In Sonic Rush, a new move was added to Sonic's toolkit: The Boost. Spindash was still available, but was obsoleted to the point of rarely getting used. This was taken into account for Sonic's future in the 3D titles, and so Unleashed in 2008 made the bold move of replacing the Spindash entirely and only featuring the Boost. This was around the time games started to release less often, and so there's only a few more mainline games between 2008 and 2013. 2013 marked the release of Sonic Lost World, in which something interesting happened.
Lost World features the Spindash again, however its functionally basically just the Boost and even fully gets replaced by it while Super. Forces would replace it with the Boost again, and then something special happens in Frontiers in which Boost is the default ability you have from the start, but updates to the game added in the Spindash as an unlockable bonus that exists alongside Boost with its own slight differences. Taking notes from Lost World, Spindash is mostly just Boost, but it has the distinction of holding onto speed when you leave the ground allowing it to be used to traverse distances as well as it being able to be used to damage enemies, which was removed from the Boost. This is a proof of concept the two abilities can co-exist, but there's still room for innovation.
Fundamentally speaking, the two abilities in concept are very similar. Before Frontiers, both abilities were able to damage enemies on contact and both abilities function as a burst of speed. The main distinction between them was that Boost was more instantaneous, could be used in the air and while already in motion, and functioned based on a meter.
I think the proper way to go about it in future titles might be to merge the two abilities completely. A "Spindash Boost" essentially. If you use it from a standstill, you get a spinning animation. If you use it while running, you keep running. If you leave the ground, you don't lose speed. The meter gets reworked, and so boosting is infinite. More details on that in the next paragraph. Speed is tied to ring count. The more rings you have, the faster you can boost up to a certain limit. This limit would only be half the maximum possible boost speed, capping off at 100 rings. You damage enemies on contact while boosting, similar to every game featuring Boost that isn't Frontiers.
I'd bring back the Frontiers Max Boost, but it would function more similarly to the infinite boost meter from Rush and Rush Adventure, which is where the reworked meter comes in. You do tricks to build up the Max Boost meter. When it reaches full, it starts depleting and you double your boost speed until the Max Boost meter depletes to 0. You can delay the Max Boost meter's depletion by doing more tricks. Tricks can be done after launching from springs, homing attacking into enemies, launching from a Rainbow Ring, and other similar actions. The more tricks you can pull off before touching ground, the more meter you get. Super Sonic would always have access to the fastest possible boost, but could also perform tricks to get back rings to sustain the transformation.
In essence, the Boost itself would become infinite and become merged with the Spindash, but how fast you can go with it would depend on your ability as a player. Collecting rings and maintaining Max Boost meter would reward you with more speed. This would reflect the original Genesis/Mega Drive games in which spinning could be used to build up speed but achieving and sustaining the fastest speeds had to be earned. Additionally, this system would make rings more useful and give you a real purpose to collecting more than 1 when you don't have access to Super Sonic, especially in games that don't use the lives system.
Some people might worry about boost trivializing enemies, especially if it never runs out. However, I'd counter this point by pointing out that the regular enemies were never really a threat to begin with and often could either just be spindashed through or avoided completely. This would function no differently than that, and in fact there'd be more interaction with them in the form of choosing whether to barrel through them at breakneck speeds or to use them as homing attack targets to perform tricks off of.
Instead of an awkward mishmash of both mechanics that hinders them both, it'd be much simpler and more intuitive to simply nerf the Boost in a few more ways, similar to Sonic Frontiers.
The Boost would initially consume much more energy, making it suited for long bursts. It wouldn't override any speed he had but instead boost it by increasing his base top speed and really upping his acceleration.
The Boost would not be able to damage enemies, like in Sonic Frontiers, though it should retain a bit of its aura, not only because it looks cool, but because it signifies that you are in fact Boosting.
Only being able to roll into a ball from a standstill, like you seem to be suggesting, really hurts the Spindash's ability to keep the flow up by using it to dash down slopes.
Sonic would retain his Spindash from the Adventure games - hold B to charge and release to, well, release. Then you could tap B again to uncurl. A Dropdash could possibly be included. It would be nerfed a little in that the Spindash needs to charge for a bit for it to actually start building speed, so tapping B would essentially be a curl-in.
The overall rate of the Spindash charging would also be slightly nerfed, but not to the point where it feels awful and slow.
I've seen a lot of people attempt to marry the Boost and Spindash in a similar way, and it always just seems like an awkward, unfun abomination-move, and it'd be much simpler to nerf the Boost in this way to make it a bit more situational and a lot less overpowering, because the problem with the Boost and Spindash coexisting is one overpowering the other in usefulness, when the goal should be to strike a balance between either using one or another in certain situations, or one move assisting the other, and in this case, is what I aimed for - the Boost to assist the Spindash, and Sonic as a whole, rather than consuming him.
The balance here is that the Spindash is used to traverse platforming obstacles, giving you general speed boosts, speeding down slopes, to attack, launching yourself using terrain, all like Sonic Adventure.
The Boost is used to blast through sections you are familiar with, or through long stretches, or just to wing it and trust your reaction time. The Boost is now just a plain-old boosting mechanic, not the focus of the gameplay. Losing control of Sonic and exiting the Boost state by hitting an enemy or a wall would either result in you having to play without it for a bit to regain energy, or risk using it all and gaining it back quickly, as stated before, it initially consumes much, much more.
Over time, the Boost would really start you build speed as you kept it up, resulting in a style not to dissimilar to the Boost V1 games, aka, Sonic Unleashed - Generations.
This is the best-case scenario in my opinion.
In case you wanted a quick overview of what the controls would be, here-
A - Jump, Airdash, Homing Attack
B - Spindash, Dropdash
X - Slide, Stomp
Y - Light Speed Dash
ZR - Boost
The Spindash would not fit under gaps - that's what the slide is for. It is still a bit odd, but some sacrifices need to be made.
The recent ZR Boost would be great here, not only to make it easy to access face buttons while Boosting, but the fact that Sonic also lacks a Drift, and the thing that hindered ZR Boost the most, the sidestep, as it was incredibly hard to sidestep right while Boosting with ZR.
Instead of an awkward mishmash of both mechanics that hinders them both, it'd be much simpler and more intuitive to simply nerf the Boost in a few more ways, similar to Sonic Frontiers.
I'm not aware of what it is you are referring to here, but even moreso I am unsure what is you mean by an "awkward mishmash" and "unfun abomination-move". What I'm proposing doesn't have any clashing mechanics between the two abilities and should be quite fun and engaging, but to make my point on that matter I'm going to have to get into it in more depth.
To start with, what both abilities have primarily in common is kept; You press the button, you get speed and can blast through enemies. In the 2D games you would generally have to crouch and then charge up the spindash before you could be rewarded with speed, but starting with Adventure it became a single button press with much of the charge time being quite unnecessary. Even in the classic games it didn't take very long to charge up a spindash however, so the instantaneous nature of the boost isn't really too out of place.
Where they differ is how they are maintained. Boost requires a meter that depletes while you use it, spindash lasts for as long as you can keep the speed going. Even then, infinite boost meters are not a novelty; Rush allowed you to get temporary bursts of infinite boost in exchange for performing tricks, Colors introduced the infinite boost meter in stages while playing as Super Sonic which was a mainstay from then on, Generations had an unlockable skill that made the boost infinite in exchange for being unable to pick up rings, and Frontiers gives you temporary infinite boost simply from drawing an infinity symbol with the cyloop. The Lost World spindash was effectively just the boost, and also didn't use a meter. Through this, we know that infinite boost isn't really all that overpowered and is generally more enjoyable than having to resource manage to maintain the ability to do the move at all.
The idea of earning and maintaining speed such as with the classic games has always appealed to me, and I see a lot of potential for that to translate over to the boost. Just because it allows you to barrel through enemies doesn't mean you should have access to top speed from the get go. Part of what makes Sonic's stages so engaging is getting faster and faster clear times through raw skill. This is where I got the idea of tying speed to ring count; rings normally don't have much purpose aside from protecting you from a hit and allowing you to transform into Super Sonic, especially recently since SEGA has been phasing out the lives system. Special stages don't really happen in the Modern games anymore, so making it so that holding more rings allows you to go faster all the way up to 100 rings would provide more incentive to hold onto them and not get hit in a way that's rewarding and engaging. This would also allow less experienced players to maintain slower speeds by not picking up more rings than they are comfortable with, clearing levels less quickly but in a more controlled manner. High ring counts would be very rewarding to speedrun playstyles, but would come with the added risk of needing sharper reaction times to clear obstacles. I fail to see anything about this that would prove unfun or awkward.
Then there's the max boost concept I came up with, which doubles your speed temporarily for as long as you can keep its meter from depleting. This was inspired by combining the concepts of the max boost from Frontiers with the infinite boost from the Rush games. This would be an added layer of engagement for speedrun playstyles that has already proven to be very fun in the Rush games, and I always did feel as though the trick systems in the 3D titles felt a bit lackluster in comparison. In the Rush games you can almost constantly be performing tricks and you're rewarded with almost always being able to boost without any fear of running out. The better you get at it, the less of a chance you'll ever run out and the easier it gets to clear stages quickly because of it. In my concept there's never any fear of running out of boost, but you still could end up slowing down if you're not keeping up with performing tricks, so every second counts if you want to beat your own personal best time or even go for a world record time. Once again, I don't see how this would be awkward or unfun.
I've seen a lot of people attempt to marry the Boost and Spindash in a similar way, and it always just seems like an awkward, unfun abomination-move, and it'd be much simpler to nerf the Boost in this way to make it a bit more situational and a lot less overpowering, because the problem with the Boost and Spindash coexisting is one overpowering the other in usefulness
Only being able to roll into a ball from a standstill, like you seem to be suggesting, really hurts the Spindash's ability to keep the flow up by using it to dash down slopes.
This makes me feel like you didn't understand what I'm proposing. I'm not talking about having access to Boost and Spindash as two separate abilities; I'm talking about merging them together into a singular ability cosmetically animated differently depending on whether you used it from a standstill or while already running. Rolling into a ball from a standstill wouldn't actually function any differently than boosting while already running, in either case you'd still have the same function of keeping your speed when leaving the ground. Having speed and velocity change based on slopes would also be a universal constant, and ideally would apply even when not pressing the boost button.
The Boost would not be able to damage enemies, like in Sonic Frontiers, though it should retain a bit of its aura, not only because it looks cool, but because it signifies that you are in fact Boosting.
