What if we gave Sonic no ability?

The problem with buffing the spindash is that you're never actually encouraged to use it anywhere in SRB2. Hell, 2.2 nerfed the spindash and no one noticed. I didn't even noticed until I opened player.dta.
 
The problem is it's not a matter of whether just changing the way momentum works would be enough. Simply not giving Sonic an ability would leave no real reason to play as him at all, as he would have nothing unique. Other characters would be inherently superior. This is especially a problem considering he's the title character.

For example, why should anyone play as Sonic when Tails can do literally everything he can do, running the same speed, jumping just as high, spindashing, and also can fly? Tails becomes "Just Sonic, but better".

Being able to complete the game as Sonic is the bare minimum the level design requires, not giving Sonic an ability at all not only makes him less unique but imposes a rather unfortunate limitation on the level design. He doesn't necessarily need a jump ability, but in it's absence he would definitely need some other ability making him worth playing. At that point though, you are at a nearly identical dilemma to the one we are already in.
 
There are a few issues with leaving Sonic with no midair ability, but I think the biggest one is it creates a disconnect in the player control schemes, where everyone would be able to do something in the air with the jump button except for Sonic. Removing his midair ability entirely also wastes an opportunity to add gameplay depth to the character.

Sonic's primary issue is rooted in the game's core mechanics. The inflexibility of air control, the floatiness of physics, the weak jump thrust, and the slippery acceleration, all contribute to Sonic feeling difficult to control and having a harder time at platforming as other characters. A buff to momentum and spindashing, albeit a nice gesture, isn't enough alone to make Sonic feel like a complete character.

That all being said, some people believe that Sonic's playstyle should be all about speed; I would submit that Sonic should be about the fundamentals. This means giving new players the means to comfortably and effectively navigate levels with the basic jump, spin and movement abilities. Sonic's ability can and probably should make it easier for Sonic to move faster than other characters, of course, but it's also important that the ability he receives compliments the fundamentals and doesn't overshadow any of the core control or gameplay mechanics.
 
OP345 said:
I mean, what reason do you have to play Sonic in a classic game if you can just play as Tails or Knuckles? Sonic doesn't have anything unique in those games either but that doesn't stop people from playing him.
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This is incorrect. Sonic is the only playable character in Sonic 1, Tails plays identically to Sonic in Sonic 2, and in Sonic 3&K Sonic has the Insta Shield and can transform into Super/Hyper Sonic. Tails requires the Super Emeralds to get his Super Form at all, and Knuckles has a nerfed jump height in exchange for his glide and climb. He can also transform, but gains no additional height to his jump from doing so.

Edit: I also forgot to mention Tails can't transform in Sonic 2, and Sonic is the only one that can use shield abilities in 3&K.
 
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OP345 said:
I mean, what reason do you have to play Sonic in a classic game if you can just play as Tails or Knuckles? Sonic doesn't have anything unique in those games either but that doesn't stop people from playing him.
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I'd like to point out that this isn't a strong argument for Sonic not having an ability (or in 3's case, an insanely situational one). The instashield and its usefulness as an ability compared to the abilities Tails and Knuckles have is one of the weaker points of Sonic 3. You're right that people still played Sonic, but that's not really the point - the point is giving him a tool that is on "equal footing" with the other two characters.
 
I dunno if "equal footing" is possible or even should be what we aim for. Tails and Knuckles break the level design wide open. Giving Sonic anything like that would definitely not be the way to go.

More directly answering the topic, giving Sonic no ability is definitely not the answer. I feel the main issue people forgetting when they design abilities for Sonic is they don't think about how it works with the level design and help Sonic platform. A better spindash won't do that since thok is already a better spindash. And momentum changes only throw a band-aid over the problem created in Sonic losing the speed of thok. I don't want to bring this into a long tangent about the thok, so I won't, but giving Sonic no ability is definitely not the way to go.

I do wonder how it'd go if only Sonic could use shield abilities, but with how the game is currently, I think that would only create more problems with players who want to use the abilities with other characters.
 
To be honest, I feel like leaving Sonic without a ability isn’t just right. He’s always had a special or distinguishing feature in the classic sonic games (already mentioned above) and it should be especially true sense he’s the title character. Exactly how Time Gear summed it up, why would you play Sonic if any other character feels more unique than him?

Buffing the spindash also wouldn’t suffice as all characters that have the ability to spindash would also gain the advantage from such buff. Independently buffing the spindash on its own for Sonic wouldn’t still fix the “uniqueness” problem. Yeah, Sonic would still be the fastest character, but would he still be the most fun to play as?

For example, if we were to play our first play-through with Sonic, you would see that he’s overall fast, and has a really good spindash. If you’re a veteran of Sonic, you would know that other characters have a spindash as well, but if you aren’t then you wouldn’t know that. So you would learn quickly to spam spindash to gain speed. You beat the campaign with a somewhat tedious ability and then you try out Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Fang or Metal Sonic (sense you unlock Amy, Fang and Metal right after) and you would quickly notice how “Hey, the other characters have a unique ability, why doesn’t Sonic?” and you’d realize that now, there’s no point in playing Sonic. Even if he has a buffed spindash, you found that the tedious gameplay of charging it up over and over again because you relied on it was just not as fun as flying or gliding or hovering around as Tails, Knuckles and Metal respectively, or bouncing or... hammering (I guess?) with Fang and Amy.

