Mystic removal discussion - The good and the bad

[clairebun]

It's actually really simple to improve SRB2's core control and fundamental physics problems by making it not feel like a slippery greased up eel, and actually having some linear acceleration/gravity changes and stuff.

In our testing we've actually found that an acceleration decay model was more ideal than a linear one.

There's a lot more factors to consider under the hood, but I'll just say we've already worked out a lot of the math and leave it at that.

 

[Cyan Ryan]

PM me suggestions of questions to add;

Not a question to add, but a suggestion nonetheless: now that Mystic and his ridiculous enforcement standards are gone, can we axe or at least heavily tone down rule 3? Requiring proper punctuation and capitalization in a community full of minors and ESL users is and always has been ridiculous.

 

[Lliteqiel ꙮ]

I think the Forum Rules in general are in dire need of an overhaul. For instance #12 and how it's worded as "no music replacements" instead of "rips" or something of the sort makes me anxious

 

[SeventhSentinel]

We're planning an overhaul of the forum rules. Stay tuned.

 

[xxBeanGirl420xx]

can we have a discussion thread about the new rules? if they're going to be applied largely community-wide, could be worthwhile to get input from the users here

 

[ChrisHighwind]

Mystic only did Aerial Garden (which by today's standards is arguably one of the worst maps in the game and should stop getting ported. It's just a ton of minecraft survival blocks over a pit that overstays it's welcome)

Looking back at Aerial Garden (and Prismatic Angel to an extent), I realize just how much I loathe the "Platforming on tiny blocks that send you into a bottomless pit if the jump isn't 100% perfect" challenges that are rampant in those levels, to the point that I always just use Tails' flight assist to bypass those parts unless something won't let me (I will forever hate both the conveyer belts in AGZ and the underwater trial in Prismatic Angel 2), when the only time I ever use the Flight Assist regularly in the vanilla game is the platforming segments at the very end of Egg Rock Zone 2, more specifically the Mega Man style disappearing block segment.

 

[Icarus]

I'm sorry about what I said several days ago... I dunno why I said it but I've lost a bit of my temper...


But I still wanted to add that I agree about the fact that very precise platforming isn't really suited for SRB2 (or at least with Sonic himself).


I would be glad if AGZ got entirely revamped to be a simple level with a big death pit instead of blocks in the sky.

 

[Smash Corliss]

As much as I love Aerial Garden (and the rest of the Mystic Realm for that matter,) It really hasn't aged well at all. When putting it next to the rest of the 2.2 stages, it doesn't take much to realize how dated this design is. I'm all for an overhaul for the stage. There is so much potential to make it into a really interesting, really fun zone.

 

[Just a lurker]

Only made an account because I recently 100% 2.2 and I unironically consider this fangame to be a top 5 Sonic game at least. If any current dev reads this, I just want to let you know that you're doing an amazing job.

The one experience I have in this board is lurking through the Super thread since I wanted to know the reasons why they decided to stick with that decision for so long. Not only did it leave a bad taste in my mouth to see Mystic's flimsy reasoning, but the unhelpful attitude that the devs had (who just so happened to be Mystic and Rob) ended up giving me the first impression that this was a polarized community. It's cathartic to see the thread being opened again and having people contribute their ideas to make the characters feel unique in their potential Super forms. As stubborn as Mystic's reasons were, they had some merit in a way and I'm glad to see that the "vocal minority" is currently having a nice discussion about this.

I can't really judge Mystic since I didn't have anything to do with this community. I find it hard to believe that he was that prominent a figure in the staff's attitude, but really, all I need to know is that I've seen the super and general project thread open up, the latter now filled with new posts of people sharing their work. That and the fact that so many people unanimously talk about feeling like a burden has been lifted on the boards says nothing to me but great things for the future of SRB2 in both official content and mods.

