the shield power combo.

You're misunderstanding me. No such tribalism is what I am trying to convey. Quite the opposite, actually. By modifying Tailsbot instead of Sonic himself, you have the potential to satisfy both types of players. New players have a utility to make use of to enjoy playing as Sonic, old players have the familiar playstyle they have used for decades. I don't really see how this is tribalism or "tradition over progress". I have never had a "tradition over progress" mindset, I just feel like progress shouldn't come at the expense of tradition when tradition works just fine. The thok is fine. It could probably use a few tweaks, but it doesn't need to be transformed into an entire different move. Simply changing Tailsbot to focus on new players allows whatever changes are made to the thok to be done with efficiency in mind rather than purely making him more accessible to newbies, as this goal is already achieved by changing Tailsbot.

I apologize for the misunderstanding, and the additional misunderstanding that I actually wasn't intending to ascribe those viewpoints to you, as an individual -- I was selecting a small sample of your quote (tho indicative of larger argument) and making a point against that type of approach to it, not necessarily that it's your overall view on other things in general (as in, I wasn't making that assumption in my head, and even considered including a qualifier like this, but then thought it would be clear in my original phrasing, but I was wrong, it was not).

Otherwise I agree that Thok is fine, and I see you specifically are open to Homing as a toggle (though it may be unlikely), and basically agree on principle, except for the implementation -- Tailsbot doesn't solve the fundamental issue to why Sonic is frustrating to newbies instead of the most welcoming character. A better Tailsbot that encourages more reliance on flight, when the levels are definitely not built with flight in mind, seems like the wrong move.

Thok is good. Homing is good. There's no current version that uses both, that I am aware of, just one or the other with different tweaks. Why not both together?
 
Toggle seems like such an easy compromise, and I don't understand really how it's conceptually so different from Autobrake?
Automatic braking does not do anything that the player could not already do manually. It simply automates a process that many players were finding difficult to grasp manually.

The homing attack is a completely different gameplay style from SRB2. It is not possible to input anything right now that emulates the homing attack without the attraction shield. There is a major difference between automating a process you could already do manually and automating something so significantly that the original gameplay is removed.

Thok is good. Homing is good. There's no current version that uses both, that I am aware of, just one or the other with different tweaks. Why not both together?
Because, as stated many times before, the homing attack does not solve the problem. The homing attack is specifically designed to deal with enemies. While yes, new players struggle for a bit handling enemies in 3D space initially, the part of the game which causes players trouble as Sonic isn't enemies; it's platforming. While official Sonic games have level design built around the homing attack that allows you to use the homing attack at all times, trivializing platforming, SRB2 does not do so. In the absence of enemies, the homing attack is completely useless for platforming and therefore does not solve the core issue here.

You're misunderstanding me. No such tribalism is what I am trying to convey. Quite the opposite, actually. By modifying Tailsbot instead of Sonic himself, you have the potential to satisfy both types of players. New players have a utility to make use of to enjoy playing as Sonic, old players have the familiar playstyle they have used for decades. I don't really see how this is tribalism or "tradition over progress". I have never had a "tradition over progress" mindset, I just feel like progress shouldn't come at the expense of tradition when tradition works just fine. The thok is fine. It could probably use a few tweaks, but it doesn't need to be transformed into an entire different move. Simply changing Tailsbot to focus on new players allows whatever changes are made to the thok to be done with efficiency in mind rather than purely making him more accessible to newbies, as this goal is already achieved by changing Tailsbot.
Changing the behavior of Tails does not solve the issue either. No matter how you set Tails up, Sonic is massively weaker than Tails and Knuckles for the core single player experience. Sonic alone is also an option that completely ignores your suggestion. The problem is presenting the thok to newbies. Addressing something else isn't going to solve that, regardless of how effective Tails becomes as an assistant.
 
I'm completely with Mystic here. A toggle for automatically pressing back is completely different from an ability overhaul, and I feel like that's really obvious......