I don't like this idea. Boost without being able to damage enemies isn't fun at all in Frontiers in either the open zones or in the Cyberspace stages, and getting access to this feature again via the Spindash in the late game and just for the normal boost in Shadow Generations felt incredible. Being able to barrel through enemies like a rogue bowling ball with the boost is an absolute must. Boost needs to be Boost, not just a glorified sprint button.
it'd be much simpler to nerf the Boost in this way to make it a bit more situational and a lot less overpowering, because the problem with the Boost and Spindash coexisting is one overpowering the other in usefulness, when the goal should be to strike a balance between either using one or another in certain situations, or one move assisting the other, and in this case, is what I aimed for - the Boost to assist the Spindash, and Sonic as a whole, rather than consuming him.
The balance here is that the Spindash is used to traverse platforming obstacles, giving you general speed boosts, speeding down slopes, to attack, launching yourself using terrain, all like Sonic Adventure.
The Boost is used to blast through sections you are familiar with, or through long stretches, or just to wing it and trust your reaction time.
I don't think splitting Boost and Spindash into two abilities with situational purposes works very well. Frontiers made this rather abundantly clear; if one or the other feels better in any way, it's going to just get used instead rather than both feeling fulfilling. Additionally, going fast and getting hurt by touching enemies do not go together very well in Sonic games. Having to slow down to hurt enemies is just going to make the gameplay feel awkward and sluggish, and having to always dodge around them while speedrunning defeats the point of them being distinct from other obstacles you're already having to do this with.
Rush and Unleashed already knew what they were doing in this regard; enemies and terrain obstacles are distinct things and both reward and punish the player separately. Enemies generally with rare exception reward the player for boosting into them, while terrain obstacles punish you for doing so. Enemies punish you for avoiding them completely by you forfeiting their rewards, while terrain obstacles reward you for avoiding them by not slowing you down and taking away rings. Figuring out what to boost into and what not to on a moment by moment basis is a big part of the engagement, and what you're proposing would dull this down into a "avoid everything while boosting" playstyle instead which is liable to just make players not want to use boost at all due to so little rewarding the player for attempting it. Especially with your idea of keeping the meter, as avoiding everything for dear life would provide little opportunity to replenish the meter. Just replenishing meter via rings beats the point of even having a meter unless you make rings less plentiful, which also comes with even more risk if you're going to have the boost be so heavily risky. Wisp capsules wouldn't be very engaging either, as this runs the risk of running out of boost and then not having a way to replenish it until the game decides to throw you a bone which when paired by boost not hurting enemies anyway makes for a rather poor combination in which players are likely to be too afraid to consume boost meter much at all because they don't want to not be unable to replenish it and they don't want to go flying into enemies and obstacles.
Instead, I think that conceptually merging the two abilities into one so that they're not in competition and neither feels inferior or too situational is the better alternative. By allowing the same best of both worlds technique to animate as either a boost or a spindash, the player is conveyed that Sonic is still capable of doing both things without them having to both be separate actions in Sonic's toolkit competing for spotlight or becoming hyper situational.
Boost should feel powerful, that's the entire point and Spindash was already very powerful to begin with. Like I mentioned before:
Some people might worry about boost trivializing enemies, especially if it never runs out. However, I'd counter this point by pointing out that the regular enemies were never really a threat to begin with and often could either just be spindashed through or avoided completely.
Nerfing it to make Spindash feel more useful just isn't the way in my eyes, especially if it's getting nerfed to not outshine a Spindash that's comparatively worse than what the Boost would have been otherwise. I want speedrunning through stages to be engaging and fun like playing a game at an arcade. Sonic should feel like a force of nature when moving at breakneck speeds, not fragile. This isn't a fighting game or beat em up or anything like that, enemies being an actual threat is not the focus of the genre outside of boss fights, and whenever enemies did become an actual threat back in the day (Friggin Slicers!) it was always infamous rather than praiseworthy.
Thank you for the additional information, I had trouble understanding your original proposal and pitched you my idea based on what I'd thought you said.
First, I'd like to state that my proposition was in NO way a personal attack on you OR your ideas, rather it was a pitch of my own mixed in with a bit of a misunderstanding. It's why I try to format my text and articulate my points in greater than average detail - I want to get the point across clearly.
"I'm not aware of what it is you are referring to here, but even moreso I am unsure what is you mean by an "awkward mishmash" and "unfun abomination-move". What I'm proposing doesn't have any clashing mechanics between the two abilities and should be quite fun and engaging, but to make my point on that matter I'm going to have to get into it in more depth."
Originally, what it seems you were proposing was mapping the Boost and Spindash to the same button, so that's where the claims of an "awkward mishmash of a move" came from.
"The idea of earning and maintaining speed such as with the classic games has always appealed to me, and I see a lot of potential for that to translate over to the boost. Just because it allows you to barrel through enemies doesn't mean you should have access to top speed from the get go. Part of what makes Sonic's stages so engaging is getting faster and faster clear times through raw skill. This is where I got the idea of tying speed to ring count; rings normally don't have much purpose aside from protecting you from a hit and allowing you to transform into Super Sonic, especially recently since SEGA has been phasing out the lives system. Special stages don't really happen in the Modern games anymore, so making it so that holding more rings allows you to go faster all the way up to 100 rings would provide more incentive to hold onto them and not get hit in a way that's rewarding and engaging. This would also allow less experienced players to maintain slower speeds by not picking up more rings than they are comfortable with, clearing levels less quickly but in a more controlled manner. High ring counts would be very rewarding to speedrun playstyles, but would come with the added risk of needing sharper reaction times to clear obstacles. I fail to see anything about this that would prove unfun or awkward."
A lot of the extra points you bring up here were not stated in the original post as far as I can tell - all the claims of the "unfun" controls were, again, rooted in the misunderstanding of mapping the Boost and the Spindash to the same input. In retrospect, I really don't know why I thought this, but the point of the comment wasn't to attack you but rather supply you with my own take as well.
I never jibed with the idea of the ring count correlating with Sonic's base speed as being hit once resets it - which may sound like a good punishment, but it in the end, I find it to be a little too extreme, similar to Sonic Heroes' level up system, which heavily, heavily punished death.
I also really enjoy the classis philosophy of designing Sonic stages/games and want it to return - earning and maintaining speed. Let me quickly build on my proposition for a Boost reformation - The Boost would initially consume a lot of Boost Gauge - a meter which can be refilled by collecting rings, passing by checkpoints, defeating enemies, and perhaps preforming tricks, which is a great idea to incorporate into 3D Sonic in a proper way.
The Boost would supply Sonic with a small initial boost in speed to keep him going, but other than that, his base top speed and acceleration are just cranked up. The Boost would simply act as a way to crank up Sonic's stats - basically allowing him to enter in and out of a flow-like state, if you will, rather than an overpowered bulldozing move, which isn't what your proposition states, but is rather the current state of the Boost, which I feel the need to point out now.
"Then there's the max boost concept I came up with, which doubles your speed temporarily for as long as you can keep its meter from depleting. This was inspired by combining the concepts of the max boost from Frontiers with the infinite boost from the Rush games. This would be an added layer of engagement for speedrun playstyles that has already proven to be very fun in the Rush games, and I always did feel as though the trick systems in the 3D titles felt a bit lackluster in comparison. In the Rush games you can almost constantly be performing tricks and you're rewarded with almost always being able to boost without any fear of running out. The better you get at it, the less of a chance you'll ever run out and the easier it gets to clear stages quickly because of it. In my concept there's never any fear of running out of boost, but you still could end up slowing down if you're not keeping up with performing tricks, so every second counts if you want to beat your own personal best time or even go for a world record time. Once again, I don't see how this would be awkward or unfun."
This is a really interesting idea, but keeping the Boost Gauge full would be impossible, so I would suggest just having Max Boost as a state you would enter after either reaching a certain speed or maintaining the Boost for a certain amount of time, even both. Again, the "awkward or unfun" statement was pointed towards the misunderstanding that you wanted to map the Spindash and the Boost to the same input. (I really made myself look like a jackass, huh?)
When I said:
I've seen a lot of people attempt to marry the Boost and Spindash in a similar way, and it always just seems like an awkward, unfun abomination-move, and it'd be much simpler to nerf the Boost in this way to make it a bit more situational and a lot less overpowering, because the problem with the Boost and Spindash coexisting is one overpowering the other in usefulness
I again meant that I've seen multiple people mash them together onto the same input, which is what I assumed you were doing, which again lies in the same misunderstanding - not the flaws of your ideas, as they are rather solid!
"This makes me feel like you didn't understand what I'm proposing. I'm not talking about having access to Boost and Spindash as two separate abilities; I'm talking about merging them together into a singular ability cosmetically animated differently depending on whether you used it from a standstill or while already running. Rolling into a ball from a standstill wouldn't actually function any differently than boosting while already running, in either case you'd still have the same function of keeping your speed when leaving the ground. Having speed and velocity change based on slopes would also be a universal constant, and ideally would apply even when not pressing the boost button."
Oh, it seems we've run into a DOUBLE misunderstanding-
That IS what you're proposing - and I dislike the concept of having them merged into the same move with a passion.
So, you did propose having the Boost and Spindash mapped to the same button, in spirit?
"I don't like this idea. Boost without being able to damage enemies isn't fun at all in Frontiers in either the open zones or in the Cyberspace stages, and getting access to this feature again via the Spindash in the late game and just for the normal boost in Shadow Generations felt incredible. Being able to barrel through enemies like a rogue bowling ball with the boost is an absolute must. Boost needs to be Boost, not just a glorified sprint button"
The Boost pretty much always was a glorified running button. Via my proposal, you would be able to barrel through enemies - through the use of a Spindash during the Boosting state. The Boost was always a run button with a hitbox, which is what I aimed to change.
Besides, the Boost in Sonic Frontiers was incredibly slow and basically the only way to get around. If Sonic Team had a bit more confidence in Sonic Frontiers, they might've even scrapped it entirely.
So, treading back on what I said before, yeah, I do believe the concept of a combined Spindash and Boost is awkward and unfun, and I'm not sure it would entirely satisfy either side - the fans of the Boost thinking their mechanic was combined with the Spindash so the opposing side would stop whining, and the fans of the Spindash being unsatisfied with its impurity with its comeback. Granted, in Sonic Frontiers, the Spindash returned essentially as a buffed Boost, dealing damage and flying off terrain, and many fans were overjoyed just because it resembled the Spindash, but what I'm pining for is a return in respect to the Adventure games, where I believe the handling of the Spindash was masterful.
"I don't think splitting Boost and Spindash into two abilities with situational purposes works very well. Frontiers made this rather abundantly clear; if one or the other feels better in any way, it's going to just get used instead rather than both feeling fulfilling. Additionally, going fast and getting hurt by touching enemies do not go together very well in Sonic games. Having to slow down to hurt enemies is just going to make the gameplay feel awkward and sluggish, and having to always dodge around them while speedrunning defeats the point of them being distinct from other obstacles you're already having to do this with."