Yes, the Thok is overpowered in its own way and it could (and maybe should) get some re-balancing, but due to its overpowered nature doesn’t mean it should get out right deleted or not replaced. Abilities is what make each and every character unique, special, fun and exciting to play. Knowing that Sonic’s gameplay is “exactly the same but worse” than all the other characters will make the player turn away from Sonic, the player who once wanted to play as Sonic. This would be seriously lacking because again, he’s the title character, the main man himself.


Sorry if this came off as a bit aggressive, but it’s something I’ve had in my mind for a while after reading the post hours ago.
 
OP345 said:
That's precisely why the thok should go. If you get rid of the thok and just give Sonic a better spindash then you don't need to deal with an OP thok.
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The thing is I don't think thok is OP at all. It's definitely really good, but the thok doesn't break level design. Thok doesn't let Sonic skip platforming for free. Thok just lets Sonic move at a faster pace and get up to speed instantly.

Sure, compared to Spindash, the thok is OP, but compare the thok to Fly, Glide, or Hover and it's not nearly as OP.
 
LunickTMM said:
I dunno if "equal footing" is possible or even should be what we aim for. Tails and Knuckles break the level design wide open. Giving Sonic anything like that would definitely not be the way to go.
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I would like to point out that the level design is based around Sonic being able to complete the levels. If Sonic was brought to more equal footing as Tails and Knuckles, then the level design would be changed to reflect this and as such Tails and Knuckles would likely feel less broken as a result.

This would however likely result in Amy needing to be altered to be able to compare, though at the same time Metal's hover would probably feel a lot less OP as the stages would be more designed with that level of power in mind.

In regards to how this relates to the topic at hand, the opposite would be the case. If power in SRB2 is based on a character's vertical mobility, Sonic not having an air ability at all would make him the objectively weakest character, and as such it would dumb down the entire game as a result. As it is now, while the thok doesn't directly give Sonic any height, it does give him distance and can be combined with bounces. This places him much higher in the air mobility tier list than one might expect, albeit not necessarily beginner friendly.
 
time gear said:
If Sonic was brought to more equal footing as Tails and Knuckles, then the level design would be changed to reflect this and as such Tails and Knuckles would likely feel less broken as a result.
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While an interesting thought, I don't think this is correct.

Knuckles can be somewhat hindered as we've already seen in ACZ and especially in ERZ with unclimbable or hazardous walls. He can also be forced down unique paths that specifically cater to his abilities.

You can't bring anyone up to Tails' level of broken-ness without them also breaking the level design. Tails has free, 360 movement. Yes he's limited somewhat, but it's barely a limit at all. No matter what you do to the level, Tails can just skip whatever he wants because has his flight. In fact the only limiting factor to Tails right now is he can't break the Knuckles/Amy/Fang walls/floors.

Really, the only solution to Tails is either nerf him to the ground or remove him all together. Trying to pull someone to Tails level of broken would be significantly worse for the game overall.
 
LunickTMM said:
While an interesting thought, I don't think this is correct.

Knuckles can be somewhat hindered as we've already seen in ACZ and especially in ERZ with unclimbable or hazardous walls. He can also be forced down unique paths that specifically cater to his abilities.

You can't bring anyone up to Tails' level of broken-ness without them also breaking the level design. Tails has free, 360 movement. Yes he's limited somewhat, but it's barely a limit at all. No matter what you do to the level, Tails can just skip whatever he wants because has his flight. In fact the only limiting factor to Tails right now is he can't break the Knuckles/Amy/Fang walls/floors.
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Tails' flight only allows him to skip so much because the level design is primarily made with Sonic in mind, not him. Tails is limited by how long he can fly and a severe drop in speed in exchange for vertical height. This gives him a clearly defined maximum distance and height he can obtain as a result of his flight. If Sonic's thok was altered or replaced to be more in line with the kind of mobility Knuckles' glide/climb and Tails' flight is capable of, then the level design would as such be made more with that kind of mobility in mind and in turn Tails and Knuckles wouldn't feel as powerful, as the level design would allow them to skip less. This would be because Sonic would be capable of more, and as such the levels would require that kind of capability to progress through them. Tails' flight wouldn't allow him to skip so much because that level of mobility would be what the levels were intended for.
 
Making Sonic not have a double-jump ability at all won't solve the problem, only make it worse. Even if he was changed to be the only character who could use the shields' active abilities, that would just take something away from everyone else and make the whirlwind shield even more overwhelmingly desirable than it already is.

