Knuckles revamp discussion

[SkittleDude60]

To me, I feel like knuckles needs the most revamp out of everyone, he's probably the least fun and least interesting character imo. Xmomentum by Frostiikin's minor change to knuckles's glide cancel really makes him a lot more fun.
Also Knuckles's paths are not interesting and they're less fun than the normal paths, most of them are just "Climb this wall" and "Glide from point A to B.", most of this makes knuckles not nearly as fun as the other spin characters.
But what would we even do to revamp knuckles and still make him feel like knuckles? I'd love to hear some ideas

 

[Pyrakid Wolfo]

Clearly multiglide is the best option. It allows Knuckles more movement and makes using glide free. Being able to chain glides, and being able to use glide more than once in midair would clearly make him a good character. :moyai:

 

[clairebun]

Knuckles feels pretty solid IMO. The main objective of the 2.2 redesign was to make Knuckles as faithful to his S&K iteration as possible (with minor improvements), and Lach did an impeccable job on this.

I like the fact that Knuckles has more weight to him, but I realize that some of the mechanics in place to facilitate this have certain implications when it comes to speedrunning and momentum. It may be worthwhile to give him more options, for example allowing him to keep his momentum on landing by holding the spin key. The glide momentum cut is also a carryover from the classics but is partially necessary to make it easier for him to land on platforms. Though, if general air momentum physics were to be improved, then this might not be as necessary.

 

[Pyrakid Wolfo]

Knuckles feels pretty solid IMO. The main objective of the 2.2 redesign was to make Knuckles as faithful to his S&K iteration as possible (with minor improvements), and Lach did an impeccable job on this.

S&K overrated this is supposed to be better than the classics anyway. Plus this is a 3D game, 3D doesn't perfectly transition into 3D, we need more we all deep down know i'm right. :moyai:

 

[time gear]

Perhaps Knuckles could have a slight height boost compared to other characters when bouncing off badniks/monitors? Could be an interesting tradeoff for his reduced jump height, encouraging skillful bounce play to gain height and then using that height to glide over gaps and potential hazards.

As for Multiglide, I generally prefer the idea of it being restricted to Super Knuckles. This allows Super Knuckles to feel like more of a power improvement, and makes base Knuckles more committal with his glide cancels.

 

[Snowy]

A big thing that his crouch does is prevent players from spamming the glide relentlessly, and it encourages using normal jumps to maintain speed over gaps rather than being able to basically just have a better thok, because unfortunately that's all it is when there's no punishment- a thok that isn't as fast but is controllable and lets you skip over more platforming. Without the crouch Knuckles feels... just... wrong, in my opinion. Even back in 2.1 when he didn't have the crouch I very much never played him compared to Sonic or Tails because he never felt right to me, but now that he has the crouch he feels... fine? I don't know why or how, but it just makes him more satisfying to land from a glide with.

Multi-glide I guess could work for knuckles, but at the same time it makes his glide, which is already pretty strong, even stronger. I don't think this is needed, but I do think he could have more methods of moving if he MUST have something- though personally I think he's just right given how much movement he already has via the wall-climb.

S&K overrated this is supposed to be better than the classics anyway. Plus this is a 3D game, 3D doesn't perfectly transition into 3D, we need more we all deep down know i'm right. :moyai:

I don't think anyone ever said srb2 is supposed to be better than the classics, and deep down I think you're wrong. Let's not claim everyone's thoughts are the same as yours 'deep down'- I don't think you're enforcing your opinion as fact but that's how it's reading.
Not to mention Knuckles needs the 'nerf' even MORE in 3d because there's more direction to go, more options to choose, and thusly more methods to go fast and more methods to break the stage.

I think Knuckles is in a fine place right now, maybe some minor tweaks could be done overall, but really, he doesn't need a revamp or overhaul like some people seem to think he does, in my opinion. Maybe I'd make his glide a bit faster but that's about it.

 

[cookiefonster]

I think Knuckles got a good revamp from 2.1 to 2.2 already, plus a few adjustments in 2.2.5. The glide now scales with momentum, and smoothly adjusts with the camera as well. It's also nice that you can move the camera while climbing now, rather than being stuck looking at the wall. I'd also like to note that the current state of the crouch (as of 2.2.5) seems to me like a reasonable balance between preventing the glide from being too overpowered and keeping it fluid.