I aimed to make the Boost a complementary mechanic to the rest of Sonic's moveset very purposefully, because I believe that the Boost as a secondary mechanic would be incredibly difficult to balance in relation to the Spindash, so instead I tried to balance it around Sonic - it cranked up his acceleration and base top speed, and consumed a lot of Boost Gauge initially to discourage spamming it or repeatedly entering and exiting the state.
The Boost, in my pitch, is meant to be a power to tap into when appropriate to boost the speed at which Sonic can travel over a large area. This can be related back to being a glorified run button, but it's speed would be dynamic like the rest of the physics engine as it would serve as, again, a simple Boost to Sonic's base ability to go fast.
As for your point of having to slow down to damage enemies - Spindash or Slide through them. That's how you would maintain flow. You would be heavily encouraged to interact with the enemies, as they are one of the main things keeping your Boost Gauge from depleting, besides rings. The system I proposed actually encourages interacting with enemies. I may have articulated a point poorly, and for that I'm sorry.
"Rush and Unleashed already knew what they were doing in this regard; enemies and terrain obstacles are distinct things and both reward and punish the player separately. Enemies generally with rare exception reward the player for boosting into them, while terrain obstacles punish you for doing so. Enemies punish you for avoiding them completely by you forfeiting their rewards, while terrain obstacles reward you for avoiding them by not slowing you down and taking away rings. Figuring out what to boost into and what not to on a moment by moment basis is a big part of the engagement, and what you're proposing would dull this down into a "avoid everything while boosting" playstyle instead which is liable to just make players not want to use boost at all due to so little rewarding the player for attempting it. Especially with your idea of keeping the meter, as avoiding everything for dear life would provide little opportunity to replenish the meter. Just replenishing meter via rings beats the point of even having a meter unless you make rings less plentiful, which also comes with even more risk if you're going to have the boost be so heavily risky. Wisp capsules wouldn't be very engaging either, as this runs the risk of running out of boost and then not having a way to replenish it until the game decides to throw you a bone which when paired by boost not hurting enemies anyway makes for a rather poor combination in which players are likely to be too afraid to consume boost meter much at all because they don't want to not be unable to replenish it and they don't want to go flying into enemies and obstacles."
The first points are similar to what I did, in a lot of ways. You need to interact with the enemies to continue to build your Boost Gauge up to maintain the flow of Boost for a longer period of time.
Also, the Boost I propose is very much not supposed to resemble the current Boost all too much. It's a compromise which I think will make Boost enjoyers contempt at the least in concept - you can still Boost as Sonic. Let me state - the Boost would not be a moment-to-moment decision on whether to use it, rather, the game would be a battle to keep the Boost state going, as you attempt to navigate through the obstacles as fast as you can.
Not keeping the meter simply Unleashes the Boost (pun unintended) into a go-fast button you have access to anytime, with absolutely no punishment of miss-use, which I think an inherently overpowered move such as the Boost needs, hence why it was and will continue to be packages with a meter, Frontiers being the exception, as there it was a run button.
Again (Reminded that this whole conversation is based off of multiple misunderstandings), the Boost I proposed would aim to do the opposite of avoiding everything for dear life, as if Sonic reared from the optimal path, he'd be punished with less replenishment of his Boost Gauge.
If you were to run out of Boost, that's a skill issue. You're going to have to lone it with just base Sonic (which may I state, is not slow by any means, just slower than Boosting Sonic) until you can replenish enough Boost Gauge to re-initiate a Boost and attempt to continue the flow state.
All in all, the Boost would build upon Sonic's base stats, and you'd need skill to keep it replenished. The game is absolutely playable without it, just at slower speeds, so it's encouraged to try to stay in Boost when appropriate, examples of it not being so would be platforming sections, where many rings and enemies may be thrown at you to help you re-enter the flow state you should be craving.
"Instead, I think that conceptually merging the two abilities into one so that they're not in competition and neither feels inferior or too situational is the better alternative. By allowing the same best of both worlds technique to animate as either a boost or a spindash, the player is conveyed that Sonic is still capable of doing both things without them having to both be separate actions in Sonic's toolkit competing for spotlight or becoming hyper situational."
I'd like to say, I totally understand where you're coming from, and I also am sorry if I sounded a bit condescending before, that wasn't the goal.
I don't enjoy the concept of the Boost and the Spindash being merged, so I handed you my take.
This conversation was based on multiple misunderstandings, and it's safe to say it's my fault.
I'd really like to continue this conversation, if you're interested!
First, I'd like to state that my proposition was in NO way a personal attack on you OR your ideas, rather it was a pitch of my own mixed in with a bit of a misunderstanding. It's why I try to format my text and articulate my points in greater than average detail - I want to get the point across clearly.
I never jibed with the idea of the ring count correlating with Sonic's base speed as being hit once resets it - which may sound like a good punishment, but it in the end, I find it to be a little too extreme, similar to Sonic Heroes' level up system, which heavily, heavily punished death.
This depends heavily on implementation. It's only extreme if the design itself is extreme. I wouldn't want it to be that if Sonic has no rings that he can't achieve any sort of reasonable speed. Rather, he'd have a pretty decent starting speed cap which could be raised higher from there. To put it another way, it would be ideal for there to be consistency to Sonic's movement up to a certain point.
Given their practical purpose within Sonic's toolkit, this seems to be a bit of an inevitability. As I covered before, they are incredibly similar in concept and execution. As such, it's very difficult to just give him both because whichever one comes across as more useful is going to end up getting used exclusively. The only way to make it work would be to do something like keep the Spindash when used on the ground and then simply let Sonic airboost in the air or something, which would be just as controversial. Otherwise, you're left with either giving him Spindash or giving him Boost, but not both. My idea functions as a compromise; One ability that takes the best of both worlds approach which cosmetically references both abilities without needing to do any heavy nerfing to make them coexist.
Holding a direction input was the "sprint" button, at least in every game that wasn't Lost World. Boost is a "Go faster and destroy enemies in your path" button. You know, Sonic is powering himself up; boosting. Frontiers is the one exception, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. As mentioned before, as soon as I unlocked Spindash it became superior to boost in every way that actually mattered. The loss in speed wasn't substantial enough for me to care and everything else about it was a flat upgrade.
The problem with this idea is that there's already enough for the player to memorize. Short hop to not trip over hazards close to the ground, slide to get under tight corridors, quick step to dodge out of the way of spikes and walls and incoming lasers and etc. Having to always press the "don't get hurt" button when enemies are coming up would just be another split second reaction command to memorize, which could very easily start to become a bit much. Being able to just barrel through enemies acts as a satisfying way of handling reprieve, the enemies function more like collectables than like hazards you need to react to in time, and missing them is already enough punishment. Not pressing the "don't get hurt" button in time could become frustrating, especially when you're going as fast as you possibly can. Remember, this is a platforming series first and foremost, and while there is intentional appeal for teens and adults the games are also being made for children.
So, treading back on what I said before, yeah, I do believe the concept of a combined Spindash and Boost is awkward and unfun, and I'm not sure it would entirely satisfy either side - the fans of the Boost thinking their mechanic was combined with the Spindash so the opposing side would stop whining, and the fans of the Spindash being unsatisfied with its impurity with its comeback. Granted, in Sonic Frontiers, the Spindash returned essentially as a buffed Boost, dealing damage and flying off terrain, and many fans were overjoyed just because it resembled the Spindash, but what I'm pining for is a return in respect to the Adventure games, where I believe the handling of the Spindash was masterful.
I think most fans would generally just be overjoyed to have a boost equivelent that actually has proper physics interactions when transitioning from the ground to the air, as evidenced by the positive reception of the Frontiers spindash despite it just being an alternative boost. If you want the Adventure spindash, I generally think that's better off left to the Adventure formula. It would be more at home in a hypothetical "Adventure 3" or something similar rather than trying to make it work as a move in the boost toolkit. Make no mistake though, I'd love to see a return to the Adventure formula in a future game. I've thought for a while now that a Sonic and Shadow duo game in which Sonic uses the Boost formula in his stages and Shadow uses the Adventure formula in his stages would fit really well.
In particular, I think there's still room for improvement for the Adventure formula and its handling of the Spindash. It felt best in Adventure 1 in my opinion, but it was still a bit janky at times and could benefit a lot from a more modern physics engine and tighter controls.
Not keeping the meter simply Unleashes the Boost (pun unintended) into a go-fast button you have access to anytime, with absolutely no punishment of miss-use, which I think an inherently overpowered move such as the Boost needs, hence why it was and will continue to be packages with a meter, Frontiers being the exception, as there it was a run button.
Not really. Most boost formula games make it pretty difficult to run out of boost anyway, and as I've pointed out the concept of an infinite boost is hardly a new concept. The difficulty generally comes more from avoiding hazards and maintaining speed rather than keeping the meter up, and situations in which running out of meter is a real threat generally are more annoying than anything else. There's no sense of reward in not running out of boost, but there is a sense of punishment (sometimes even out of your control) if you do run out.
Whether a move is overpowered depends on the context. For instance, Tails's flight can sometimes feel overpowered, especially if you use it in Sonic 1 and 2 levels that weren't designed with it in mind. When stages are designed with it in mind however, it ends up feeling a lot more balanced such as in Sonic 3&K and much of Mania in which the levels tend to be a lot taller and more full of stuff in general. In most Sonic games in general regular enemies already aren't meant to be threats, so having a button to barrel through them without consequence isn't overpowered because they were never meant to be consequential to begin with. The challenge generally comes from the level design, not the enemies.
If you were to run out of Boost, that's a skill issue. You're going to have to lone it with just base Sonic (which may I state, is not slow by any means, just slower than Boosting Sonic) until you can replenish enough Boost Gauge to re-initiate a Boost and attempt to continue the flow state.
I'd rather skill issue arise from not being able to maintain speed through difficult terrain, not from being unable to resource manage a meter in a platforming game. SEGA generally seems to agree because they've been having to find ways around the boost meter being an issue in pretty much every game since it's debut. I wouldn't be surprised if up until now the only reason they haven't done away with the meter entirely is because they've been fearful of people complaining to bring it back out of a sense of status quo, and so the solution has generally amounted to making it as hard to run out of meter as possible just to maintain the illusion that the meter actually matters. Restoring meter through collecting rings that are everywhere all the time, restoring meter through busting up enemies that are all over the place, restoring meter through wisp capsules that are placed quite regularly, etc. When they want you to use boost, you're going to have the meter filled one way or another and it's almost always effortless to avoid it running out in these sections. At this point all my suggestion amounts to is ripping away the facade and taking away the inconvenience in the process.
I think I'm starting to see where you're coming from - and I do have a few adjustments to make to find a middle ground between Boost and Adventure that also resembles your idea a little more. Firstly, I wanna go over hypothetical controls...