Also, about the Tailsbot thing, I'd like to just, uh, use one of Mystic's quotes (again)

...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.

I mean, I like the idea of Tails mindlessly following you like in Heroes. That sounds really wacky. But come on, custom 1? Wanting to incorporate button slots made for custom characters into vanilla is not viable at all.
 
I mean, I like the idea of Tails mindlessly following you like in Heroes. That sounds really wacky. But come on, custom 1? Wanting to incorporate button slots made for custom characters into vanilla is not viable at all.

Honestly I disagree, and in fact I still haven't really seen a convincing argument as to why this would be the case. In particular, you would need a third button to properly make use of a more accessible Tailsbot assist. Otherwise, it would conflict with other actions, whether that be jump, thok, spindash, or shield abilities. Following a strict two button formula is incredibly limiting, and even the newest of players shouldn't have a problem comprehending use of a third button to perform certain actions.

It doesn't specifically HAVE to be custom 1, but custom 1 is already an input programmed into the game so I don't really see the point of mapping such a thing to an entirely new and separate input just for the sake of differentiating from addons.

Changing the behavior of Tails does not solve the issue either. No matter how you set Tails up, Sonic is massively weaker than Tails and Knuckles for the core single player experience. Sonic alone is also an option that completely ignores your suggestion. The problem is presenting the thok to newbies. Addressing something else isn't going to solve that, regardless of how effective Tails becomes as an assistant.

I don't really see how Sonic is "weaker" in the core single player experience at all. He doesn't have as much vertical mobility on his own, making him more difficult for skipping sections (And in fact almost entirely preventing him from doing so), but getting higher times doesn't make a character "weak". Horizontally, he's the most mobile out of the main trio as he can go from a full stop to full speed instantaneously, allowing him to more easily avoid attacks by moving himself out of the way.

In addition, if Tails and Knuckles by themselves are not considered problematic for a new player, then I don't really see how making Tails Assist more catered to new players fails to fix the problem. It adds to Sonic's options in a way that is constructive for either navigation through a level or for merely correcting the player's mistakes, similarly to how just playing as Tails would. The way I see it, Tails assist would be like training wheels. Sure, first time players could decide to just play as Sonic alone, but I really just don't understand how this is even a problem. That's a conscious decision the player has made on their own. If they are having trouble, they have the option of switching to the &Tails combo. If they refuse to even consider it and leave a sour review, nobody takes them seriously on account of them not giving the game a fair shake. People looking at game reviews generally aren't stupid, they can tell when a review isn't fair.

If the topic of discussion is merely just the presentation of the thok, there's a lot you could do to improve on that. You could showcase skilled gameplay of the thok on youtube (or hell, even do a series covering each character to really show what they are capable of as advertisement) to show potential players what they might be able to do themselves eventually, you could cover the thok more in depth in the tutorial, you could include an additional warning on the character select that Sonic is a more advanced character and that the &Tails combo is more recommended for beginners when the player tries to select Sonic alone the first time, etc.

I feel like the fear of new players making poor choices is rather misplaced. Players don't need to be babysat. If they don't make mistakes, they can't learn from them. You seem to selectively understand that when it comes to some aspects of the game as opposed to others. If players quit the game because of their own poor choices, that's not the fault of the developers. If players insist on playing as Sonic as their first choice because he's the title character and insist on playing as him without Tails (Their training wheels), then if they mess up that's on them. It's like learning to ride a bike. If you choose to do it without training wheels, nobody is going to take you seriously when you blame your problems on "This bike sucks" and nobody is going to complain about the bike manufacturer when they see the poor review.

