2.1 Techno Hill

[GameKyuubi]

My thoughts on these stages can be summed up as: too many gimmicks.

While not impossible, or even particularly difficult, the stage feels ... clunky. It's not quite as obvious where you're supposed to go or what you're supposed to do in the 2.1 version as it was in 2.0. Much of this comes down to finding a steam spring or a little ledge that was hard to see, which is kind of jarring compared to the way the level felt in 2.0. The slime is pretty hit and miss. Yes, it's a neat gimmick, but it's really obnoxious at times and slows the pace of the game down rather often. Not being able to jump for such a long time is a huge handicap, even worse than the poison water from 2.0, because yeah you got hit but at least you could get out quickly, and ultimately having to wait to regain control of your character is more annoying than getting hit. I've got two suggestions:
1) Instead of making Sonic's Z velocity the threshold for reenabling jump, I'd make it so that if Sonic is within a certain Z distance of the surface, he can jump, regardless of his Z velocity.
2) Have his jump height be his regular jump velocity plus some prorated Z velocity from the slime, such that it gives him extra height compared to what he would get from the slime if he didn't jump, but not so much that he can increase his height through successive jumps.

Other stuff:
- I'm not a fan of the part where you have to stand on the pistons and then dunk into the slime to push the button. It's easy to *just* miss the button by being too far off to the side, yet it doesn't look like you missed it. Reminds me of the Sonic 3 barrel a bit. I feel like it would be better used as a way to open a secret rather than an obstacle in one of the main paths of the level.
- Something's unappealing about the new color scheme. It's a bit too brown for my taste and maybe I'm crazy but it feels like it makes things harder to see?

Just my thoughts on the new level, take them with a grain of salt. Good job on 2.1.

 

[Unknownlight]

1) Instead of making Sonic's Z velocity the threshold for reenabling jump, I'd make it so that if Sonic is within a certain Z distance of the surface, he can jump, regardless of his Z velocity.

I agree with this. That's a good idea.

Everything else... eh. Don't see where you're coming from, myself.

 

[GameKyuubi]

I agree with this. That's a good idea.

Everything else... eh. Don't see where you're coming from, myself.

It may very well be that the slime in addition to the other gimmicks as a sum make the level feel clunky, and making the slime more maneuverable might mitigate this feeling, because while looking for hidden ledges and secrets and stuff you have to deal with the slime, which makes the process itself a bit tedious.

 

[Cirom]

The only thing I think really needs to change with the slime is that it should speed up - I feel the slowness you get from it takes way too long to get out, and perhaps if the rising just happened a bit faster..

I expected the bouncing to be similar to the kind of bouncing you get from landing on a platform on water from a really high height, to be fair - only takes a few seconds to get back to a stable state.

 

[GameKyuubi]

The only thing I think really needs to change with the slime is that it should speed up - I feel the slowness you get from it takes way too long to get out, and perhaps if the rising just happened a bit faster..

I expected the bouncing to be similar to the kind of bouncing you get from landing on a platform on water from a really high height, to be fair - only takes a few seconds to get back to a stable state.

Do you think it could still be used to make good puzzles it like that?

 

[Cirom]

Do you think it could still be used to make good puzzles it like that?

I'm not entirely sure. While that was my original imagining.. I don't see it being good for some serious puzzles with that method. Perhaps making the "consistency" of the slime feel more water-like instead (in regards to physics towards the player, anyway) - increased speed over the current iteration, though still reduces your momentum enough to feel like you're actually entering a liquid. (Essentially just making it faster :T)

 

[MascaraSnake]

It's not quite as obvious where you're supposed to go or what you're supposed to do in the 2.1 version as it was in 2.0. Much of this comes down to finding a steam spring or a little ledge that was hard to see, which is kind of jarring compared to the way the level felt in 2.0.

Honestly, even after replaying both acts to look for instances where the path might not be obvious, I have no idea what you're talking about here. I'll readily concede that the room where the paths merge in act 2 has some issues with direction that need to be fixed, but I can't think of any other section in either level where the path forward isn't obvious pretty much immediately. There are occasional rooms where the steam jet you need to use isn't right in front of you, but none of them are "hidden" any more than the one in the factory part at the end of act 1, and that one was there in the 2.0 version too, where you didn't seem to have a problem with it.

It's an integral part of a 3D platformer that you won't be going forward all the time and that sometimes you need to look to your left and right to figure out where to go next, but in general the level design points you in the right direction, and you should never be searching for the path forward. Maybe I'm missing some glaring design issues here, in which case please enlighten me, but I can't see where you're coming from right now.