A - Jump, Airdash, Homing Attack
There would be a notable absence of a shorthop in this hypothetical game, as to cut some frankly unnecessary fluff. It'd maintain a bit more of the floatiness of the Adventure games but would still be noticeably heavier.
B/X - Spindash, Stomp
I decided to compress B and X into a single input, and I came out with this - a Spindash and a Stomp, possibly reskinned to have Sonic spinning. The Spindash would now allow Sonic to slide under obstacles. Holding B after landing from a Stomp will start charging a Spindash.
Y - Light Speed Dash, Trick
Light Speed Dash functions as usual, but Trick is to repeatedly tap Y after launching from an object, e.g., a spring, red ring, etc...
After tricking at least once, you can press A to hop up, X/B to dive down, and ZR to blast forward in a Humming Top.
ZR - Boost
The rework of the Boost I discussed as a way to boost Sonic's natural abilities. Again - it consumes a lot of Boost Gauge initially, doesn't deal damage, and heavily relies on collecting rings and defeating badniks to be refilled.
The Spindash/Dropdash and Slide/Stomp could still be separated between B and X, but simplicity may be better here, considering the Boost's control scheme is relatively simplistic.
One thing I realize now, is that I went over controls in great detail, but not the stage design.
Again, I believe the best option is to lean more into Adventure's open platforming exploration, yet still fast stages, and not into the Boost's insanely reaction-based hallways. I think that recontextualization makes the Boost I propose much more appealing.
Basically, it's Sonic Adventure with a button that boosts your base stats at the cost of a meter, and said meter would be filled and maintained by blasting through the levels so you can reach the next set of enemies or line of rings earlier so you may continue on.
Your goal would be to constantly be Boosting, but not in a way that overpowers everything else Sonic or even somebody like Shadow could have in his kit for traversal.
Think of it kinda like Sonic Advance 2's Boost mode, just tied to a button at the cost of a meter tied to it.
Now, I wanna talk about your points
"This depends heavily on implementation. It's only extreme if the design itself is extreme. I wouldn't want it to be that if Sonic has no rings that he can't achieve any sort of reasonable speed. Rather, he'd have a pretty decent starting speed cap which could be raised higher from there. To put it another way, it would be ideal for there to be consistency to Sonic's movement up to a certain point."
The idea of rings boosting your speed is really cool, and now that I think about it, if Sonic just only lost 20 rings when hit, and couldn't collect them back, that'd allow this idea to come into fruition without feeling like getting hit once ruins everything and also fixes the problem with Sonic being practically invincible.
To merge this with the Boost, how about instead of it raising the normal base speed cap, it'd raise the Boost's very own base speed cap, allowing the collection of rings to even further boost the Boost and encourage interacting with the stage and maintaining Boost.
"Given their practical purpose within Sonic's toolkit, this seems to be a bit of an inevitability. As I covered before, they are incredibly similar in concept and execution. As such, it's very difficult to just give him both because whichever one comes across as more useful is going to end up getting used exclusively. The only way to make it work would be to do something like keep the Spindash when used on the ground and then simply let Sonic airboost in the air or something, which would be just as controversial. Otherwise, you're left with either giving him Spindash or giving him Boost, but not both. My idea functions as a compromise; One ability that takes the best of both worlds approach which cosmetically references both abilities without needing to do any heavy nerfing to make them coexist."
I'm just not seeing this ever happen, even if my idea is definitely out there too.
Merging them might not be a horrible idea if done extremely carefully, giving the Spindash a Boost-like property based on some condition or something, but I'm really not sure, and I couldn't give you a sound example.
However, I do see the thought process behind it, and I do commend the idea, I just don't think it's the best solution. Frankly, the Boost is really holding Sonic back, because Sega refuses to let it go, and its presence denies physics-based platforming, which is what Sonic was about before the great course-correction. I believe my proposal allows the Boost to exist while letting physics-based platforming finally come back.
I am, however, really open to the idea of Sega creating another cannon split (as controversial as that might be) continuing on the Adventure timeline, as well as the Adventure style, leaving the gameplay to another proven talented studio. This would let the Boost and Adventure styles be their own things, and I would be just as if not happier if this was the outcome rather my proposal.
"Not really. Most boost formula games make it pretty difficult to run out of boost anyway, and as I've pointed out the concept of an infinite boost is hardly a new concept. The difficulty generally comes more from avoiding hazards and maintaining speed rather than keeping the meter up, and situations in which running out of meter is a real threat generally are more annoying than anything else. There's no sense of reward in not running out of boost, but there is a sense of punishment (sometimes even out of your control) if you do run out."
I've found myself running out of Boost multiple times in Shadow Generations because I was being reckless with it, and that felt like I had to conserve my Boost by holding onto it rather than using it in bursts, and I really liked that because it challenged me in a new way with the Boost formula, where before it was only dodging obstacles, now being mindful of my Boost made it more fun to try and conserve it.
Since the way Sonic controls in this proposal would be just fine without Boosting, maintaining Boost would now become rewarding, while running out isn't nearly as punishing, as Boost-less Sonic is just straight Adventure Sonic.
Weaving in and out of pathways and obstacles to nab more rings and bash into more enemies, I do believe, would supply a great sense of reward and flow, especially now that rings would boost you further,
In my proposal, I would like enemies to pose a threat in certain situations, namely slower platforming sections - frankly it's pretty lame that in the Boost games, the already simple enemies were just there to assist Sonic in platforming or to plough through. SA2 had a pretty good balance, you needed to be a little careful when you were gonna launch that Homing Attack.
"I'd rather skill issue arise from not being able to maintain speed through difficult terrain, not from being unable to resource manage a meter in a platforming game. SEGA generally seems to agree because they've been having to find ways around the boost meter being an issue in pretty much every game since it's debut. I wouldn't be surprised if up until now the only reason they haven't done away with the meter entirely is because they've been fearful of people complaining to bring it back out of a sense of status quo, and so the solution has generally amounted to making it as hard to run out of meter as possible just to maintain the illusion that the meter actually matters. Restoring meter through collecting rings that are everywhere all the time, restoring meter through busting up enemies that are all over the place, restoring meter through wisp capsules that are placed quite regularly, etc. When they want you to use boost, you're going to have the meter filled one way or another and it's almost always effortless to avoid it running out in these sections. At this point all my suggestion amounts to is ripping away the facade and taking away the inconvenience in the process."
Def seeing where you're coming from with the meter management. If you do just want to run through a Sonic stage, it might be a bit annoying compared to the Classic, Adventure, and Boost Styles.
Still, I think it's the best solution. Perhaps downing the afterwards consumption would be reduced a bit more to allow you to Boost for 4 straight seconds for a full Boost Gauge without replenishment, while making the reward from defeating enemies and collecting rings more minimal, but I'd rather go for the tighter Boost and more rewarding replenishment from rings and badniks.
The idea of rings boosting your speed is really cool, and now that I think about it, if Sonic just only lost 20 rings when hit, and couldn't collect them back, that'd allow this idea to come into fruition without feeling like getting hit once ruins everything and also fixes the problem with Sonic being practically invincible.
Sonic not losing all his rings on hit has been the standard since Unleashed, not counting the retro throwback games. I'm a bit indecisive on if he should lose a certain number of rings per hit or whether it should be a certain percentage of his rings until the number gets low enough, but either way you'd be able to take multiple hits and still have rings in your inventory.
I don't really think it is necessary to make it so you can't pick them back up, but I would make it so that rings are somewhat more sparse to compensate. Not to the point they become outright rare or anything, but more like the difference between Unleashed and Generations boost stages. In Unleashed getting several hundred rings is incredibly easy because there's such an intense number of them everywhere, whereas in Generations they're comparatively more tricky to collect. Level sections designed more specifically around speed would already serve the function of being unable to pick up rings on hit anyway.
On that note, I'd like to see SEGA experiment around with the idea of Mach Speed sections again. Project 06 has shown that when handled correctly these can actually be quite fun, and I feel there's a lot of really good potential in the idea of merging those types of sections into Boost formula levels. I can imagine sections like this acting as in-between areas while traversing from one more open ended level section into another.
To merge this with the Boost, how about instead of it raising the normal base speed cap, it'd raise the Boost's very own base speed cap, allowing the collection of rings to even further boost the Boost and encourage interacting with the stage and maintaining Boost.
Essentially, the idea is that Sonic has a base speed without boost, and then can boost to go faster. The more rings you have, the faster the boost gets, capping off at 100. Any more rings and you don't go any faster. Max Boost would function as a way to go even faster for as long as you can keep it going, doubling whatever the current boost speed should be. So if you have no rings, Max Boost doubles you to 100 rings worth of speed. If you have 100 rings, you get doubled on top of that.
Like I said before, I see it as something of an inevitability eventually. Frontiers outright gives you a way to make it infinite already, which you can do for free without limit. It does count down an invisible timer, but once that timer runs out you can simply re-enable it. While infinite boost isn't enabled, the boost still just automatically fills up on its own when you aren't using it. Even before this they already made keeping the boost meter filled very easy more often than not. It seems like only a matter of time to me until they feel bold enough to just remove the meter entirely as a flawed and outdated mechanic that was complicating things more than enriching the experience.
Boost doesn't inherently deny physics based platforming, it's just not getting used for it so much. We got a taste of its potential in Frontiers via the spindash, and it's incredible. With as fun as using the Spindash in Cyberspace is in Frontiers, I am very optimistic about the idea of further refinement in that direction for the boost. There's a fantastic feeling of liberation in being able to boost off an edge or ramp and go flying with the ability to steer yourself midair in the direction you want to go, and I can very much envision a lot of cool things they could do with that control scheme in regards to platforming.
I've found myself running out of Boost multiple times in Shadow Generations because I was being reckless with it, and that felt like I had to conserve my Boost by holding onto it rather than using it in bursts, and I really liked that because it challenged me in a new way with the Boost formula, where before it was only dodging obstacles, now being mindful of my Boost made it more fun to try and conserve it.
Shadow Generations is more geared towards Shadow as a character. Boost is Sonic's big thing, he's the fastest thing alive. It's to be expected that other characters wouldn't have the same level of mastery over his signature move as he does, and so would need to be more conservative about using it. Shadow's gameplay in Shadow Generations is geared more towards using his other more unique abilities; Chaos Control, Chaos Snap, Chaos Spear, and the various Doom powers. I don't really mind Shadow having a meter here because his toolkit is designed in such a way as for this limitation to make sense and he has options to compensate for it when he runs out. He's basically invincible for a few seconds while using Chaos Control (which in some cases can easily be used several times in a row), he can skip huge sections of the levels with Doom Wing, and he can avoid being left particularly vulnerable by firing off Chaos Spears at enemies. That doesn't even get into speedrun tech such as the Chaos Spear skips.