A more accessible Tails assist presents the opportunity for a player to learn the thok in an environment in which they are safer. Every veteran was new at some point. If we stuck around this long, then there's no reason why other new players given even more options than we did for learning it can't stick through it too. That's not to say that the thok couldn't use tweaks, just I really don't feel like the thok itself is as big of an issue as it's being made out to be. In general the thok is mostly being reported on as being enjoyed, the community therefore is well aware of what the thok is capable of and can easily come up for a number of reasons why it's worth putting up with for every reason why an impatient new player leaving a poor review might say they hate it, especially given the fact that there's nothing forcing new players to play as Sonic without Tails.
 
How about Dash Mode and Double Jump, and move Thok to Metal?
Dash Mode could use a bit of reworking, but it allows Sonic to be faster than the others.
Double Jump lets you jump higher.
 
I feel like the fear of new players making poor choices is rather misplaced. Players don't need to be babysat. If they don't make mistakes, they can't learn from them. You seem to selectively understand that when it comes to some aspects of the game as opposed to others. If players quit the game because of their own poor choices, that's not the fault of the developers. If players insist on playing as Sonic as their first choice because he's the title character and insist on playing as him without Tails (Their training wheels), then if they mess up that's on them. It's like learning to ride a bike. If you choose to do it without training wheels, nobody is going to take you seriously when you blame your problems on "This bike sucks" and nobody is going to complain about the bike manufacturer when they see the poor review.

With all due respect, if you just said this alone and dispensed with the rest of the prose, you'd have saved everyone reading a lot of time and energy.
 
I can't understand why the debate is directing in making Sonic & Tails' gameplay uncomfortable, S&T is there for the people who likes tails being there to help sonic or would like to play the campaign with someone else (But don't want to play multiplayer mode for some reason). I don't see a point in doing that because why would you want to tie people into doing the platforming? They can play the game however they want. I've played the campaign without thok (When I tried the first ability Cobalt made) and it didn't bother me or anything; the first playthrough I made was Sonic and Tails (because I wanted to skip some platforming, any problems with that)... Neither see a reason encouraging people to play Sonic.
 
I feel like the fear of new players making poor choices is rather misplaced. Players don't need to be babysat. If they don't make mistakes, they can't learn from them. You seem to selectively understand that when it comes to some aspects of the game as opposed to others. If players quit the game because of their own poor choices, that's not the fault of the developers. If players insist on playing as Sonic as their first choice because he's the title character and insist on playing as him without Tails (Their training wheels), then if they mess up that's on them. It's like learning to ride a bike. If you choose to do it without training wheels, nobody is going to take you seriously when you blame your problems on "This bike sucks" and nobody is going to complain about the bike manufacturer when they see the poor review.
This is fundamentally a terrible mindset.

When you build a game with choices the player needs to select from the start, the player should be assumed to have no idea what those choices represent. The character descriptions provide some information, but if you're new, that information is only somewhat helpful in guiding what experience you will get from your choice; that assumes the player can even read the descriptions, too, which isn't a safe assumption. Let's imagine I'm making an RPG with four character graphic options. Two of those options give you a strength of 100 while two of the options give you a strength of 0, and the game doesn't tell you this directly at all, instead only vaguely referencing it in the flavor text. Players that select the options that give you worse stats will have a far more difficult experience, possibly ruining the game for them. They have no reasonable way to know that their previous decision actually is the cause, and give up for good reason without even knowing they could be playing on an easier difficulty level.

Right now, we essentially provide players with what looks like a mostly cosmetic choice that actually is a difficulty selection. Tails is easy, Knuckles is normal, Sonic & Tails is very hard, and Sonic alone is lunatic. New players who like Tails or Knuckles over Sonic have a measurably better first experience of playing our game. Players are being forced to make a decision that they don't fully understand and are being punished for choosing "wrong". This is fundamentally why presenting the player with the thok from the start is the problem. We need all of the options we present to the player at the point when they don't understand the choices they're making to be reasonably viable options. With unlockable characters it's okay to present more complicated and difficult options to the player because by that point they'll have played for a while and will be able to understand the choices they're making and what effect they have on their experience. That's why moving the thok to Metal is a good option; by the time a player can select the option, they will be equipped with the knowledge they need to realize that the reason they're finding the game so difficult with the thok is because of the character select.