As for the slime mechanics, I've seen a few complaints about how tedious it supposedly is to recover once you fall in, and I'm starting to think that some people don't realize that you have full horizontal control while in the slime. You can use the time that you're bouncing up and down to navigate to the nearest exit point, and usually by the time you're there, you're either already standing again, or you still have enough vertical momentum to be propelled up to dry land.

It rarely takes me much longer to recover than it would if it was water and I had to look for a spring, and it's definitely much less tedious than the old slime, where getting out of a slime pool usually meant getting hit at least twice and having to recover your rings, unless you were lucky enough to land right next to an exit. Basically the only scenario where recovering takes a while is if you get hit and knocked into the slime, but since THZ is a very easy level, that shouldn't be happening too often.

I do agree that the vertical momentum in the slime is slower than you would intuitively suspect it to be, and I can see why that annoys some people, even thought I personally don't have a problem with it.

 

[Ritz]

As for the slime mechanics, I've seen a few complaints about how tedious it supposedly is to recover once you fall in, and I'm starting to think that some people don't realize that you have full horizontal control while in the slime.

How could we not? Every time the slime mechanics are called into question, a dev's first response is to tell us that we're playing the game incorrectly. It's a cool gimmick when it's required to progress and a grueling punishment when it isn't. Possible solution: Make the floor of every slime pool bouncy? It's most tedious in the shallows, so if you hit the bottom with enough momentum, it'd be nice to bounce right back out.

 

[clairebun]

The problem with slime is that if you even just jump, it takes you two bounces to actually be able to jump again, which takes roughly five seconds to complete. It makes platforming sections like THZ1's midright toxic pool feel really clunky if you're playing as someone who doesn't have that much vertical control like Sonic and get stuck in an awkward part of the pool. Nowhere is this more obnoxiously apparent than the underground path entrance in THZ1, where you have to spindash into the goop, which locks your controls for a full ten to fifteen seconds before you can actually do anything.

For the record, I think the goop is a great gimmick for THZ and there's no way that I would go back to death water after what's been done to the zone now. But it should be modified in a way that doesn't break the flow of gameplay as much. I think all it really needs is for the threshold for being able to break the literal mold to be raised so that little bits of vertical momentum don't cause the player to continuously bump up and down.

 

[MascaraSnake]

The problem with slime is that if you even just jump, it takes you two bounces to actually be able to jump again, which takes roughly five seconds to complete.

Three seconds. You bounce into the water and out again, which is expected behavior. The alternative would be to require a minimum velocity to break the surface, which would actually be detrimental in most situations because then you'd have to walk on the slime, which slows down your running speed. When you're bouncing in it, you can reach your full horizontal speed, so that's generally preferable to walking on top of it. The only exception is a situation where the next ledge of dry land is too high for the slime to be able to bounce you up to it, like the rooms in THZ2 with the crates floating in the water. If you miss your jump there, then yes, you need to wait three seconds before you can try again, but not only are these instances generally rare and entirely avoidable, it's still better than regular water, where you'd fall down and have to search for a spring. Causing you to lose a few seconds of your time as a punishment for missing a jump seems totally appropriate to me.

Nowhere is this more obnoxiously apparent than the underground path entrance in THZ1, where you have to spindash into the goop, which locks your controls for a full ten to fifteen seconds before you can actually do anything.

It took me about ten tries to even replicate this, because normally you bounce off the slime surface and are standing again in a matter of 1-2 seconds. The only scenario in which you actually break the surface is if you walk really slowly towards the hole in the wall and then tap spin, which I doubt is what people generally do when they go down there. Even then, it takes you about five seconds until you're standing again, not 10-15, and you can still strafe to at least do the left turn.

 

[Unknownlight]

Regular jumping and such isn't really a problem with slime. What is a problem is when you get hit by an enemy and then fall into slime (easy to happen at the end of the THZ1 Knuckles path). You get locked in position traveling backward with no control over your character until you run out of momentum or hit a wall.

 

[Lat']

Also, the slime has another big and annoying problem...
When Tails is tired of flying, it takes forever to get out, I can't explain that, it looks like Tails becomes an elephant that tries to get out of there -_-

 

[MascaraSnake]

Regular jumping and such isn't really a problem with slime. What is a problem is when you get hit by an enemy and then fall into slime (easy to happen at the end of the THZ1 Knuckles path). You get locked in position traveling backward with no control over your character until you run out of momentum or hit a wall.