About Aerial Garden and Azure Temple: the former is probably the worst stage in the game in my opinion, but mostly only because of the bees. They turn a solid 7/10 stage into a 2/10. Take out the rooms that are just floating Minecraft blocks (Fang emblem route included, please), take out the bees and polish the level design a bit more and I think you'd get something really special. I don't think Azure Temple is AS bad but it IS a weird note to end on when it comes to stages in a Sonic game. Maybe retool it a bit to make it less frustrating? Or make a new fifth "final" challenge level?

Anyway, just letting the devs know that they have a fan here that wishes nothing but the best for them in the future now that most people feel relieved. Good luck to everyone!

 

[Logan8r]

I'd love an Aerial Garden rework while still keeping it a marathon level.

 

[Kumin]

AGZ's issue, in my opinion, aside from its blocky design and the usage/programming of the bees, is the lack of challenge variety. I don't have an issue with precision platforming in SRB2, and in fact I do enjoy ATZ a fair bit for its fair-but-tough jumps, but there's gotta be more to a stage than that, you know?

For that reason and because of the base level design, the only thing that could save AGZ at this point is a full-on remake, IMO.

Meanwhile, I'd say ATZ could probably mostly stay as-is aside from visual polishing and some quality of life changes. (It would be really nice to be able to see the edges of the air current blowing out of the vents in the third section of the stage. That feels like the biggest issue currently facing the zone, honestly.)

 

[clairebun]

I'll be honest, I personally think the bees are very novel in their design, but I think I understand why a lot of people aren't fond of them. The challenge of hive elementals are very different from conventional enemies in that their whole purpose is to apply constant pressure to the player, and this requires a shift in strategy on the player's part. This is fine on its own, but the bees are also introduced in tandem with obnoxious platforming over bottomless pits, so most players do not have enough of a window to adapt without eating lives.

 

[Kumin]

I'll be honest, I personally think the bees are very novel in their design, but I think I understand why a lot of people aren't fond of them. The challenge of hive elementals are very different from conventional enemies in that their whole purpose is to apply constant pressure to the player, and this requires a shift in strategy on the player's part. This is fine on its own, but the bees are also introduced in tandem with obnoxious platforming over bottomless pits, so most players do not have enough of a window to adapt without eating lives.

Yes, though in my case, I have one very specific issue:

The bees are meant to attack from above. They position themselves above the player, lock in place with a sound cue, and then after a short delay, slam down. This attack is telegraphed, and provides players sufficient time to get out of the way.

However, the bees can also just slam into the player from the side, if they happen to be on the same vertical plane. And if this happens, there is practically no preparing for it. They can come from outside the camera's field of view and strike quicker than a player can reasonably react. The only way to guarantee this never happens is just to never be out of ball form, which is easier said than done.

Usually what causes it is any situation that involves vertical traversal, because while the bees usually remain above the player so they can divebomb down, if the player moves up (such as to reach a higher platform) the bees will sometimes hit the player directly while attempting to move into position above the player to do their normal attack.

The way it happens, it almost feels like a bug. No pun intended.

Granted, this is not an extremely common occurrence, but it happens just often enough for the bees to go from feeling like a hectic but manageable threat to annoying and frustrating. Especially since, as you mentioned, the bees are often combined with precise platforming over bottomless pits, so this happening just a single time at the wrong time can spell instant death.

But whether the issue is the programming of the bees, the way the bees are utilized in the level design, or a combination of both, something really ought to change.

 

[GeorgeMP]

Anyways, back to Mystic:
While I have not been here for nearly long enough to have any kind of encounter with him(In fact, I only just now registered my account, although I have been a lurker for quite some time, browsing the forums, downloading mods, and such, but anyway, back to the point), I do still have some understanding of how bad he was, and I applaud the folks at Sonic Team Jr. for making the right call.


That's all.