Sonic's toolkit is less directly combative (aside from when he's deliberately forced to slow down such as in Frontiers open zones) and more built around getting to the goal quickly and slowing down/stopping as little as possible, so the idea of a meterless boost fits him and his playstyle better than it would for other characters such as Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, etc.
In my proposal, I would like enemies to pose a threat in certain situations, namely slower platforming sections - frankly it's pretty lame that in the Boost games, the already simple enemies were just there to assist Sonic in platforming or to plough through. SA2 had a pretty good balance, you needed to be a little careful when you were gonna launch that Homing Attack.
Do keep in mind that this balance is already handled pretty well in the boost games. There's enemies that you can't just boost into that fire lasers at you which you can only attack by boosting other enemies into them, there's functionally the same shock enemies in homing chains that can punish you if you homing attack at a bad moment (though admittedly they're used more sparingly these days, though I suppose Frontiers did somewhat bring the concept back a little bit more prominently), and sometimes there's even enemies that fire projectiles that could still hit you if you're not careful while trying to attack them. That doesn't even get into mini-boss type enemies such as the giant robots in Unleashed and Colors that chase you and the G.U.N. Truck in Generations. It's not that enemies aren't a threat in general in boost games, it's just that many of them aren't, which hasn't really changed much since the original games all the way back in the day. This isn't primarily a combat franchise, it's a platforming franchise, so tough enemies aren't something that are going to be all over the place.
Ya know, better yet, give Sonic two different playstyles, akin to normal to Mach Speed in 06, or Classic to Modern in Generations. Some stages would be platforming heavy, and Sonic is given an SA2 style moveset. And some would be lightning quick, reaction-based levels, where Sonic is given the Boost and Slide. It would be hard to pull off cohesion, but it could work.
I thought you meant just base speed after I forgot sorry lol.
So yeah, that's a good idea.
"Boost doesn't inherently deny physics based platforming, it's just not getting used for it so much. We got a taste of its potential in Frontiers via the spindash, and it's incredible. With as fun as using the Spindash in Cyberspace is in Frontiers, I am very optimistic about the idea of further refinement in that direction for the boost. There's a fantastic feeling of liberation in being able to boost off an edge or ramp and go flying with the ability to steer yourself midair in the direction you want to go, and I can very much envision a lot of cool things they could do with that control scheme in regards to platforming."
It kinda does deny it, because a part of the physics-based platforming was gaining speed, using it accordingly, and being rewarded. Boost bursts you forward instantly, with a tight minimal and maximum speed.
This is all because the Boost Era was a major redirection with Sonic, from physics-based platforming to reaction-based platforming, which can co-exist, but are still different.
Launching yourself on a ramp simply from tapping a button to instantly burst forward isn't fun to me - it felt game breaking. Even in the stages designed for it, I just didn't have much fun.
Which is why the Spindash in my proposal would take longer to charge to a state where it could really fling Sonic, so that gaining speed through Boosting and Spindashing down slopes and things like that would be encouraged, but you could still Spindash launch to fling yourself back into action.
Please don't be blinded by Frontiers' 2nd update. That is not the Spindash, no matter how much they want you to think it is. It's the Spinboost, and it's even called that internally. It's just a Boost with some tweaked parameters - I am very happy for its implementation simply so the modders could use it to program in a traditional Spindash system.
"Like I said before, I see it as something of an inevitability eventually. Frontiers outright gives you a way to make it infinite already, which you can do for free without limit. It does count down an invisible timer, but once that timer runs out you can simply re-enable it. While infinite boost isn't enabled, the boost still just automatically fills up on its own when you aren't using it. Even before this they already made keeping the boost meter filled very easy more often than not. It seems like only a matter of time to me until they feel bold enough to just remove the meter entirely as a flawed and outdated mechanic that was complicating things more than enriching the experience."
You still haven't communicated WHY this is an inevitability, given the presence of other options, such as my pal MajorMajin64 stated above, which is why this point is hard to communicate and reason with.
I'd like to state that the Boost in Sonic Frontiers, in my opinion, is bad game design. It's almost inarguable that the game would feel much better if it had a more robust physics engine and had Sonic actively gain and lose speed over slopes, along with the addition of a Spindash to amplify the positive and negative effects of the slopes, and to initiate in combat.
The Boost in Sonic Frontiers is an uninteresting run button only tied to a meter to disguise it as a "Boost." It's about 1 step away from Lost World, and everybody complained that the game had a run button, and how un-Sonic it was.
I try to see the problems Sega makes, as I know the people running the company are only human, and can make mistakes, and I believe you fail to take that into account in some points you make.
I understand the appeal of reaction-based high-speed platforming through obstacle courses, but that wasn't Sonic until Sega bombed. Then it WAS Sonic for a while. I believe if we are to reach a middle ground, we need to return to Sonic's pure roots, and move forward from there, with a compromised Boost tagging along to appease the people who were introduced to that.
I understand many people will miss the reaction-based high-speed platforming, but I think THAT is better relegated to side games rather than the Adventure formula, due to the long development times a Boost game takes - the long hallways take forever to develop.
In absolute conclusion, I believe my proposal provides a middle ground between the incredibly split fanbase that Sega has created, and I understand many points you bring up, and respectfully disagree.
Now we're just left to wonder, "Where will Sonic go now?"
It kinda does deny it, because a part of the physics-based platforming was gaining speed, using it accordingly, and being rewarded. Boost bursts you forward instantly, with a tight minimal and maximum speed.
Physics based platforming is just that. Platforming that is physics based. It doesn't matter how quickly those physics come into play, it only matters that they do. What you are describing is simply a preference towards one particular gameplay style within the constraints of physics based platforming. In particular, the style that is often mistakenly referred to by the Sonic fanbase as "Momentum".
Here's the thing though, while I also enjoy that gameplay style, there's also something of a misconception about it that you also seem to be falling into, which is that the speed you obtain in that style of gameplay is always entirely earned. This isn't so. Gaining the speed to begin with has been easy since Sonic 2. Simply rev up a quick spindash and go flying downhill. It's that easy. It's not earning speed that makes this gameplay style fun and addicting; it's keeping that speed going. Memorizing the stage layouts and learning the muscle memory to put in the right inputs at the right time to avoid losing control and being forced to a screeching halt. Bouncing off badniks and monitors and landing on downward slopes and doing jumps at just the right time and etc. all in service of keeping the speed going for as long as possible to get to the goal as quickly as you can.
Boost with its instantaneous speed basically amounts to the speed you get from revving up a spindash, just without the brief revving up period first. Wasting a second or two of time doesn't magically make Spindash balanced and skipping that time doesn't make boost overpowered. What matters is what comes next, which is also the reason why Unleashed and Generations are still held in such high regard. Obtaining speed is easy, but keeping it going, getting the fastest time you can, breaking your own records by making as few mistakes as possible... That's something that's earned. It is at its very essence the very same thing that made going fast in the old classic games so fun. It's the very same addicting gameplay loop. Adding even more physics interactions to the boost to make getting into a flow state even more satisfying and put you in even more of a feeling of control only serves to live up to that classic legacy.
Please don't be blinded by Frontiers' 2nd update. That is not the Spindash, no matter how much they want you to think it is. It's the Spinboost, and it's even called that internally. It's just a Boost with some tweaked parameters - I am very happy for its implementation simply so the modders could use it to program in a traditional Spindash system.
This is all just a bunch of redundant terminology. Spindash has never had only one consistent identity, but the more general function that it serves in gameplay still gets fulfilled regardless. Boost has always just been spindash without the spinning part and without the revving up period, just reinterpreted to suit the shift in gameplay style. The spindash in Frontiers is the spindash, even if it's not mechanically identical to your favorite interpretation from a previous game. The spindash itself varies from Adventure 1 to Adventure 2, it appears again with another interpretation in Shadow 05, and gets reinterpreted yet again in Sonic 06. Yet, in all of these games the spindash is still the spindash, and it's still the spindash with Classic Sonic in Generations, it's still the spindash in Lost World, and it's still the spindash in Frontiers. Internal names aren't canon regardless, they're just terms the devs used to refer to things for easy reference, just like how the internal name for the powered up Super Sonic is "Super Sonic 2" in reference to Super Saiyan 2 despite it not actually being that regardless of what the fanbase might insist.
You still haven't communicated WHY this is an inevitability, given the presence of other options, such as my pal MajorMajin64 stated above, which is why this point is hard to communicate and reason with.
I'm not really sure how I could explain it any better than explaining the history of them traveling in that direction for decades now yet again. It's rather abundantly obvious that the presence of the meter has posed problems for them and they've found ways to often make it functionally infinite to get around these problems, or even on occasion just outright make it actually infinite. The meter feels like it should be a good idea on paper but it gets in the way more often than it rewards players in practice, and they keep having to design around this issue. Sonic doesn't have much in the way of other tools in his toolkit to account for how vulnerable running out of meter makes him, and whenever they provide an opportunity to not need to worry about the meter it's liberating for the player for not needing to worry about it. The clear solution to the dilemma is to just take the meter away from him entirely and make the challenge more about interacting with the stage design rather than resource management, just like it always was before the boost games.
The Boost in Sonic Frontiers is an uninteresting run button only tied to a meter to disguise it as a "Boost." It's about 1 step away from Lost World, and everybody complained that the game had a run button, and how un-Sonic it was.
The boost generally gets hated on less in Frontiers than in Lost World though, because in Frontiers you can actually run without pressing boost. Lost World required you to hold down a button to go fast at all, not just for going at the fastest speed. But yes, the boost in Frontiers is still a blunder, particularly because despite being called boost it doesn't feel like it. It lacks the ability to hurt enemies and it can't maintain speed when launching into the open air. Best you can do is enable a setting to allow you to hold onto speed when hopping along the ground short distances, which doesn't serve all that much of a purpose.
Spindash is closer to what Boost should have been from the start, which is why it's what gets defaulted to as soon as its unlocked and gets so much praise. The problem isn't having a go faster button, the problem is that button not harming enemies and not feeling good for traversal beyond just going fast along the ground.
I've already addressed this point in this post already, but I do think it bears repeating that this point is flat out incorrect. It's always been Sonic since the very beginning, that's always been the primary appeal. It's why in Sonic 1 Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are so hated; they don't provide any opportunity to maintain speed. It's why Green Hill Zone is so beloved, or at least was before it started getting more overused than crack by an addict. GHZ provides ample opportunity to maintain your speed, as does other stages such as Spring Yard Zone and Star Light Zone. Maintaining speed through obstacle courses conspiring against you has always been the appeal, and it's also why Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 were so much more popular than Sonic 1. They allowed you to get this rush with even better design in this regard.
