Sonic Ability Design Contest (SADC) Voting Thread

[Rumia1]

Alright! here is the voting thread for the Sonic Ability Design Contest

It is now 7/13/20, and a lot more has happened. With a grand total of one hundred and five votes, the community has spoken and it is now time to announce our winners!

There are 5 trophies to award, as follows:
-The Most Fun Ability award goes to Krabs' Rebound Dash with an outstanding 49 votes! The runner up being Katmint's Comet Dash + Recurl DropDash
-The Easiest Ability To Pick Up and Play award... also goes to Krabs' Rebound Dash with 50 votes! The runner up here also being Katmint's Comet Dash + Recurl DropDash
-Most Broken Ability award goes to Momentum Thok by Frostiikin, with an overwhelming response of 50 votes, leaving the runner up Epic Ability For Sonic by Cyron in the dust with a compartively minor 16 votes
-Silliest Ability goes to What The Thok by Zipper (was there ever any doubt?) with 56 total votes! The runner up was Cyron's Epic Ability For Sonic.

And now, our top three entrants are:
-Third place overall goes to Momentum Thok by Frostiikin, with 10 votes
-Second place overall goes to Comet Dash + Recurl DropDash by Katmint with 21 votes
-And first place overall goes to.... Rebound Dash by Krabs with FIFTY NINE VOTES! Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone who participated! I think this was a really fun and enjoyable way to take discussion about thok being removed away from just throwing around statements on why it should or shouldn't be removed and putting energy towards making something more tangible. I might end up doing a second one of these some time in the future perhaps!

VOTING PERIOD IS OVER!​

The voting period lasted 5 days and ended 7/11 at 11:59 pm MST.

 

[Krabs]

Should participants avoid voting?

 

[Rumia1]

Participants are allowed to vote because why not, you can only vote once so it shouldn't skew the results too horribly.

 

[Krabs]

A few thoughts on the other submissions.

Momentum thok is a fun idea, especially with the unique sound and visual effect for a max power thok. My problem with this ability is that it always feels like I'm thokking too fast or too slow. It's incredibly easy to overshoot or undershoot since the thok speed is hard to predict even though it's tied to the player's current speed. Also, this is incredibly strong in terms of distance and speed, which would allow sonic too much ability to skip insanely large amounts of a level in one jump.

A lot of the other abilities felt...weak. Keep in mind, sonic with the thok is outclassed by other characters in many ways, so creating a nerfed thok that does not go as far without adding a huge reward as a tradeoff just feels underwhelming.

Props to xthok for including the ability to do a short thok by tapping the button, just like rebound dash does. I think this functionality is really important.

The new comet dash is really cool, although I worry that the controls for the drop dash are difficult to discover without reading. Really fun though!

 

[pastel]

Props to xthok for including the ability to do a short thok by tapping the button, just like rebound dash does. I think this functionality is really important.

I actually find that a bit jarring in the case of exthok as releasing early still cuts your speed in half even if you're holding forwards. Rebound only does that if you also release the movement controls, though I wish it respected your autobrake setting and never cut your speed for releasing controls while autobrake is off.

 

[Kumin]

Just so we're clear, the "Which ability clicked with you the most?" question refers to the "Easiest ability to pick up and play" award, right? Because I feel like that question is easy to misinterpret, depending on how you interpret "clicked with."

To use a similar phrasing, it might have been better to ask something closer to "Which ability clicked with you the fastest?"

I know it might seem like I'm nitpicking, but I worry that some people might not read the list of trophies and realize that that's what that question is referring to... I mean, I read the trophy list, and even I wasn't immediately sure.

---

Anyway, setting that aside, I'll go into more detail about what I think:
Although I appreciate the ideas behind a lot of these abilities for adding complexity to Sonic's moveset, I feel like complexity isn't the major thing that Sonic is currently missing.

The thok debates have almost always centered around the idea that the thok is not an ideal ability for new players to start with, right? A lot of that has to do with the fact that new players tend to use it in places they shouldn't and end up flying off somewhere they don't mean to, but I feel like there's more to the thok's issues than its speed. More specifically, it's about control.

Getting a grip on the exact way that the thok affects Sonic's momentum can be quite tough because of how much control you have over its trajectory. Depending on how you hold forward or back, there's a huge variety of different places you could land after a single thok. And that's not a bad thing for experienced players—far from it. It provides players who know what they're doing with a huge degree of control over where they land. Key words: "experienced players" "who know what they're doing."