 

[LongcrierCat]

I think it's also worth mentioning the influence Mystic's behavior had on so many community members. I alluded to this earlier in a post about Ash, but the purpose isn't to single him out - the pattern repeats itself with A Cat, Velocity, Spazzo, and so many others. The way Mystic initially treated them spawned the carnage that followed. On the flip side, you had many people who looked up to and 'hero-worshipped' Mystic - Rob, Prime, and several others past and present. I've met a few of them IRL and I can tell you with a lot of certainty that these people are not anything like Mystic, and likely subconsciously 'adopted the culture', or 'drank the kool-aid' to gain his favor and become part of the club.

I can only infer from what I read, but... if you meant this, thank you.

I sincerely had genuine feeling for a lot of my action in this fandom. I was only ever trying to fit in most of the time and I am scared about how many people were preying on me. But even with ED callout posts, it only looked like bullying to me ever.

Can anyone blame me for storyboarding a certain Sonic fan film? I loved that AU of Sonic and that's how I treat my media now. Like little multiverses to play with and I never got why people didn't like it. I know my partner wasn't the best, but I like to think he's getting better because I really don't want to think everyone here is turning into a worse person over time.

There's a lot of feelings I had going through this fandom that was impatient to children and their feelings. Hell, I even draw art for audiences young and old and don't approve of that porn channel even when someone like Ryan Reynolds can both play family friendly Detective Pikachu and everyone's favourite Marvel extremely raunchy bad boy of the time who actually is a decent guy when you get to know him. Sorry. It's the example that came to mind.

I had no idea why the Sonic fandom wanted to gatekeep stuff. It felt like all we ever did to one another was gatekeep and be spiteful petty assholes. Guys, we're not Rick and Morty, but people sure have gone through that shitty kind of family where the parents are either neglectful and leave their kids to their vices or are abusive and contribute to social conditioning that can lead to ruin. Doesn't matter how good the intention, if you got the wrong lesson from an obtuse lesson, that's not your fault. How you handle it is.


I'm very proud of this community for coming forward and speaking up. I thought I was the only one who noticed the mods being horrible cops that only allowed what they wanted to cultivate. And with people like Mystic, Tweaker, and so many others in this community across the net, it's alarming how much this has gone on and I am uncomfortable to how adjacent to Internet "Ironic" Nazism that has lead a country like America to ruin the behaviour of those people are.

... and I especially want to take a moment to say that I've been an ass to a lot of people. I'm sorry. I was heavily involved in the community as a teenager. I only wanted to get to know some people and sometimes it feels I got into the more "serious" analytical part of the fandom too early. I had a passion. I wanted to talk. I wanted the engagement I didn't feel I was getting at home.

You know this type of kid. The kid that info dumps. The kid who's a little awkward. A woobie. Someone who under the right pressure could destroy the world.

2013 was a huge wakeup call after getting banned from Retro. I got so used to assholes I was... turning into the asshole myself. I... even lost a ton of hope and ran off to another community. And honestly? It was the best thing as I found friends and they were extremely concerned for my well being. They had no idea why I hurt so much. There's a lot of personal issues I've put up with that in conjunction with the fandom being a little hostile to deal with and feeling I couldn't rationally talk to anyone. Kind of hard to when every adult is telling you about how much of a child you're being even though you remember reading and understanding Frankenstein at 11 and knowing full well that Dr. Frankenstein is both the scientist and the monster.

I have no idea what turned Mystic into a mentally stunted racist, transphobic edgelord. But I know what turned me into one, and I'm sorry for all of it. It sucks dealing with a homophobic, racist parent that told me "I could talk to her about anything" and then seeing that same shit online.

I know this is venty. I know this could be taken as self centered.

I just want my story out now.

And I'm sorry for the pain I inflicted back out of backlashing and clinging to the old idea of the fandom. I'm really happy you all want to make this a great space. I hope I get to see it.

 

[Augus]

I'll be honest, I personally think the bees are very novel in their design, but I think I understand why a lot of people aren't fond of them. The challenge of hive elementals are very different from conventional enemies in that their whole purpose is to apply constant pressure to the player, and this requires a shift in strategy on the player's part. This is fine on its own, but the bees are also introduced in tandem with obnoxious platforming over bottomless pits, so most players do not have enough of a window to adapt without eating lives.