The only thing that really makes the way the boost games up until now have handled it different from the retro classics is that you could maintain speed by flying off ramps and bouncing off things in the retro games, something that the Frontiers spindash brought us closer to in an official 3D game than we have ever been before. An experience that as far as I'm aware has only ever truly been handled correctly in 3D in SRB2. Which is why...
This would doom the franchise. Reaction based high speed platforming is the very core of the identity of a Sonic game. The closer you get to getting this detail right, the better the Sonic game. Sonic is all about the rush of getting to the goal ring as fast as possible despite the difficulty of maintaining your speed on the way there. Taking that away is to fundamentally misunderstand what makes this clock tick. Even with the Adventure formula if it is to return in the future, it absolutely must be innovated in this direction if it is to truly find success and cement its place as more than just another brief nostalgia pandering phase. They're going to have to look at that gameplay style long and hard and think to themselves about how they can design the physics and level design in such a way as to make getting to the goal ring as fast as possible as difficult yet rewarding as possible through careful and skillful maneuvering through the level design to keep the speed going unhindered by the hazards in your path despite the challenge in doing so.
See, I think the Boost has more potential than the Spindash, because it can be reinterpreted in so many different ways. It's simply described as a boost of speed in every game it's been in, and that can mean anything. Heck, the Spindash can be interpreted as a Boost. This means that the Boost has the potential to be in any type of Sonic game, in any form. But if we're just talking the current (if you can call 2008-2011 current) interpretation of the Boost, along with how it is in Frontiers, then I think the Boost still has a ways to go before it can top the moves in, say, SA2. (I will not mention Forces. That is boost done wrong. You move at a set speed with it, that set speed being slow, and you are expected to never stop Boosting. Combine that with the Slide being completely optional, and the quickstep being dogshit, that game is almost worse than 06.) But, it is on it's way. See, if we're talking moves for traversal, then Frontiers does the move perfectly. It can be used almost infinitely, sometimes actually infinitely, and the Air Boost is incredibly buffed, having a slight push upwards and instant max speed. But, where I think you see the fault, is that in Frontiers, the Boost is only a traversal tool. Unlike the limited, lightning quick boosts before it (bar Forces), it does not damage enemies, and thus, is not an attack like the roll, but rather, a tool, like the Air Dash in SA2. Going to the point of momentum, I think the only Sonic games that need it are those without an incredibly fast Boost, and where you are not encouraged to be boosting 24/7. Because the Boost makes you go fast with the click of a button, momentum is kinda useless with it being employed. And if an Adventure style game was to have momentum, the Spindash would need to be seriously nerfed, so you have to gain most speed by playing well, rather than charging a move that can be activated while moving. I have more of a point to make, but my fingers are starting to hurt from the typing.
You seem to somewhat get what I'm saying, but where we differ is that what I'm saying is "The boost should be innovated moving forward", whereas what your point seems to be is "The boost still has room for innovation, so it should be nerfed and sidelined because it's not already good enough yet."
I'd like to address one particular point you make:
Because the Boost makes you go fast with the click of a button, momentum is kinda useless with it being employed. And if an Adventure style game was to have momentum, the Spindash would need to be seriously nerfed, so you have to gain most speed by playing well, rather than charging a move that can be activated while moving.
Going fast at the click of a button is what spindash always was. Boost isn't special in this regard, and nothing about that aspect of boost invalidates any physics based platforming that take place with it. It's highly abusable in SA1 and fans have endeavored to bring this into other games.
Additionally, there's a deep misunderstanding within the fanbase as to what "Momentum" is. "Momentum" is the conservation of energy while in motion. An object with momentum neither wants to speed up or slow down, nor does it want to change direction, and only does so because of outside forces acting on it. It's what gives something flying through the air a sense of weight. What Sonic fans call "Momentum" is actually "Velocity". When Sonic gains speed while rolling down a hill, depending on the game he may or may not build up momentum, but that speed that he is gaining more and more of is always a change in velocity. Sonic fans love building up more and more speed, that is to say, Sonic fans love rising velocity. They mistakenly refer to this speed buildup as "Momentum", even if Sonic doesn't carry any weight tied to his speed. Sonic fans don't want Sonic to launch into the air like a cannon ball that can't be steered or stopped, they want to keep that sense of control. They don't want momentum, they want interactive velocity.
Adventure stages might feel more open ended than boost stages, but fundamentally speaking they're not really different at all. A chief example of this is Kingdom Valley in Shadow Generations. The original stage was directly designed based off Adventure formula stage mentality, and has a somewhat more open ended feel because of this despite your path forward being rather linear nonetheless. This still translates into the Shadow Generations version, and it shines through even more because the entirety of Act 1 lacks any 2D sections just like all the other Act 1's in the game.
The original Generations is often praised for similar reasons. The stages in that game have a variety of different pathways to take, some more substantial than others, that give the stages a sense of replay value. It's a step up from Unleashed which did have alternative paths you could take but they were almost always more minor and easy to miss. The adventure games aren't really any different. You take the same path through the levels every time, with only the occasional shortcut to add a sense of variety. They just often visually do a better job of disguising their hallways.
Here's what I would like to highlight in this discussion...
"Physics based platforming is just that. Platforming that is physics based. It doesn't matter how quickly those physics come into play, it only matters that they do. What you are describing is simply a preference towards one particular gameplay style within the constraints of physics based platforming. In particular, the style that is often mistakenly referred to by the Sonic fanbase as "Momentum"."
Ah yes, the classic Sonic Fanbase "Momentum" trap. Seems I've fallen prey to it.
First, this is why I said "kinda" in my retort, to make it clear that it can still HAPPEN, but I don't think having an instant-go fast button makes it fun. I understand why launching yourself instantly and super-high speeds from any surface could be fun, but that isn't my personal preference.
Also, we're at the point in this conversation in which he HAVE to dive into personal preferences a little bit.
I don't think "Momentum" is mistakenly referred to but rather taken on a new meaning in the Sonic Fanbase - a style of gameplay lacking the Boost, encouraging using geometry to gain speed and maintain said speed to zip through the level naturally.
"Here's the thing though, while I also enjoy that gameplay style, there's also something of a misconception about it that you also seem to be falling into, which is that the speed you obtain in that style of gameplay is always entirely earned. This isn't so. Gaining the speed to begin with has been easy since Sonic 2. Simply rev up a quick spindash and go flying downhill. It's that easy. It's not earning speed that makes this gameplay style fun and addicting; it's keeping that speed going. Memorizing the stage layouts and learning the muscle memory to put in the right inputs at the right time to avoid losing control and being forced to a screeching halt. Bouncing off badniks and monitors and landing on downward slopes and doing jumps at just the right time and etc. all in service of keeping the speed going for as long as possible to get to the goal as quickly as you can."
I actually believe that the Spindash does need to be nerfed just a tiny bit. First off, the lack of a Spamdash. The Spindash needs to be charged for a second before it actually starts netting Sonic extra speed. Secondly, charging rate. It needs to be a little slower to get to full charge.
These 2 things allow you to gain speed from a standstill, but reward keeping speed up much more heavily, which is what I've been pining for.
The Spindash in Sonic 2 served the purpose of allowing you to quickly get back into the swing of things in certain situations, but you still needed to gain speed and maintain it - the Spindash was fast, but it didn't rocket Sonic forwards as fast as possible. Sonic could still gain more speed from rolling down slopes and such.
Sonic was, in fact, always about earning speed and maintaining it - Sonic himself was born from Mario Speedrunning - Mario would build up to his sprint, and the player would aim to maintain that speed throughout all the stage, and they were punished by having to reach that top speed again if they fumbled. That is what the idea of Sonic was born from.
So, I do believe we have reached some sort of an agreement - the most addicting part of Sonic is maintaining speed - but we have different stances on how said speed should be obtained.
You want a button to instantly burst you forward insanely fast.
I want a button that I can use in certain situations to assist in going fast.
How do we engineer a compromise?
"Boost with its instantaneous speed basically amounts to the speed you get from revving up a spindash, just without the brief revving up period first. Wasting a second or two of time doesn't magically make Spindash balanced and skipping that time doesn't make boost overpowered. What matters is what comes next, which is also the reason why Unleashed and Generations are still held in such high regard. Obtaining speed is easy, but keeping it going, getting the fastest time you can, breaking your own records by making as few mistakes as possible... That's something that's earned. It is at its very essence the very same thing that made going fast in the old classic games so fun. It's the very same addicting gameplay loop. Adding even more physics interactions to the boost to make getting into a flow state even more satisfying and put you in even more of a feeling of control only serves to live up to that classic legacy."
You're trivializing the differences in speed between the Boost and Spindash, and the time it takes to activate them. These are important factors and need to be addressed individually, as they are some of the main differences. By ignoring them, it makes them seem identical to the point where you can argue the Boost is simply better.
Waiting a second or two does balance the Spindash, in the contexts of my proposal.
The purpose of the Spindash is to gain speed and launch yourself back into action if you've lost speed, and the cost of flinging yourself back into action is waiting a bit.
Again, this heavily encourages keeping up the pace without slowing down.
In a way, the Boost and Spindash are similar. They keep up the pace. Again, the differences are in how the speed is gained in the first place, and in my proposition, having the Spindash instantly launch you at absolutely max speeds destroys the gameplay.
At some point, it seems like you want the Boost simply because it is the more powerful move within the official games it's appeared in compared to the Spindash.
The Boost allowing you to instantly throw yourself back into action makes the punishment for failing to dodge something almost negligible, and there needs to be a punishment for playing badly.
No, the Boost does not live up to the Classic Legacy. The Boost as we know it is a run button with a hitbox, that's always what it was no matter how you put it. The gameplay was DESIGNED around said run button, but that doesn't make it any less of a run button.
The Classic games (the 2D ones) had Sonic build speed naturally and maintain it.
The Adventure games, contrary to popular belief, were not perfect. They did not perfectly reflect what made the Classic games so good, but they were in the same ballpark, and they were still fun. If there were a game to release not titled SA3, but reminiscent of it, but still played much more similarly to the Classic Games, it would be legendary. And I'm talking about releasing this game back in 2003 or something, not today. The Adventure games were experimental, as they were some of Sega's first 3D Sonic games.
The Boost games are entirely different, no matter how put. Sonic is given a Boost, where he is tasked to almost always be Boosting, reacting to obstacles as they come. But that doesn't sound too different, right? Okay, let's describe a Mario game.
Mario is tasked to get to the end of a stage, and there are a series of obstacles between him and the stage, and he must react to them and finish the stage.
Well, that is pretty similar. There are differences, but those are still very similar, right?
Just because differences aren't big doesn't mean they aren't there. The tiny differences are what make every platformed unique. These differences matter. The difference between Adventure and Boost is very apparent if you sit still for a second and look at casual gameplay from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Generations.
