Fans don't really know exactly what they want, and many of them want contradictory things. I'll take a few examples of things a large, vocal portion of our fanbase desperately wants:
1. Homing attack and light speed dash as Sonic, always.
2. Shadow the Hedgehog as a default playable character.
3. Savestates.
4. More linear stages.
5. Super/Hyper forms for everybody.
I'd personally say that all of these things would make a WORSE game by their addition. If we listened to our fanbase we'd have a game with features for everybody that's fun for nobody. Just look at the official SEGA Sonic games for a perfect example of this. By trying to appeal to everybody, they're making games that appeal to almost nobody.
Super forms are a power trip. People never wanted it to have a balanced game, or have a riveting experience, they just want to blast through levels effortlessly. Which, in it's own right, can be quite fun. It was never something to think very hard about.
But beyond that, you've yet to explain what about tails' and knuckles' supers ruins their uniqueness. Your incredibly generalized example of "you need to stay on the ground to get more rings" just doesn't add up, especially when you can glide or fly over quite large chunks of the level if you know what you're doing (I like to use tails for time attack emblems for this very reason). The timer doesn't even seem to be that strict...?
Fans don't really know exactly what they want, and many of them want contradictory things. I'll take a few examples of things a large, vocal portion of our fanbase desperately wants:
1. Homing attack and light speed dash as Sonic, always.
2. Shadow the Hedgehog as a default playable character.
3. Savestates.
4. More linear stages.
5. Super/Hyper forms for everybody.
I'd personally say that all of these things would make a WORSE game by their addition. If we listened to our fanbase we'd have a game with features for everybody that's fun for nobody. Just look at the official SEGA Sonic games for a perfect example of this. By trying to appeal to everybody, they're making games that appeal to almost nobody.
At the end of the day we are making the decisions that we think will make the best possible game, not the decisions that will make you in particular the happiest.
I don't really see how it's fair to group transformations in together with the rest of these things. Numbers 1 and 2 are obviously desired more by fans of the Adventure era of Sonic, something that SRB2 obviously isn't trying to be. Number 3 is a blatant cheat without even the most remote semblance of balance (I'm especially annoyed how re-releases of games are starting to include these as a "feature", such as the MMZ/ZX Legacy Collection) and no conceivable way to make it work within the structure of a lives based platforming title. The closest thing would be checkpoints, which the game already has. Number 4 already exists enough within the game. Just take Sonic's path as much as possible. Boom, linear.
Super forms (Not so much Hypers) on the other hand have an aspect to them the others don't: If the level design is built around the multiple characters properly, there's nothing they could do to actively make the game worse. They wouldn't even make the characters too much the same, as I outlined in a recent post. Even then, there's still suggestions floating around to change up the Supers even further so as to make them even more different than they already would be.
I also don't really think it's fair to imply that people who are asking for Supers only care about themselves even at the detriment of the quality of the game. Most of the people who have been here asking for it have been trying to figure out a way to make them work in a way that is overall beneficial. Even those who operate on the assumption that Supers in their traditional state really do make the characters too samey have, as I mentioned previously, taken that into consideration and put forth ideas to change things up for them in an attempt to compromise and please everyone.
In the interest of finding common ground, rather than disputing the validity of "all super" in a general sense, it's more productive for us discuss and debate what kind of all-emeralds reward/powerups we think would be appropriate for each character. While I don't agree that Knuckles and Tails closely matching their S3&K supers would hurt the game, I'm perfectly content with us experimenting with their transformations for those characters to create something that accentuates their gameplay styles.
What if instead of full Super Forms, Fang and Amy's weapons were turned Super instead? That is to say, the character themselves doesn't turn invincible, doesn't glow special colors, doesn't have ring drain, but with all the emeralds collected their weapon gets powered up. A larger range on Amy's Hammer, being able to use it multiple times in one jump, etc. Fang being able to shoot faster, hit multiple enemies, shoot and run at the same time, etc.
Could even make for a fun gag on the emerald collection screen. "Amy's Hammer is now a Super Hammer!" and "Fang's Pop Gun is now a Super Pop Gun!"
Again, I'm all for unique super forms. Would definitely make each character still have their own playstyle while also feeling like you're getting something out of getting the emeralds that you didn't as Sonic. Perhaps Amy could launch her heart things further, for one? Or shockwave the ground? And maybe a slower ring drain. I dunno, just throwing out possibilities.
We're talking more unique than I suspect you're thinking. As in "no ring drain/invincibility/super sneakers". As a simple example we're not likely to use: activate jump-spin with no shield and you just have infinite flight for the rest of the map, no questions asked. This type of thing enhances the abilities you already have while not forcing you to keep moving quickly to get benefit out of it.
I'll add the caveat that "no invincibility" doesn't necessarily mean "one hit and your super's over". It could be the case that most characters' simply lose a small number of rings on hit.
Obviously, doing this sort of thing requires that we deliberately consider how we present such mechanics up front and intuitively for the player.
Another option is even just "you drop all your rings and keep the state anyways". The main point is that the thing to avoid here is making characters feel the same, so even different mechanics among the ones we just stated by character is something to consider.