 

[Pyrakid Wolfo]

for clarification, moyai is an emote used to portray sarcasm.

 

[Spiky]

To me, I feel like knuckles needs the most revamp out of everyone, he's probably the least fun and least interesting character imo. Xmomentum by Frostiikin's minor change to knuckles's glide cancel really makes him a lot more fun.
Also Knuckles's paths are not interesting and they're less fun than the normal paths, most of them are just "Climb this wall" and "Glide from point A to B.", most of this makes knuckles not nearly as fun as the other spin characters.
But what would we even do to revamp knuckles and still make him feel like knuckles? I'd love to hear some ideas

Seriously? Knuckles is literally my favorite character to play as. Gliding and climbing is awesome and I'm glad the level design takes advantage of his abilities.

The only thing I would change about him is making him less prone to un-grabbing angled walls if possible, and giving him multiglide. The lack of multiglide is more acceptable in the 2d games, as falling from a glide usually results in you landing somewhere. But SRB2 is generally less forgiving, with its abundance of bottomless pits and hazards.

 

[GrayAngel]

Speaking as a Knuckles main, I think he's fine as is. It's hard for me to think of ways that would make him better, other than, as Spiky said, making it so he doesn't fall off angled walls. But I'm not sure if even that's feasible. He basically feels like S3&K Knuckles in 3D, which is how I like it. I mean, if you're going to change it so much that he no longer feels like Knuckles, he might as well be some other character, IMO.

 

[MK.exe]

Yeah knuckles is very solid. As a strong guy with concrete/rock breaking knuckles i'd expect them to have some weight and feel slow to other characters.

Feeling slow isnt exactly great but with the new slope physics in 2.3 coming, that would just make him even better imo

 

[Goldenhog]

S&K overrated

lmao

I think Knuckles is 100% fine as he is right now. The momentum-eating that he has when cancelling a glide and landing are necessary to help him feel like a distinct character from Sonic (you know, he feels heavy), as well as to ensure he's not faster than Sonic despite being more capable. And it makes him feel less slide-y than Sonic, which is appropiate for a character more focused on platforming than speed. While I agree that that feature was overtuned in 2.2.0, that is no longer the case and Knuckles feels awesome to control in my opinion.

Giving Super Knux the spidey-glide is just about the only change I'd be in favor of.

 

[LunickTMM]

As someone who has been speed running Knuckles since 2.2 came out, I feel I have a lot of strong thoughts on this.

First, I feel 2.2.5 was an amazing way of improving Knuckles for newer players. A lot of the other runners actually gave Knuckles a real try, as they said he felt less clunky. The only addition from here is I wish gliding in the air was changed to replicate the swimming. It's fairly jarring to go from gliding to swimming, as movement is radically different. This would also make turning in the air a lot easier.

As for the rest of his kit, Knuckles has two weaknesses that hurt his speedrunning viability: Jump Height and canceling the glide. Both of these aspects I know will never change, and don't really need to change. Jump height really does make a lot of platforming a lot slower, however removing it would make him more vanilla and less unique. And for canceling a glide, it does make him rather slow, it gives him a unique niche of being the only spin character who can stop on a dime to charge a spin dash.

That being said, something I wish for Knuckles would be anything to preserve momentum out of a glide. Cobalt already mentioned, but being able to hold spin while falling to transition into a roll would be a huge boost to Knuckles.

And for those asking for Knuckles to go higher off monitor bounces, you can actually achieve this with gliding already if you attempt to bounce off a monitor/badnik and press glide jump before. You get some serious height depending on how high you were to start.

 

[azoo]

Pressing back while gliding has always felt weird because Knuckles turns a full 180. What if instead, it lifted Knuckles up a little bit for extra height while canceling his glide and killing most of his air speed / control?

It'd reminiscent of how gliding is for Ray (although heavily nerfed), and would give you the ability to ascend higher than Knuckles can usually, although with a difficulty curve.