What Sonic really needs—no, what he badly needs—is an ability that scales with momentum. Tails' flight and Knuckles' gliding scale with momentum, which makes both of them good in many ways for speedrunning, so it feels very wrong that Sonic's thok is just the same burst of speed no matter the conditions, whether it's underwater or released from a spin dash or even with speed shoes. Similarly, I really really wish Fang's tail bounce didn't reset momentum, because that makes him extremely inviable for speedrunning despite initial appearances. If any character had an ability that didn't scale with momentum, it should probably be Metal.
 
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cookiefonster said:
If any character had an ability that didn't scale with momentum, it should probably be Metal.
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A better compromise would probably be to give him a meter that stops him from abusing his hover. Something similar to Silver. Allow him to go as fast as the player is able to get him going with it, but he can only remain airborn for so long before he has to drop.
 
In regards to making Sonic the only character able to use shield abilities, I feel that I should point out that the only reason he was the only character that could use them in S3&K is because they actually planned to let him use all 3 abilities regardless of shield or lack thereof, but moved the abilities to the shields to reduce control clutter.
 
PencilVoid said:
In regards to making Sonic the only character able to use shield abilities, I feel that I should point out that the only reason he was the only character that could use them in S3&K is because they actually planned to let him use all 3 abilities regardless of shield or lack thereof, but moved the abilities to the shields to reduce control clutter.
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This is the first I'm hearing of this, but even if it's true it doesn't change the fact that in the product we got Sonic is in fact the only character in S3&K that can use the shield abilities, and as such the impact of making Sonic more unique in that game is very real. Even if they had gone with Sonic always having access to the double jump, bounce, and air dash it still would make him stand out from Tails and Knuckles, so nothing really changes in regards to this discussion. If anything, it would make Sonic unfairly unique since he would have several more utilities at his disposal at any given moment than the other characters.

Either way, the general consensus seems to be that Sonic with no ability would be a net negative SRB2 overall, and that a different approach should be taken to solving the thok dilemma. My particular favorite individual ideas personally are giving Sonic parkour, replacing thok with the SA2 bounce attack, and making it so that the thok is a pure momentum redirection tool that scales to your current speed or to regular max running speed if you are moving slower than that.

Parkour would give Sonic more ability to move along and up walls, still giving him the horizontal advantage over Tails and Knuckles while still leaving the vertical advantage to Tails and Knuckles while giving Sonic a little more to work with than before. It would also be helpful for helping Sonic maintain speed, and he would have to earn it to begin with as parkour wouldn't inherently grant him speed.

The Bounce Attack with horizontal momentum preservation would allow Sonic to reach higher platforms than his regular jump can reach after a few bounces, and could be used similarly to the thok in performing badnik/monitor bounce maneuvers, though with a higher emphasis on vertical rather than horizontal launching. This would give Sonic a more reliable utility to reach high up places without outright giving him Knuckles climbing or Tails flying, keeping him unique. Easier access to otherwise Tails only shortcuts would help give speedrunners the sense of speed they are looking for with Sonic.

Momentum adjusted thok would feel like a nerf at first, not giving Sonic any additional speed than just running along the ground. However, should you manage to get moving faster than that, thokking would match your new speed. If you were to lose your speed, you would lose it on thok too, being unable to just instantly get it back. However, Sonic would have a reliable tool to instantly change the horizontal direction of his momentum while moving fast without losing any speed, giving him a powerful ability to make sharp turns while in midair. This would overall help safeguard slower, newer players by not encouraging them to use it as a pure distance tool and fly off cliffs, while skilled veterans moving at high speed through the stages would have a powerful tool to make use of to make some tricky jumps while doing speedrun maneuvers.

I feel like any of these three ideas would be significantly better than simply just not giving Sonic an ability at all.
 
time gear said:
The Bounce Attack with horizontal momentum preservation would allow Sonic to reach higher platforms than his regular jump can reach after a few bounces, and could be used similarly to the thok in performing badnik/monitor bounce maneuvers, though with a higher emphasis on vertical rather than horizontal launching. This would give Sonic a more reliable utility to reach high up places without outright giving him Knuckles climbing or Tails flying, keeping him unique. Easier access to otherwise Tails only shortcuts would help give speedrunners the sense of speed they are looking for with Sonic.
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An example of this could be the Rebound Dash (made by Krabs) from the Sonic Ability Contest, as it basically fits what you had in mind for a more vertical ability for Sonic. I find that a ability that gives Sonic less horizontal movement and more of a vertical versatility sounds like a great change. Obviously level design would still have to be tweaked and changed, but it would give Sonic that “Humph“ he needs to reach higher areas without having to exploit the Thok’s instant momentum increase up a slope or something.
 
honestly in general there's little point in removing sonic's thok or even changing it in the first place, since i've always believed the most suitable ability for him is one that lets him change direction on a dime while maintaining speed (which is partially why i like mods that implement the adventure spindash or the drop dash).
as for the shields though, they should remain usable for every character, since all of them have great uses for the shields other than sonic.
 
OP345 said:
It looks like this:

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This is what can be done with it:

srb20019.gif
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Yeah that's pretty much what I had in mind.
 
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