I'd like to remind you that I absolutely love content for experts. I created Aerial Garden and Azure Temple, and was the primary tester for Black Hole. The important distinction is that there is a time and a place for mercilessness. The very start, before the player has even started playing, is not that place. New players should be presented with content for their skill level before upping the challenge over time.
 
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...He doesn't have as much vertical mobility on his own, making him more difficult for skipping sections...

There it is, an argument that contradicts your whole point given by yourself; a character weakness is measured in that way (He is not worse, he is weaker therefor harder to play).
 
I got another friend to try SRB2, they had the worst first impression of all of them. They already came in with past history of not liking how 2.1 controlled, and even with simple being more their style, SRB2 doesn't play 1:1 like other 3D sonics so they still had a lot of adjust to. Out of all of them, they hated the thok the most because Sonic just goes off when they're already having a difficult time learning the game. Tails Assist is fine as is, they used it whenever they were confident in their ability, and they plan to go back later now that they've adjusted.

This doesn't really add much to the conversation, I really just want to bring attention to my experience with newer players regarding this ability. From how most of my friends had trouble platforming, a double jump ability may very well be the best option, or something like it.

Honestly I disagree, and in fact I still haven't really seen a convincing argument as to why this would be the case.
There doesn't really need to be a convincing argument, it's pretty clear they don't want to go past two buttons.

I don't really see how Sonic is "weaker" in the core single player experience at all.
Because thok doesn't break levels as easily as flying or gliding. It doesn't matter if a good use of thok would beat or catch up to those abilities, the point is that the other two get good results for much less of the work. If someone is aiming to explore or look for goodies, thok will provide much less of a use than those other abilities. You're likely thinking only about getting the goal fast, which is only part of an abilities uses.

I don't really see how making Tails Assist more catered to new players fails to fix the problem.
Your method involves using another button, whcih no other ability really does. It's a small, but extra step that I'm pretty sure we'd want to avoid, otherwise you'll have people thinking said button would have an effect with other characters.

Sure, first time players could decide to just play as Sonic alone, but I really just don't understand how this is even a problem.
Because first impressions are important, if someone picks solo Sonic and it turns out they don't like it, that makes it hard to convince someone to keep playing. Telling people to swap wouldn't be a solution either because they may very well not want to use Tails or Knuckles. We shouldn't dismiss other peoples first impressions just because they didn't opt to spend as much time. If it's enough of a problem to even consider changing Sonics abilities, it happens enough that we're losing a lot of players.

I feel like the fear of new players making poor choices is rather misplaced. Players don't need to be babysat. If they don't make mistakes, they can't learn from them.
SRB2 by nature already controls differently from any other official Sonic game, even with the inclusion of simple controls to make them more standard to control. The way the characters and physics work are different. A new player already has a lot of adjust to, add onto that an ability that's incredibly unwieldy, it doesn't leave a great impression.

We are not other people, we shouldn't use are willfulness to learn SRB2 be an excuse to not make changes. SRB2 is not a perfect game, just because we adapted doesn't mean others should have to.[/QUOTE]
 
..This is fundamentally a terrible mindset.
presenting the player with the thok from the start is the problem. We need all of the options we present to the player at the point when they don't understand the choices they're making to be reasonably viable options. With unlockable characters it's okay to present more complicated and difficult options to the player because by that point they'll have played for a while and will be able to understand the choices they're making and what effect they have on their experience. That's why moving the thok to Metal is a good option; by the time a player can select the option, they will be equipped with the knowledge they need to realize that the reason they're finding the game so difficult with the thok is because of the character select...

I can't disagree. We got a bigger problem right now, it is to find a better option.
It has to be better than:
*SonicJumpThrustD (The most possible option as this times)
*AirControl
*Jump-Thok
*Commet-dash (Some people like it, that's why I added it in the list)

I don't think the new ability has to make Sonic the fastest character, as Metal Sonic will get that treat when he gets the thok.
The only option I can think of is the Jump Thok, but there are several arguments against it.
 