The thok's complexity contributes just as much to its unruliness for new players as its speed. If a player can't predict exactly how using the thok will affect where they land, and how much they should hold forward or back to adjust, then speed or no speed, it's generally not gonna be a smart idea to use it.

Yes, of course you can just "git gud" with the thok, but that's generally not something that players will do until around either the very end of the campaign or somewhere in the postgame. Until then, for basically the whole latter half of the campaign, players are incentivised more to just not really use the thok much at all. Because sure, they could throw their lives away trying to get good at using the thok when platforming, but why would they when they can just, y'know, not?

That's why providing players an even greater amount of precise control over how far they go, with abilities such as a momentum thok or a thok affected by how long the player holds down the button, I feel, only exacerbates the problem.

Are they bad abilities? No, far from it. It feels like it'd be a whole lot of fun to try to push these abilities to their limits. But I definitely don't think they're the kind of abilities that are easy to pick up and play for anyone other than those who are already experienced with the thok and want to take things a step further. They'd be very well-suited to unlockable characters, but I can't help but feel like they don't belong on Sonic.

Meanwhile, something like the climbthok, which doesn't complicate the thok's horizontal momentum and also provides Sonic more options for vertical traversal, I feel is much more appropriate. This is the kind of added control that would benefit newer players rather than further put them at risk.

However, if I had to pick an ability that is the best for new players, I'd probably point to the comet dash / dropdash combo. The comet dash may be a lot slower than a traditional speed thok, but it provides in exchange a whole lot more consistency. The comet dash goes more-or-less the same distance any time you use it, meaning it's much easier to gauge exactly where you'll land when using it, on top of it having similar climbing properties to climbthok.

Even if it feels a little stiff to me due to being used to the thok, I'm sure that for new players it'd be probably much preferable (at least in tight platforming situations) to have an ability that they can count on to move in just about the same way every time.

I do wish, however, that the dropdash were more accessible, rather than being an ability exclusive to recurling after comet dashing into the wall. The dropdash provides a great way for Sonic to gain speed quickly, and since the comet dash lacks the speed of the speed thok, I feel like it makes all the more sense to provide the dropdash as a way to gain that speed back.

Of course, I know that this contest is about "which ability is the most fun" rather than "which ability should be added to vanilla," and for that reason I might be seriously overanalyzing here—but that's my reasoning for picking the comet dash, if that makes any sense.

 

[pastel]

I do wish, however, that the dropdash were more accessible, rather than being an ability exclusive to recurling after comet dashing into the wall.

It's also usable after hitting springs (and any other time Sonic is in spring/fall frames), so it's meant to be situational for gaining speed in the same way Amy's ability is for gaining height. That said, the primary reason it was designed like that is to avoid replacing the ability when Sonic gets a shield. Any sort of native jumpspin ability for Sonic would require a drastic rework of shields.

 

[ManuelRome]

After having played all of the abilites, I think most of them missed the point of "replacing" the thok. I think most of them just added properties to the thok, altough they're still really fun to mess with.

The Climb thok by Princess Draykon works fine, but it does feel a bit slow when you hit a wall you didn't want to and have to wait a little extra just for Sonic to fall down.

The Momentum thok by Frostiikin was very fun to mess with, but I think it's very clearly OP, it just allows me to fly through most of the stage with it.

The EXThok by by JABSphere94 I didn't get, it mostly felt way too similar to the normal thok to me, I know the speed changes depending on how much you hold the button, but I honestly felt that had little to no impact on how I play the stages.

Now, the comet dash and recurl by Katmint, that one was also really fun to mess with, and weirdly, the thing I like the most about it, is something I'm not even sure if it was intended, because it allows you to actually "curve" the thok, if that makes sense, you can like curve the direction of the dash after you've done the thok. Also, thoking into a wall doesn't slow you down if you use the recurl so I think it makes sense to have both.

The Rebound dash by Krabs was fun to play with and was very easy to understand how it worked by using it. The only thing about it is, I mostly don't see a use for it outside of very specific situations.

The Juke thok by Wumbo I also didn't understand quite well, maybe it's because I don't use mouse controls that much?

Anyway, I think it was fun to try these out, and the "joke" abilites were very funny as well, especially the one by Zipper. I do hope someone does another contest like this in the future.