So, the differences are small, but still there, accounting for your comparison between Sonic 2006's Kingdom Valley and Shadow Generation's Kingdom Valley.
The Boost doesn't live up to the Classic Legacy, a Boost intertwined with physics-based platforming would contain pieces reminiscent of those games, but they wouldn't be pure in their continuation. And things can EVOLVE, that's how we get great new innovations, but the Boost isn't an evolution, it's a replacement. The whole reason the Boost exists in mainline Sonic (discarding Rush as that was simply a side-series) is because Sonic 2006 failed so spectacularly that they believed they had to replace the whole gameplay style.
The Boost Era and Adventure Era may be similar, but they are still different in many aspects, which is why you still see people pining for SA3 - because the current games aren't giving them what they joined the fanbase for all those years ago.
"You seem to somewhat get what I'm saying, but where we differ is that what I'm saying is "The boost should be innovated moving forward", whereas what your point seems to be is "The boost still has room for innovation, so it should be nerfed and sidelined because it's not already good enough yet.""
Earlier I said we would have to delve a bit into personal preferences a bit, and this is one place.
Yes, we do differ in opinions in how the Boost should move forwards. It's too powerful to coexist with any other interesting movement options. In Mario, nobody would use any other jumps if the Long Jump got you anywhere. And Mario can exist with one jump, but that might be a bit boring, no?
I believe the Boost needs to be complementary rather than overpowering to fit into a moveset kit that reaches a compromise between Adventure and Boost, which is what Sonic needs to eventually do, so I basically took the Sonic Advanced 2 Boost, mapped it to a button, and tied it to a meter.
See, I think the Boost has more potential than the Spindash, because it can be reinterpreted in so many different ways. It's simply described as a boost of speed in every game it's been in, and that can mean anything. Heck, the Spindash can be interpreted as a Boost. This means that the Boost has the potential to be in any type of Sonic game, in any form. But if we're just talking the current (if you can call 2008-2011 current) interpretation of the Boost, along with how it is in Frontiers, then I think the Boost still has a ways to go before it can top the moves in, say, SA2. (I will not mention Forces. That is boost done wrong. You move at a set speed with it, that set speed being slow, and you are expected to never stop Boosting. Combine that with the Slide being completely optional, and the quickstep being dogshit, that game is almost worse than 06.) But, it is on it's way. See, if we're talking moves for traversal, then Frontiers does the move perfectly. It can be used almost infinitely, sometimes actually infinitely, and the Air Boost is incredibly buffed, having a slight push upwards and instant max speed. But, where I think you see the fault, is that in Frontiers, the Boost is only a traversal tool. Unlike the limited, lightning quick boosts before it (bar Forces), it does not damage enemies, and thus, is not an attack like the roll, but rather, a tool, like the Air Dash in SA2. Going to the point of momentum, I think the only Sonic games that need it are those without an incredibly fast Boost, and where you are not encouraged to be boosting 24/7. Because the Boost makes you go fast with the click of a button, momentum is kinda useless with it being employed. And if an Adventure style game was to have momentum, the Spindash would need to be seriously nerfed, so you have to gain most speed by playing well, rather than charging a move that can be activated while moving. I have more of a point to make, but my fingers are starting to hurt from the typing.
Yes, the Spindash needs to be nerfed, too. It being a bit overpowered, like in the Adventure games, defeats the point of momentum again, explaining why those games did lack momentum compared to the Boost games. This is why, in my proposal, the Spindash is also nerfed. I am not cramming the Boost into Adventure-styled games, I am crafting a gameplay style where they coexist. I have made an attempt to be as un-self-biased as possible.
"This would doom the franchise. Reaction based high speed platforming is the very core of the identity of a Sonic game. The closer you get to getting this detail right, the better the Sonic game. Sonic is all about the rush of getting to the goal ring as fast as possible despite the difficulty of maintaining your speed on the way there. Taking that away is to fundamentally misunderstand what makes this clock tick. Even with the Adventure formula if it is to return in the future, it absolutely must be innovated in this direction if it is to truly find success and cement its place as more than just another brief nostalgia pandering phase. They're going to have to look at that gameplay style long and hard and think to themselves about how they can design the physics and level design in such a way as to make getting to the goal ring as fast as possible as difficult yet rewarding as possible through careful and skillful maneuvering through the level design to keep the speed going unhindered by the hazards in your path despite the challenge in doing so."
Little misunderstanding here, I just mean making the Boost games side games - which seems to actually be what Sega is doing - I heard they refer to these games as "2nd Era Sonic" and plan to release them alongside "3rd Era Sonic" being open-world games, which have very little reaction-based platforming compared to "2nd Era Sonic." Assumedly, "1st Era Sonic" are the Adventures games, but they haven't been mentioned yet, as far as I know.
I have really tried to merge these 2 styles into something that is reaction-based and requires maintaining speed, while making both sides happy.
"I've already addressed this point in this post already, but I do think it bears repeating that this point is flat out incorrect. It's always been Sonic since the very beginning, that's always been the primary appeal. It's why in Sonic 1 Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone are so hated; they don't provide any opportunity to maintain speed. It's why Green Hill Zone is so beloved, or at least was before it started getting more overused than crack by an addict. GHZ provides ample opportunity to maintain your speed, as does other stages such as Spring Yard Zone and Star Light Zone. Maintaining speed through obstacle courses conspiring against you has always been the appeal, and it's also why Sonic 2 and Sonic 3 were so much more popular than Sonic 1. They allowed you to get this rush with even better design in this regard.
The only thing that really makes the way the boost games up until now have handled it different from the retro classics is that you could maintain speed by flying off ramps and bouncing off things in the retro games, something that the Frontiers spindash brought us closer to in an official 3D game than we have ever been before. An experience that as far as I'm aware has only ever truly been handled correctly in 3D in SRB2. Which is why..."
Throughout this discussion my views on the subject matter have shifted, and I can tell now that what I claimed was, in fact, incorrect.
"The boost generally gets hated on less in Frontiers than in Lost World though, because in Frontiers you can actually run without pressing boost. Lost World required you to hold down a button to go fast at all, not just for going at the fastest speed. But yes, the boost in Frontiers is still a blunder, particularly because despite being called boost it doesn't feel like it. It lacks the ability to hurt enemies and it can't maintain speed when launching into the open air. Best you can do is enable a setting to allow you to hold onto speed when hopping along the ground short distances, which doesn't serve all that much of a purpose.
Spindash is closer to what Boost should have been from the start, which is why it's what gets defaulted to as soon as its unlocked and gets so much praise. The problem isn't having a go faster button, the problem is that button not harming enemies and not feeling good for traversal beyond just going fast along the ground."
That's where a lot of my confusion comes from - why is Lost World hated for its run button when it's almost inarguably identical to Sonic Frontier's Boost? The normal running speed for Sonic in Sonic Frontiers is still incredibly slow, which results in everyone constantly Boosting, like in Lost World.
This is once again a personal preference issue, but I don't like the Boost damaging enemies as that's one of the main factors that makes it incredibly overpowered and almost impossible to incorporate into movesets with other moves present, because it makes Sonic go at max speed and damages enemies, invalidating any other unique traversal options.
"I'm not really sure how I could explain it any better than explaining the history of them traveling in that direction for decades now yet again. It's rather abundantly obvious that the presence of the meter has posed problems for them and they've found ways to often make it functionally infinite to get around these problems, or even on occasion just outright make it actually infinite. The meter feels like it should be a good idea on paper but it gets in the way more often than it rewards players in practice, and they keep having to design around this issue. Sonic doesn't have much in the way of other tools in his toolkit to account for how vulnerable running out of meter makes him, and whenever they provide an opportunity to not need to worry about the meter it's liberating for the player for not needing to worry about it. The clear solution to the dilemma is to just take the meter away from him entirely and make the challenge more about interacting with the stage design rather than resource management, just like it always was before the boost games."
I understand why now, and I don't want to argue with it, and I'll tell you why.
I realize no matter how many compromised you can make, sometimes it just comes down to personal preference. I realize now that the hole Sega dug themselves into is really bad. I don't know how to solve it, and realistically, neither do you. Not even Sega has managed to find a TRUE middle ground, even if they did introduce the Spinboost into Sonic Frontiers.
So, I'm done with this conversation. Not out of bitterness, nor defeat, but because I don't think there's anything else to discuss. I think we've covered most of what makes this conversation interesting, and we both have our own interpretations of middle-grounds between the Adventure games and the Boost games.
Have a good day, time gear!
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"This is all just a bunch of redundant terminology. Spindash has never had only one consistent identity, but the more general function that it serves in gameplay still gets fulfilled regardless. Boost has always just been spindash without the spinning part and without the revving up period, just reinterpreted to suit the shift in gameplay style. The spindash in Frontiers is the spindash, even if it's not mechanically identical to your favorite interpretation from a previous game. The spindash itself varies from Adventure 1 to Adventure 2, it appears again with another interpretation in Shadow 05, and gets reinterpreted yet again in Sonic 06. Yet, in all of these games the spindash is still the spindash, and it's still the spindash with Classic Sonic in Generations, it's still the spindash in Lost World, and it's still the spindash in Frontiers. Internal names aren't canon regardless, they're just terms the devs used to refer to things for easy reference, just like how the internal name for the powered up Super Sonic is "Super Sonic 2" in reference to Super Saiyan 2 despite it not actually being that regardless of what the fanbase might insist."
I missed this point.
I can help you understand what I mean by simply stating the parameters and boundaries of what makes the traditional Spindash the Spindash and what I and many others mean by the Spindash...
Chargeable
Bursts Sonic forward during the initial launch if charged
Curls Sonic into a ball
Damages enemies
Is in his base moveset
Allows him to gain extra speed down slopes but loses extra up them
Is contained within the genre of 3D platformers
That's what the Spindash is to most people. I'm almost led to believe this point commits the Strawman fallacy - setting up a different point to what the opponent is stating and attacking that.