The other reason I like the comet dash is that it still encourages people to learn to platform correctly. You can screw up a jump and save yourself with the comet dash, but it'll always be slower and more awkward than just platforming properly in the first place. This is very different from a double jump, where the safe option is to always double jump.
 
If I was to decide which move to replace the thok with, it would probably be that mini air-dash from Sonic Generations. It is similar in that it would move Sonic forward through the air, but not allowing for the insane speed and distance which causes control loss.

If the comet dash was added, it could even be tied to the same button and done instead if Sonic is pushing against a wall.
 
This is fundamentally a terrible mindset.

When you build a game with choices the player needs to select from the start, the player should be assumed to have no idea what those choices represent. The character descriptions provide some information, but if you're new, that information is only somewhat helpful in guiding what experience you will get from your choice; that assumes the player can even read the descriptions, too, which isn't a safe assumption. Let's imagine I'm making an RPG with four character graphic options. Two of those options give you a strength of 100 while two of the options give you a strength of 0, and the game doesn't tell you this directly at all, instead only vaguely referencing it in the flavor text. Players that select the options that give you worse stats will have a far more difficult experience, possibly ruining the game for them. They have no reasonable way to know that their previous decision actually is the cause, and give up for good reason without even knowing they could be playing on an easier difficulty level.

...

I'd like to remind you that I absolutely love content for experts. I created Aerial Garden and Azure Temple, and was the primary tester for Black Hole. The important distinction is that there is a time and a place for mercilessness. The very start, before the player has even started playing, is not that place. New players should be presented with content for their skill level before upping the challenge over time.

I rarely ever really hear about games that only present options for new players at the start with the content for veterans locked behind an unlock wall, and when I do hear about such a game I usually see a lot of people complaining about it. While new players just coming into the game for the first time are a factor to consider, veteran players returning to the game to play the new content or just for the fun of it are also a factor to consider, and shoving their preferred playstyle behind an unlock wall just because of paranoia that new players won't like that playstyle is a turnoff. The focus should be accessibility to players both new and old, not forcing the old players into a playstyle they don't want just to satisfy hypothetical players who haven't even played the game yet.

To go with the RPG example, take Pokemon Red. You start out with either Bulbasaur, Squirtle, or Charmander. A lot of players saw Charizard on the box, and thought "I want that!" and so chose Charmander as their first choice. Things go fine at first, but then the first gym is the rock type gym, super effective against fire types. Then you soon get to the water type gym, also super effective against fire types. If you had chosen Bulbasaur, you would be super effective against both gyms, if you had chosen Squirtle, you would be super effective against the first gym but neutral against the second.

In this regard, the three choices are actually difficulty options, with the most veteran friendly option happening to be the one on the box if you weren't playing Blue or Green version. This is often how games do things. Let's take a hypothetical scenario in which the developers decide this is an issue, and they are going to implement a fix for it. They aren't going to change Charmander to, say, another grass type to make the game more friendly for newcomers regardless of choice. They are more likely to change dialogue somewhere indicating that your adventure will be more difficult early on if you choose Charmander.

If your problem is that there's no visual distinction between which characters are beginner friendly and which are not, why are you trying to fix the problem by changing the character you think is the least beginner friendly instead of making it more visible to the player that the character isn't beginner friendly?

I am among those who thinks Metal Sonic could use some changes, but I don't feel like giving him the thok is the way to go about it. I have been vocal about how I feel his hover is situationally overpowered, however I have also been among those who would rather see Metal differentiated more from Sonic, not just shoved Sonic's old moveset because the devs are afraid of new players using it. Such a thing prevents Metal from realizing the potential the character has simply because of a perceived problem with a different character. There are even some who feel as though Metal's hover is balanced.