 

[Superstarxalien]

I'll post my experiences with each thok.
A crying shame all of these were just air dashes, we could have probably done with a double jump... or something else, who knows.

Climb Thok: This is the only one I haven't really tested thoroughly, as I've only played GFZ1 with it. It's pretty much the thok with a platforming aide, nothing too wild or much more welcoming, as you can still plunge yourself into the deepest pits known to man by mere accident.

Momentum Thok: Now this is what I'm talking about. Its basis on momentum and the small vertical increment it has allows for more precise platforming at the same time as it allows "dashing through stages like a maniac", it's also much better than the thok when it comes to that. It does miss the mark of being newcomer friendly, however; attaining great speeds by simply holding forward and using that in the worst spots possible is still a thing.

ExThok: Nerfed thok.

Comet Dash + Recurl Drop Dash: Out of all of them, I feel this one is the most balanced and newcomer friendly of the bunch; the alterations made to the thok coupled with its extra additions give it a very different usability that should be easier on people newer to the game. You can apparently do a lot of crazy stuff with it as well, which I certainly wasn't able to figure out at all until I saw Katmint's GIFs. That just makes me like it even more, leaving tech like that only for experienced players is always a good thing.

Rebound Dash: At first I couldn't see the usage this had, what with its focus on bonking on walls. As soon as I played Deep Sea with this, however, suddenly I noticed just how much more fun the stages became; the decreased "flinging" from bashing badniks and monitors and the slightly slower speed effectively makes this a more controlled version of the thok, and the rebound from walls coupled with the second dash turns it into a sort of pseudo-walljump, which is actually something I never thought I'd see in this game. It also makes ACZ's boss less frustrating, which is a godsend. Needless to say, this one is fun all around, though I can't quite say if it's still something that feels natural for the obligatory balanced/basic character.

Juke Thok: This one is just weird. The distance you cover with it is so short there's no reason to make it based on momentum only so you can't use it while still.

Epic Ability: Very funny, Cyron.

What the Thok: ok this one is actually funny lmao


----


Ultimately, if one of these were to get picked and replace the thok in subsequent SRB2 versions (...and the finished game???), I'd go for the Comet Dash + Recurl Drop Dash. It's the most balanced and newcomer-friendly of the bunch; something that'll make it easier for me to get people into SRB2 without saying "WTF this ability is ass", and something that would still throw experienced players a bone. I'd much rather see the dev team come up with something of their own, though.

I'm going to miss using the Rebound Dash, for sure. Or maybe not at all; it's a mod after all, lol.

 

[Unknownlight]

Climb Thok

I like the concept, but it needs adjusting.

• After thokking, the "climb" effect should stay for longer, possibly as long as Sonic hasn't touched the ground. Right now it only activates mid-thok. There were a lot of times I didn't climb after thokking into a wall because I was a tad too far away.
• Sonic should climb much higher. He barely gains any vertical height. He should launch upward quickly, not slowly crawl up a foot before falling.
• The reason to change the thok is because it's unwieldy for newcomers. If you don't hit a wall, this thok is unchanged from the normal one.

Epic Ability

-_-

Momentum Thok

I feel the concept of this should be backward. Right now you gain more height the faster you go. I feel that hurts inexperienced players. The people who need the vertical boost the most will also have the most trouble using it. A trade-off between height and speed seems more appropriate. Experienced players can sacrifice a double jump for a thok-like boost of speed instead.

I really like the Star boost effect for max speed.

ExThok

This kind of just feel awkward to play. Touching the jump button for a fraction of a second to cut your thok short doesn't feel natural. Additionally, the time it would most be useful (trying to save yourself after a botched attempt at platforming) is when it's least helpful. Players are bad at making precise movements with their controller when panicked; they'll absolutely hold the jump button too long.

Comet Dash

This is beyond the scope of this mod, but I'd really like this move to be more "parkour-ish". Specifically, look at this GIF:

If I hit a wall at an angle instead of straight-on, I'd like Sonic to curve in an arc along the wall, keeping his forward momentum, as well possibly the ability to kick off the wall afterwards to gain a little bit more height.

This also has the same issue as Climb Thok, in that the climb state should be active for longer when you initially thok. It should never be ambiguous to the player whether Sonic will climb the wall or not.