I did suggest a while back in this thread powering up the individual characters abilities and having them lose 10-20 rings on hit, but I was facing a lot of resistance from other users with that idea so I attempted to change gears a bit. I do still maintain however that this would be a far better compromise than just entirely not letting characters transform.
An alternative idea I had just now would be to slowly power up the characters over time as they collect more Chaos Emeralds. The first few emeralds do nothing, say for example the first 4. Then for the 5th, 6th, and 7th emeralds your character (but not if they have a proper Super Form) gains a new ability/upgrade. For example, with the 5th emerald Amy gains the ability to launch even further off springs when she hits them with her hammer. On the 6th emerald she gains the ability to swing her hammer multiple times in the air and extended reach, and then finally the 7th emerald gives her a ground pound that damages all the grounded enemies in the surrounding area, and even the flying enemies within a smaller radius.
This sort of thing would reward players with a sort of power trip without full blown giving them Super Forms. I do still hold a preference towards having Super Forms instead, but this is an example of a compromise I could live with.
We're talking more unique than I suspect you're thinking. As in "no ring drain/invincibility/super sneakers". As a simple example we're not likely to use: activate jump-spin with no shield and you just have infinite flight for the rest of the map, no questions asked. This type of thing enhances the abilities you already have while not forcing you to keep moving quickly to get benefit out of it.
I honestly don't care about "exactly and specifically standard super forms", I'd just be quite happy to have any kind of reward for getting the emeralds in a single player run with Knuckles or Tails.
So even something as simple as "Double normal flight time, lost on hit" or "Multiglide that loses no altitude" or "All Hammer moves now cause a bomb-ring sized heart-splosion radius" would put me over the top.
The issue I have with that personally is that it implies passive bonuses, and what makes super a good mechanic is the fact that it's an active and conditional ability, and gaining or losing the powerup creates highs and lows in gameplay. Sticking with that model is probably best for all characters. Passive bonuses would be iffy for SRB2 in particular, because it muddies the water in how a character with no "proper" super is expected to perform, and our game has so much breadth with different multiplayer and singleplayer modes that the base character outside of all emerald save files would risk feeling "incomplete" to the end user.
Now, if we do think a character like Amy needs some ability to make her feel more "complete", then that's something that may as well be granted to the character regardless of emeralds. Ultimately I think the distinction between "normal" and "powered up" gameplay should be very clear, and a binary, temporary activation method is the best way of distinguishing the two modes.
Though I haven't read the whole topic as of yet, I might as well throw my two cents on the matter on the forums to be preserved for posterity. I disagree on some points used in the justification for characters other than Sonic and Metal to not have Super forms, specifically:
The actual reason is that one of the big flaws of S3K's setup is that super forms removed character variety. When you go super in S3K, all characters need to go fast while collecting rings. It's preferred to avoid using your abilities as much as possible because they slow you down. This basically makes S3K have four characters: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Super. When you play all-emerald runs you initially start with unique character abilities but then end up with everything the same by the end of the run. This ruins the whole fun of having unique characters to begin with.
While in S3K (and Mania) the Super forms do push you to go fast to keep your ring count up, it's also important to consider that the game also awards you with plenty of rings for exploring. Using Tails and Knuckles' abilities while Super can more often than not lead to a considerable profit of rings (especially if you find special stage rings), and I feel that SRB2 could be the same way, if given some minor design tweaks in some places. Truthfully, I feel more pressed for Rings as Super Sonic than any other Super character, as his lack of mobility options makes it much harder to grab all the extra rings that exist off the beaten paths. You could even make the argument that it breaks the difficulty curve that was intended, and instead turns Super Sonic into the hard mode for the Super characters in S3K. However, given that Sonic is hard mode among the base characters in SRB2, this would actually work in the game's favor.
I do believe that Super forms should enhance a character's specific abilities rather than turning them all into effective clones of Super Sonic. For example:
Buff Super Knuckles' climbing speed and give him multiglide abilities (or at least make it so he doesn't come to a sudden stop after landing from a glide)
As Tails is, supposedly, due to receive a flight speed cap to prevent abuse of the "spin-fly" technique, perhaps Super Tails could receive, on top of infinite flight time, his old flight behavior.
For these characters, this would replace the speed buff. However, I would most definitely say that Super characters should still experience ring drain and remain invulnerable, regardless of the buffs applied to them. It only seems fair after having gone out of your way to collect all the emeralds, especially given the difficulty that some players seem to have with that task.
In all fairness, when looking to the Classic games, my experiences with them is that all of the special stages (for that particular game) were about equal in difficulty, rather than having a proper difficulty curve like SRB2's. Perhaps the fact that we're treating the special stages like a completely different game as opposed to a mini-game is part of the problem that players have with them.
Something else that occurred to me that in part has to do with this discussion: Tutorials. Not only (as far as I can tell) does the current tutorial system only seem to cover Sonic, but it doesn't touch up on the Chaos Emeralds at all from what I can remember. I can understand if it's not an immediate goal, but perhaps at some point each character can have their own tutorial, complete with an introduction to what happens when you collect all seven emeralds.