This is why in regards to both Sonic and Metal Sonic, I would rather they be tweaked rather than drastically changed in such a way. To simply move Sonic's old moveset to Metal is a huge middle finger to not only veteran players looking to get back into the game after a major update, but also to players who were looking forward to the potential Metal has as a new character only to find out he's just the old Sonic but unlockable and with different sprites. Even if he still had the dash mode, that's so situationally useful that it wouldn't make much of a difference.

I really just fail to see why all the options available at the start have to only appeal to new players. Even if Sonic is the title character, to make such a drastic change as to remove the thok from him, a move many of the players quite enjoy, when they know full well there were other ways the situation could have been handled would leave a bad taste in the mouth, and is just a great way to replace a perceived problem with several more problems. I will say it again: New players don't need to be babysat. If the problem is that there's not enough visibility that Sonic is an advanced character, then increase the visibility that he's an advanced character. From there, the player's own choices are their own choices to make. If that choice is that they want to play as an advanced character, that should be respected.
 
I rarely ever really hear about...

I actually felt your response. It touched me, because it includes my point of view (as a veteran player who doesn't want Sonic to be that babysitting character).
It'll be hard to see an option for Sonic's new moveset because all I'm seeing here is people talking about how it should be easy and all that, instead of focusing in "a fun game, requires you to master it". There are good games that you have to master. Bunnyhop is not going away because Valve thinks that new players don't understand it.
A good example of what this can cause is Minecraft's community; divided because they added a cooldown, people who like pvp stayed in the older versions and people also made mods to overwrite the coldown.
This is what'll happen later on, people will also make a "VL_thok for Sonic.lua".

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Though I always edit and play around with Sonic's moveset, I always keep in mind that Sonic's thok is the fastest option available and I always go back to it.
 
You might notice that they never repeated that after first gen, and for good reason. It's a bad design choice. Later games in the series both don't make the first gym a hard block if you don't have a good type and provide wild options for the other starter types early enough that the player has the option to use them. Just because something has been done officially in a popular video game doesn't necessarily make it a good idea. Pokemon generation 1's hidden difficulty selection is actually a flaw in the game design that the developers rightfully corrected in later installments.

If your problem is that there's no visual distinction between which characters are beginner friendly and which are not, why are you trying to fix the problem by changing the character you think is the least beginner friendly instead of making it more visible to the player that the character isn't beginner friendly?
Because we've got hard data that says that telling the player Sonic is the most difficult does precisely nothing. In S3K, Sonic is not significantly more difficult than Tails or Knuckles. While Knuckles was intended and claimed to be hard mode, in reality the difficulty level of all three characters in S3K is pretty much equivalent. Therefore, players come to SRB2, look at our character options, and even in the situation where they read all of the character description text fully, they are unlikely to take any mention of difficulty variability seriously. To make matters worse, many players do not or can not read the character descriptions. Our testing was with players that at least could understand the English language, but it's not a stretch to assume that a significant percentage of our users cannot judging by the variety of countries represented on just the master server.

Instead, new players select their character based on which character they like the best. That's a completely reasonable method of selection and nothing we do or say will change that selection method for a majority of players. Therefore, we need to make sure new players have abilities they can use effectively regardless of what character they choose. Giving the player access to the thok from the start has proven, with hard testing and data, not to be effective for newbies. Thus we need to remove that option from players who do not yet know how to play the game. This would make none of the options that the player is presented with at the start "wrong" choices, and therefore they're free to choose whatever they'd like and just start having fun.

I do not care that older players would need to play for upwards of an hour before they unlock the old behavior. That's simply a non-issue compared to newbies picking up our game, choosing Sonic, losing horribly, and then quitting because fuck this game it's way too hard.
 
I prefer using the thok and would hate to see it go, but I'm all in favor of, a Sonic game of all things, catering to younger and/or inexperienced player.

The thok can easily be retrofit into the game via mods or an unlock of some kind.
 
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