Other than those two points, I like the rest of it. I think the concept is worth exploring.

ReboundDash

This is my favorite ability of the bunch on a personal level. It's fun to use and feels solid and tactile. The problem is... I don't see any utility for this ability in non-expert play. How would this help a new player?

Juke Thok

This kind of has the same problem as the Momentum Thok, except even more pronounced. If you're standing still and try thokking, literally nothing happens at all.

What the Thok

I laughed. I didn't expect that at all, but it was perfect. Comically enough, it actually has some utility. This move gives Sonic some decent height... eventually.

-----

Ranking:

1. Comet Dash
2. ReboundDash
3. What the Thok
4. Momentum Thok
5. Climb Thok
6. ExThok
7. Juke Thok
8. Epic Ability

 

[Krabs]

I actually find that a bit jarring in the case of exthok as releasing early still cuts your speed in half even if you're holding forwards. Rebound only does that if you also release the movement controls, though I wish it respected your autobrake setting and never cut your speed for releasing controls while autobrake is off.

I actually play with autobrake off, but I could see the desire to disable the short dash. Perhaps it should only work if the player is holding backwards and lets go of the jump button?

I also want to note that rebound dash will never slow you down if you hold the jump button, even if you let go of forward.

 

[Rumia1]

Looking back on it, I probably should've said "no thoks" but I didn't want to stifle people wanting to make a better thok. Little did I know that everyone would make a thok.

 

[Latius]

I honestly should had tried to work on making a better HomingThok, but didn't have the motivation to do so.

 

[Princess Plushima]

It probably speaks to how much we all like thok that we all tried to find ways to make it better, rather than coming up with something completely new.


My thoughts:
There are basically two recurring problems that get discussed when talking about thok. It's difficult to get the hang of, especially with how Sonic tends to be most players' first pick, and it doesn't help much with difficult platforming. At least until you get used to its quirks. Sonic basically plays as 'hard mode.'
(You're also heavily punished for using it against bosses with death pits, but I consider that more of a flaw in the level design than in thok itself.)

When looking at new abilities, we should also judge how well they suit Sonic as a character. Giving Sonic a double jump fixes both of the first two problems, but it feels like a cop out to a lot of us because it doesn't feel like Sonic. There's some disagreement of exactly what that would entail, but I think the two common perspectives are that Sonic should be about either going fast, or smoothly flowing through levels.


So those are the three categories I want to talk about. Ease-of-use, utility in platforming, and Sonicness. I'm also going to talk about visuals, because those are fun. I'll be skipping the joke entries and my Climbthok.



Momentum Thok

• Ease of Use: Probably the hardest ability here to initially wrap your head around. It's even less predictable than the vanilla thok, and even more prone to throwing you off edges if you use it carelessly.
• Platforming Utility: In the hands of an experienced player, I'm sure it could enable some sweet speedrunning strats. Worth mentioning that you don't get much height out of it when moving at low speeds, so it's of limited use in narrow platforming sections like ERZ or AGZ.
• Sonicness: Rewarding momentum directly is fun, but I'm not sure spending that much time in the air feels right for Sonic.
• Visuals: Still using the lame vanilla thokitem for most of the time, the big bursting effect for the max power version feels really good.

Overall, much like vanilla thok, I kinda like it better on an advanced character like Metal Sonic. It's fun to play with, but I don't think it addresses most of the issues people have with thok.

EXThok

• Ease of Use: Very similar to vanilla thok, the changes here are very subtle. I suspect this would be meaningfully easier to use than vanilla thok, but I don't think you could prove it without extensive testing.
• Platforming Utility: identical to vanilla thok.
• Sonicness: Very similar to vanilla thok.
• Visuals: Just spawning a thokitem every frame instantly makes things look nicer.

This one's interesting to me, because it's less of a new ability, and more of just an attempt to polish up the vanilla thok. The mod also adds a small amount of coyote time to the game, which is a neat detail that should definitely be in vanilla- though it feels a little irrelevant to the contest. I feel like this could probably be glued to most other abilities here to improve them.