The bees fill the same role as the Jetty enemies in the original version of the level, putting pressure on you during otherwise mundane platforming, except without being able to cheese them by just waiting in a safe spot for them to come to you and killing them all. In that sense they are better at their job than the Jettys were, but it was never an especially fun challenge. People just generally don’t play Sonic games to jump across tiny blocks over bottomless pits

 

[Tatsuru]

The AGZ/bee topic seems to be picking up some steam, so I advise maybe creating a separate thread for AGZ discussion, or even for the unlockable levels in general in order to keep this thread focused.

 

[sims]

Not sure what to say that hasn't really already been said better by other people. I frequented #srb2fun in the 2.0 and and early kart era of SRB2 and am ashamed to say that I fell in with the toxic attitude pretty quickly and easily. I can't even say that it was because of Mystic, but because that was just the common thing to do at the time if you wanted to be liked and I didn't really have any other community to be a part of at the time. To anyone who I've needlessly antagonized over the years or have been hurt from something that I've said or done, I'm truly sorry. I like to think I've gotten better but I know that that's not my call to make.

I'm glad that the community has taken a turnaround from that time and has been producing more content, I think between that and the newer dev team that the game is in a stronger position now than it has been in years and I'm really happy to admit that.

 

[Hyperknux]

I for one, am also glad that Mystic is no longer in the presence of this community.

It’s become pretty clear that over the years, the levels of toxicity were at the point of hindering the opportunity for not only the game to further expand, but also for the community to grow as a whole. Although I’m moreso of a lurker nowadays, I have been about since the very early 1.09 era, so I have noticed a fair amount of changes. Some good, some not so good.

It felt like I was treading on eggshells a lot, and this is why I originally left the community in the first place. One reason especially was the ridiculous rule enforcement within the old system. A good example is with Rule 3 as Cyan Ryan stated earlier. It’s actually counterproductive to why it’s actually trying to achieve. Striking down users when a slight grammar error is detected, (especially when you’re dealing with a community of different ages and experience of writing) is ridiculous. If anything we should try and give helpful pointers to the right direction that will help them improve over time. I for one had trouble of this when I joined way back in April 2006. Thanks to a few of the original people, they helped me go towards the right direction.

After catching up with 18 pages worth of discussion it’s become clear this had to be done for the entire community’s sake and end this kind of tyranny. I hope with the new leaders that they can not only help expand the game’s development without any restraints, but help the community to further develop as well. I’d be willing to return as a regular if it ends up going in that direction.

 

[BlueZero4]

(I'm not keeping up with this thread in realtime, so I'm responding to some old stuff)

But for the ability to get good scores on my essays in school, and some trivial respect I had from my tiny group of friends, I traded in a fundamental lack of self-awareness: that being a bottomless well of criticism doesn't make anybody like you, and it doesn't make you better than anybody else

In real-life and chat contexts, I've grown to like affirmative comments like "Thank you for mentioning that" or "That's a good point." However, on a message board, that feels... harder.

On Jeck Jims's models thread, I wanted to say, "I really like these, thank you for making them!" But, in such a large thread, with so many other comments, a single positive comment feels like unnecessary noise. I don't like creating extra distractions for other users, and each new post requiring more attention.

I don't like posting unless I can be insightful (like now); and I find that negative, critical, or disagreeing comments seem more insightful to me. "Yes, I agree with that" feels like noise to me; but "I disagree, here's why" doesn't feel like noise.

I don't mean to justify any of the old culture from past years. Simply, as I'm returning to the forums here (modestly), I'm trying to re-establish my relationship with the message board. This is just a thought that I've had about myself.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If I gave individual thanks to each post here, this thread would be really hard to read. But to everyone in this thread, thank you for taking the time to post. I enjoy reading all your posts, even though we're talking about rough stuff here.