For example, in Sonic's Tutorial you could have a room with a huge "bottomless pit" in the middle that teleports you back to the side you started out on if you fall in it, and to cross the gap you need to use Super Sonic's hover ability. Then, it brings you to group of two rooms separated by a hallway with a turn in it and a similar pit, teaching the player about keeping up Super Sonic's speed or else he will fall while hovering. Perhaps also dedicate a room to demonstrating Super Sonic's invincibilty.
Perhaps also implement optional tutorials on various other game mechanics (placing you into the tutorials as Sonic by default unless they involve character specific abilities) such as water and drowning, emblems, collecting 1-ups with 100 rings, and anything else someone might need to know if they have never played a Sonic game/SRB2 before, or it's been long enough that they need a refresher.
That sounds great actually Mystic. Super forms like that would be interesting, provide benefit to collecting the Emeralds, differentiate characters even further, while still letting them all have a Super form of some kind. I'm glad you're actually considering this, because if it is pulled off correctly, it could really make things that much more fun.
I don't see how they can be pulled off correctly if they don't follow the basic formula as the base. No matter what reward you give to avoid a Proper Super for everyone, you're going to wind up back having this topic again.
"Why Is Super Tails not invincible?"
"Why does super Knuckles not get a speed boost?"
"Why does Super Amy take damage?"
And even then, the question of how Super removes character diversity has not been given an answer with evidence to back it up still! The Idea was Laughable on the Official Discord even.
I don't see how they can be pulled off correctly if they don't follow the basic formula as the base. No matter what reward you give to avoid a Proper Super for everyone, you're going to wind up back having this topic again.
"Why Is Super Tails not invincible?"
"Why does super Knuckles not get a speed boost?"
"Why does Super Amy take damage?"
And even then, the question of how Super removes character diversity has not been given an answer with evidence to back it up still! The Idea was Laughable on the Official Discord even.
At this point it's better to compromise than to demand it has to be a certain way. At least if we can find a new system that works, the characters will be able to transform and the emeralds won't feel pointless to collect.
Even if people still complain at that point, it will be a better off situation than now because less people will be complaining. Most people voicing their opinions here seem willing to make the compromises necessary to just get the forms implemented, or are at least indifferent enough that they won't be bothered either way.
It's better to go with that progress than to fall back into the same stalemate we were in to begin with.
I feel like you are worrying too much. SRB2 will certainly get attention for doing things differently, there's no doubt about that. However, if they come up with a system that is actually fun and rewarding, I hugely doubt the number of people complaining will increase considering that would be a huge improvement over our current situation in which people feel cheated because their preferred character can't transform but Sonic and Metal can, despite them doing the hard work of obtaining all the emeralds.
Who knows, if they happen to strike gold with a system that really works, they might actually become a trend setter and (though I dunno how likely it is) even catch the attention of SEGA.
It's not that they can't transform in general, but that they can't transform into their super forms specificly. Reminder Sonic Mania is out there still being sold in stores and it allows everyone to go super. Meaning we got a new audience of Sonic fans that will expect super Tails and Super Knuckles from the chaos emeralds.
It's not that they can't transform in general, but that they can't transform into their super forms specificly. Reminder Sonic Mania is out there still being sold in stores and it allows everyone to go super. Meaning we got a new audience of Sonic fans that will expect super Tails and Super Knuckles from the chaos emeralds.
Innovation is just a natural fact when it comes to the video game industry. Everyone is going to have their own opinions when change happens and some people are inevitably going to be against that change no matter what. However, this is no reason to shy away from innovation. When you find a system that works, it will find it's audience and become accepted.
Ultimately, STJR is not SEGA, and as such is under no such obligation to be limited to making the same choices in their development process as SEGA would. The Thok is a fantastic example of them designing around what works instead of what's traditional. Instead of going with SEGA's design mentality of giving Sonic a Homing Attack to assist with defeating badniks in a 3D space, they opted to introduce a slightly different move that prioritizes rapid acceleration to allow Sonic easier, more instant access to his speed so as to help maintain a flow state and a sense of control. While there are those who inevitably complain and ask for a homing attack instead, this has largely become a popular design decision.
The same argument applies to how they designed Super Sonic. No previous official title gave Super Sonic a hover ability that allows him to cross large gaps if he can maintain his speed. This also is largely a popular innovation on their part, even if there's inevitably going to be those who outcry for total free flight or for the ability to be removed entirely to adhere to the limitations of the classics.
Change can be a scary, uncertain thing. However, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I would rather wait and see what they come up with to make Supers more unique before dismissing the entire concept. It might just end up being something that works so well, most of us wonder what we were even worried about to begin with.
Nah. I literally can't think of a single game that plays anything like SRB2—from its controls, to the way characters move, to the level design philosophy. I could go on for pages about all the ways SRB2 ignores the norms before we get anywhere close to talking about Supers.
(And if there are other games like SRB2, please let me know. I want to play them.)
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