Comet Dash + Recurl DropDash

• Ease of Use: Comet Dash is generally much safer to use than thok, which leads to players being much more confident using it in dangerous situations. Tieing dropdash to fall frames is a bit weird, and kind of confuses things.
• Platforming Utility: Riding up walls like that is great and I'm still salty you beat me to to it. I do still find myself overshooting platforms with the dash occasionally though- perhaps a way to cancel out of it would help?
• Sonicness: "a slower thok" is inherently going to feel less Sonicy, but it still fits as an iteration on the adventure air dash. DropDash literally being a canon Sonic ability helps out here too.
• Visuals: The basic MT_THOK trail succeeds again. Looks nicer at lower speeds.

This is another fun one to play with, but I feel it has a bit too many moving parts. I love it as a mod with a lot of advanced tricks, but it really doesn't suit the goal of making Sonic simpler and easier.


Juke Thok

• Ease of Use: A simple as it is, its implications are super non-obvious to newer players. I can easily imagine people having no idea what it even does without an explanation.
• Platforming Utility: No more than vanilla thok
• Sonicness: A really interesting ability for maintaining flow through stages. It almost feels like an air "drift" in its implications.
• Visuals: Boo @ the vanilla single MT_THOK effect.

Another ability I really like for an advanced character, but don't really feel suits Sonic. Super interesting implications for speedrunning though.


Rebound Dash

• Ease of Use: Slightly better than vanilla thok with the momentum cancelling. Bouncing off walls is pretty easy to understand, but I'm not sure if the implications of using it to gain height are going to be obvious without some serious tutorialization built into the level design.
• Platforming Utility: Much better than I expected at first. I do feel you could get away with giving the player a bit more height. Being able to recover from a bad jump by rebounding into a wall, at the cost of being forced into thok-speeds is a super fun scenario.
• Sonicness: Super flow-oriented, and preserves most of the fun stuff you can do with thok.
• Visuals: Blows everyone else out of the water with pretty particles and a cool shockwave. The one thing I feel it's missing is interpolation on the MT_THOK trail.

The most fun ability here in my opinion, and my pick for most categories. It adds a lot at both high and low skill levels, and flows better than anything else here.

 

[Moose the Fat Cat]

After having played all of the abilites, I think most of them missed the point of "replacing" the thok. I think most of them just added properties to the thok, altough they're still really fun to mess with.
....
Anyway, I think it was fun to try these out, and the "joke" abilites were very funny as well, especially the one by Zipper. I do hope someone does another contest like this in the future.

You've summarized my thoughts well.

Still nobody has tried this layout:

Jump + Jump = Homing/Double
Jump + Dash = Thok

Shield overrides one or the other. Homing/Double helps with precision. Thok helps with speed. Best of both worlds.

 

[Frostiikin]

Honestly... Yeah, I just really like the thok, and couldn't think of a suitable replacement for it, so I just made my ideal thok lmfao. I'm a sucker for momentum :P

If I ever do end up making a "Frostii Abilities" thing, i'll probably try to smooth out some of the issues you guys had with it, like giving it more visual flair at low speeds, making the height gain a bit bigger at lower speeds, that sorta thing.

Not counting my own momentum thok, my favorite from this batch would definitely have to be the rebound dash. It's really fun being able to get on top of stuff you couldn't previously without ruining any sense of flow you previously had.

 

[LunickTMM]

Being perfectly honest here, I don't think any of these abilities solve any issues that are currently a problem with this thok.

From what I can tell, the current iteration of the thok has these issues:

Doesn't assist in platforming
Difficult to use properly

As of using these abilities, I feel none of them solve these issues and more or less create more problems than they fix. I'll go through the list and give my opinions over each.

Climb Thok

A simple ability, but I feel it doesn't do enough for Sonic. It's nice for raising up walls a bit, but the inconsistency of the height gained (I know it's based on how close you thok to the wall) makes it difficult to use at all. It also killing momentum no matter what angle you thok at the wall makes it difficult to use in any capacity other than to go up. And after testing it in a few levels, even maximum height isn't enough to get very high. It basically felt like playing a really bad Knuckles.

Epic Ability

Probably the best ability of the pack. This is one of two that took the design away from a thok and pushed it towards something new. I'm unsure how good this will be for platforming, but the take is completely unique and I was blow away by how unexpected it was.

Momentum Thok

I like the idea of this one a lot. It was difficult to use in initial play testing, but it seems interesting. However due to the varied nature of its speed it seems very intuitive to use based on SRB2's level layout. The immense speed gained from the max thok just far too fast to control. There's a few instances where I got it going but it feels too fast and comes too late to get proper use of it.