True, but you automatically regain your horizontal control after ten seconds. Maybe that could be decreased to five. In general this is only much of a problem if you happen to fall into a very deep slime pool, of which there aren't a lot.

 

[Rex The Kitsune]

Personally I find THZ to be a solid level. It has a good size and decent length. I know where to go in Act 1 thanks to my experience in 2.0, but Act 2 doesn't need memorization, it's extremely linear.

 

[VelocitOni]

The requirements for equilibrium need to be lower.

 

[speed2411]

My personal opinion... I think the harmful goop is better for Techno Hill zone. However, the new goop is pretty fun to use in levels of your own. And for all of you complaining about the time it takes to get out of the goop, news flash. ITS SOUPOSED TO TAKE LONG! You can't
Expect to to in the goop and not get punished for it...

 

[GameKyuubi]

My personal opinion... I think the harmful goop is better for Techno Hill zone. However, the new goop is pretty fun to use in levels of your own. And for all of you complaining about the time it takes to get out of the goop, news flash. ITS SOUPOSED TO TAKE LONG! You can't
Expect to to in the goop and not get punished for it...

That's not really true. The slime is used as a mechanic in the level. You're supposed to go in it and play with it, and even if you aren't, the decision to punish the player with so much loss of control over the character is not a good design choice, in my opinion. I'd rather just get hit and lose my rings. Or just die instantly, so I can get back to playing the game.

 

[Cirom]

I'd rather just get hit and lose my rings. Or just die instantly, so I can get back to playing the game.

This. As much as I like the new mechanics... gameplay-wise, I would actually rather just get hit and retain full control of my character than sit by a ledge I'm trying to reach, waiting for the slime to kick me onto it. The slime just takes too long to recover from, and it often breaks the flow of what is usually a pretty fast game. (for me, anyway - as I tend to do the levels pretty quickly as Sonic) Some of the worst offenders being the left path in THZ1 (though a nicely aimed thok can mitigate this one quite a bit) and the second Emerald Token in THZ1 - both spinning into the entrance (very long recovery time if you don't do it PRECISELY as the game expects you to, and don't get me started on those springs - plus, you lose strafing control while in a "spindash-air" state anyway) and the main room itself - missing a jump or even just accidentally jumping is an instant loss of 5 seconds. THZ2 wasn't near as bad (though mis-timing a jump can cost some time, as expected and ugh tedious) although I will say that the "diving" section with the platform can get real tedious at times - especially when you accidentally catch yourself on the bottom of the platform, or miss the jump.

Sure, we have full horizontal control, but when inside the slime, it's not horizontal control I'm really looking for. I'm pretty much already where I need to be by the time I'm halfway down the slime, so it becomes just a waiting game.

Also, I had no problems with THZ2's map design. Sure, on my first playthrough it took me some time to figure out which way to go (well, more like two seconds looking for an exit, expected of a first attempt) but at no point did I feel like I was going backwards or getting lost. Even with the open split-room where the two paths meet the checkpoint, I knew the middle way was the right path because 1. there was a checkpoint on the middle path, generally a sign of "go here" and 2. the opposite path looked exactly like the one I just took, meaning it probably was a joining point of an alternate path. Which it was.

 

[JEV3]

I had no problems with the THZ slime myself. I don't like how slow you run on it, but it's not much different from quicksand and is a far more interesting mechanic. I'm almost not sure if it should be any faster because otherwise you have no reason to avoid it in the areas where you aren't actually using it to reach new places.

THZ as it stands right now could use a little polishing, but I think it is the best zone in the game.

 

[Mystic]

While I agree that the slime might be a BIT (keyword a BIT) too punishing should you mess up in particular ways, wasting your time and killing your flow is actually the intended punishment for failing to play correctly around the slime. I'd like to remind everyone that SRB2 is not "gotta go fast", it's intended to operate like the classics, where playing through quickly and with good flow requires practice and some memorization of the stage layout. Your first few times playing through classic Sonic, you weren't going through with epic flow and looking awesome; you were stopping dead constantly, getting hit, and otherwise messing up in ways that caused you to slow down dramatically.

With this new slime, your first few times you deal with the slime, you're expected to mess up and in the process of messing up learn the mechanics and figure out methods of dealing with the slime more efficiently. Going quickly through the slime requires practice and mastery of the controls, and that's a good thing! Your reward for practice is getting to feel awesome at something you previously sucked at, and that's the hallmark of a good gimmick as far as I'm concerned.