EXThok

This was one of my least favorites. I'll admit I have a bit of muscle memory from wanting to mash, but not holding the button for long enough and having your speed just stop is very infuriating. I think the idea is that you are stopping to platform with it, but that felt very difficult to do and often left basic platforming more difficult if I didn't hold it.

Comet Dash

This suffers from similar problems the Climb Thok does in that I just go up, and that's it. There's no interesting movement to it. The drop dash does help, but only if you're making it over the wall. Activating it off a wall and returning to normal height takes too long. And having it be based of spin means you have no air control after to carry it. I thought the thok was suppose to carry the speed unless I read it wrong.

ReboundDash

This one was kind of interesting and very flashy, but I feel suffers from little utility even worse than the Climb Thok. Using it to gain height really only works as a wall jump, and I think if levels were built with it in mind it'd be a really cool ability. However currently I struggle to find good use of it.

Joke Thok

Having this based on controls and not camera kind of screws with me, so that very negatively affected it for me. The other problem I had is that using it with no speed was awful. I think having a base speed, even if it's less than running speed, would do wonders for this ability. I think it would benefit the most from having Metal's Boost Mode attached to it as currently, the speed being retained is useless since the only way to get more speed is through spin dash and without being able to run with it, it's more difficult to chain the high speeds.

That the Thok

Very interesting take on the double jump idea. You definitely gain some serious height, however I feel the lack of momentum after use makes it difficult to use for paltforming. The height is definitely substantial, however I think it takes too long to get the height.

Final Thoughts

Overall I am not super sold on these. I think they aren't very intuitive and they don't answer the issues that are what makes the thok a "problem" in the first place. I also think a lot of these make Sonic a bit harder to control and even negatively affect playing as him.

I think the Comet Dash and Rebound Dash have the most going for them currently, and I do like the idea of trying these. I hope to see continued improvement.

 

[pastel]

Looking back on it, I probably should've said "no thoks" but I didn't want to stifle people wanting to make a better thok. Little did I know that everyone would make a thok.

While it's a bit silly that the contest ended up as "oops! all thoks", I think it's mostly a product of many people disliking the idea of Sonic getting a double jump and wanting to improve on the "air dash" archetype. I'd like to remind those looking for something else that are already several Sonic ability drafts for the "double jump" archetype out there. Cobalt made this, Krabs made that, I made something too. If you had held the contest a few months earlier you would likely have been swamped with double jumps instead.

The only reason there's so much discourse over replacing Sonic's ability is because he's Sonic and people have expectations for what Sonic should do, both from his history in SRB2 and the greater Sonic franchise. This game's protagonist is simultaneously its greatest boon and its most gruesome blight.

This suffers from similar problems the Climb Thok does in that I just go up, and that's it.

I could remove the momentum lock, but the issue with that is attempting to climb angled walls results in you sliding off them instead. I wanted to prioritise the ability's use as a safety net for undershot jumps.

 

[izzy]

comet dash parkour, awesome

 

[ManuelRome]

I could remove the momentum lock, but the issue with that is attempting to climb angled walls results in you sliding off them instead. I wanted to prioritise the ability's use as a safety net for undershot jumps.

Honestly, that already looks really cool. Maybe you could change how Sonic climbs the wall depending on player input, if he just holds forward, you do this sort of parkour style climbing, if you hold the input more towards the wall, you climb up it instead, so that you could have both options. I don't know how difficult it would be to implement this tho.

I love it as a mod with a lot of advanced tricks, but it really doesn't suit the goal of making Sonic simpler and easier.

I agree with this, about making Sonic be easier to play, but disagree on the making it simpler. Why should we make Sonic's moveset simpler? It already is as simple as it gets, and I think that, for example, what benefits the most recent Mario games over this in terms of gameplay, is the amount of depth the moveset has, the amount of things you can do with it, and also, how is both aimed at skilled and casual players.

I think the moveset of a character and the difficulty of the gameplay should reflect a player's skill, and not precise inputs or timing, and I don't think the fact that you can get used to how the thok works over time is a good enough reason to keep it as it is, but that's another topic.

I think it could only benefit from having more options, specially if you can give map makers more options on how to hide stuff, and the amount of skill required to find secrets and stuff like that, instead of just making it difficult from the get go. I do think that having just too much things would make it feel not like Sonic tho, so maybe we should still try to find the perfect balance.