Here's a Spindash list determined by the boundaries set:
Sonic 1 - Technically not Spindash, simply due to the fact that the chargeability aspect hasn't been invented yet
Sonic 2 - Spindash
Sonic 3 - Spindash
Adventure 1 - Spindash
Adventure 2 - Spindash
Shadow '05 - Spindash
Sonic '06 - Spindash
Sonic Unleashed - No Example
Sonic Colors - Not Spindash (Purple Wisp)
Sonic Generations (Classic) - Spindash
Sonic Generations (Modern) - Not Spindash (Drifting)
Sonic Lost World - Technically not Spindash by set parameters, but it is very reminiscent. Imposter Spindash, if you will
See, I think the Boost has more potential than the Spindash, because it can be reinterpreted in so many different ways. It's simply described as a boost of speed in every game it's been in, and that can mean anything. Heck, the Spindash can be interpreted as a Boost. This means that the Boost has the potential to be in any type of Sonic game, in any form. But if we're just talking the current (if you can call 2008-2011 current) interpretation of the Boost, along with how it is in Frontiers, then I think the Boost still has a ways to go before it can top the moves in, say, SA2. (I will not mention Forces. That is boost done wrong. You move at a set speed with it, that set speed being slow, and you are expected to never stop Boosting. Combine that with the Slide being completely optional, and the quickstep being dogshit, that game is almost worse than 06.) But, it is on it's way. See, if we're talking moves for traversal, then Frontiers does the move perfectly. It can be used almost infinitely, sometimes actually infinitely, and the Air Boost is incredibly buffed, having a slight push upwards and instant max speed. But, where I think you see the fault, is that in Frontiers, the Boost is only a traversal tool. Unlike the limited, lightning quick boosts before it (bar Forces), it does not damage enemies, and thus, is not an attack like the roll, but rather, a tool, like the Air Dash in SA2. Going to the point of momentum, I think the only Sonic games that need it are those without an incredibly fast Boost, and where you are not encouraged to be boosting 24/7. Because the Boost makes you go fast with the click of a button, momentum is kinda useless with it being employed. And if an Adventure style game was to have momentum, the Spindash would need to be seriously nerfed, so you have to gain most speed by playing well, rather than charging a move that can be activated while moving. I have more of a point to make, but my fingers are starting to hurt from the typing.
To add to my point about the Spindash, I think it needs to be at a point where, to completely charge it, you would have to come to a complete stop, and to partially charge it, lose a lot of speed, with just a tap of the button being a roll keeping all speed. This Spindash, or a Boost with speed like Forces, and segmented use, ala UnWiished, would definitely fit in a GT style game. But, if we were to keep the current level design and think about moves, then Sega is going in the right direction. They're dipping they're toes in the water with the Spindash (especially the Drop Dash, they're just shoving it into everything) with Frontiers, and seem to be focusing on more focused platforming with optional controlled speed, with the high speed being relegated to showpieces instead, just like the Adventure games. Plus, Frontiers and Shadow Generations are the highest rated Sonic games in a while, being a 7 and 9 respectively, from IGN(orant) no less. I think Shadow Generations is the best rated Sonic (/Shadow) game ever. If you want some good insight on the franchise, as well as a bit of comedy, I suggest watching bickuribox12 on YouTube, the guy is awesome.
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I feel like the plug at the end was a bit off-topic
So, I do believe we have reached some sort of an agreement - the most addicting part of Sonic is maintaining speed - but we have different stances on how said speed should be obtained.
You want a button to instantly burst you forward insanely fast.
I want a button that I can use in certain situations to assist in going fast.
How do we engineer a compromise?
I wouldn't quite say that what I want is a button to instantly burst you forward insanely fast. In my idea, you wouldn't have access to speeds worth calling "insane" until you've collected enough rings and/or activated max boost. Otherwise, Boost would only increase your speed a little bit.
It's also worth keeping in mind that higher amounts of speed would be harder to control; you have less time to react to incoming hazards/obstacles and it could even potentially be harder to change direction on the ground depending on how the physics and controls are handled. As such, while there wouldn't be any meter to run out of it wouldn't necessarily be the case that you want to hold down the boost button at all times, only when doing so isn't too likely to rocket you to your doom. This would be a big part of the skill in making use of the ability; take the risk of using it in a risky situation and maybe get rewarded with safe enough passage and a lower clear time at the end of the stage.
In that regard, what I want is seemingly the same as what you want; a button that assists in going fast in certain situations.
You're trivializing the differences in speed between the Boost and Spindash, and the time it takes to activate them. These are important factors and need to be addressed individually, as they are some of the main differences. By ignoring them, it makes them seem identical to the point where you can argue the Boost is simply better.
To the contrary, which one is "better" depends on the game. The boost is better in the Rush games; the spindash serves the same exact purpose but is far, far worse at it and so nobody unironically uses it outside of something like a no boost challenge run. Not only do you have to waste time charging it up, but it doesn't even make you go as fast and you can't hold onto speed for long with it. Boost is literally the same thing except it's a direct upgrade.
However, Lost World implemented the spindash in place of the boost, and with that cosmetic difference in mind they removed the meter entirely. In that regard, the Spindash is just a better boost because it's good for everything the boost is good for except without a meter bogging it down. Frontiers brought us Spindash and Boost being part of Sonic's toolkit at the same time in a 3D game for the first time, and while this time it does (sometimes) have a meter it's also effectively still just an upgrade to the boost, and the only thing stopping it from being a flat upgrade is the negligible but still present comparative speed reduction. Regardless, it's a negligible enough difference as to not matter and is far outweighed by the practical application of the way spindash handles the physics.
As such, I wouldn't argue that one or the other is better, they serve the same purpose and so the ability Sonic has whether he's animated as spinning or running should be an innovation over what either of them has been in the past. As iconic as charging up a spindash is, it still amounts to wasted time. There's also no outright rule that the "spindash" needs to be always be slower than the "boost". The difference in speed between them in Frontiers in particular is small enough that a lot of players might not even notice it, and there's no reason why an innovated version in a future game couldn't cosmetically appear as either and still be faster than either were in the past.
Spindash: You begin charging it up and then you release. Boost: You press the boost button. The only difference between these is one wastes time with a charging animation and the other doesn't. Spamming the spindash in SA1 is literally just boosting except you have to button mash it to keep it going. Boost and Spindash aren't just similar tools in Sonic's toolkit, they're purposefully identical. Take a moment to imagine an alternate timeline in which Sonic Unleashed decided to call boost the spindash instead and had Sonic cosmetically using a spinning animation like in Lost World instead of running while using it and you might start to understand where I'm coming from a bit; the function of the ability depends on the specific game in question and the style of design the devs are going for. The reality is that boost and spindash are only "different" at a superficial level.
Just because differences aren't big doesn't mean they aren't there. The tiny differences are what make every platformed unique. These differences matter. The difference between Adventure and Boost is very apparent if you sit still for a second and look at casual gameplay from Sonic Adventure and Sonic Generations.
So, the differences are small, but still there, accounting for your comparison between Sonic 2006's Kingdom Valley and Shadow Generation's Kingdom Valley.
They really don't. The differences are in your head. if "boost" was in the original SA1 or SA2 or Sonic 06 or etc, it would have replaced the spindash and functioned identically to how spindash did in those games. The "charging" animation would be Sonic in a pose like he's about to sprint forward (think holding the boost button while standing still in Frontiers), and then the "spinning" animation would be replaced with Sonic running along the ground with a boost aura. The differences in gameplay between games are because they're you know, different games with different design mentalities. Spindash and boost functioning differently in the same game is to justify them existing in the same game. What I'm trying to get across is that this doesn't have to be the case; the ability can animate as either/or and doesn't have to have two separate functions just for the two animations to co-exist.
Yes, the Spindash needs to be nerfed, too. It being a bit overpowered, like in the Adventure games, defeats the point of momentum again, explaining why those games did lack momentum compared to the Boost games. This is why, in my proposal, the Spindash is also nerfed. I am not cramming the Boost into Adventure-styled games, I am crafting a gameplay style where they coexist. I have made an attempt to be as un-self-biased as possible.
Nerfing Sonic's toolkit isn't going to make people want to play the game. Making the game fun first and foremost is the single most important thing to get right. Mario but his jump is lower isn't going to attract more players, it turns them off because you're basically neutering what people like about the game in the first place in the name of what you think is "balanced".
To that end, I need to address the balancing in particular. You seem to have this idea in your head of certain aspects of spindash and boost being inherently balanced or unbalanced. Nothing in a characters toolkit when it comes to mobility is inherently balanced or unbalanced; you need to take the stage design itself into account before you can reach a decision on that matter. After all, the characters you play as in games are designed around clearing through the stages in their game. These are the two halves of what make characters and abilities balanced and unbalanced. Don't just think to yourself that because an ability is stronger or more instantaneous than another ability in another game was, that this immediately makes it OP. Balancing a moveset is largely about balancing the stages with that moveset in mind. Instead of nerfing Sonic he should be given a moveset that feels good to use, especially if you can manage to make him feel faster and more powerful than he did in previous games while still maintaining that good sense of control. Then, design stages with these controls in mind so that the moveset doesn't just feel good to control in general, but within the stages of the game they are used in.
I realize no matter how many compromised you can make, sometimes it just comes down to personal preference. I realize now that the hole Sega dug themselves into is really bad. I don't know how to solve it, and realistically, neither do you. Not even Sega has managed to find a TRUE middle ground, even if they did introduce the Spinboost into Sonic Frontiers.
Don't be so impatient. These things don't solve themselves overnight. Innovation is an iterative process, and it's apparent that even if they've stumbled a bit along the way that they are managing to find their way through the dark a little at a time by taking note of what does and doesn't work. Like pointed out before, Frontiers is the closest we've ever gotten to a truly satisfying solution. Don't give up on them now when the goal is finally in sight.
Anyways, I'm running out of steam to continue retorting, and I'm still steadfast in my beliefs, and I'm sure you are too - but since you still want to keep it up, hence you are telling me to keep my patience, I'll try to come back here a few more times.
After a few retorts, I do really think our mostly unmoving opinions are simply due to personal bias to our own ideas (not to throw out a buzzword, but you get it). I don't think I'm gonna convince you that both moves need to be nerfed and buffed in different ways in an attempt to balance the moves together, and I don't think you're ever gonna find an end-all argument for combining the Spindash and the Boost into one reskinned Boost.
I don't think reskinning the Boost to make Sonic spin sometime solves the at least decade-long debate between the Spindash and the Boost. It's not quite that simple, which is why I went out of my way to try and rebalance the moves together. It probably needs some more thought. Perhaps simply splitting the styles in-between different situations, like a Mach-Speed like situation, which I'm sure either you or MajorMajin64 proposed, right? Just having Sonic automatically Boost forward with the ability to slide and stomp, and having normal gameplay like the Adventure games? Perhaps having the styles coexist by having them split between characters, like giving Shadow, Metal, or even Blaze the style instead.
It's just a really difficult conversation, and I don't think a reskin is enough to solve it!
I'm sure if the Boost looked like a Spindash in Unleashed and onwards, we'd just be having a "Traditional Spindash vs. Boost Spindash" debate instead.
Honestly, replacing the Slide would actually be a good step to marrying the 2 moves, as the Slide is functionally almost identical to rolling, just go try it in Frontiers - it's like a toned-down roll. I'm sure that'd satisfy many people, but it still wouldn't be enough to find a good segway between both styles, as it'd just be a reskinned Slide, at the end of the day.
"Don't be so impatient. These things don't solve themselves overnight. Innovation is an iterative process, and it's apparent that even if they've stumbled a bit along the way that they are managing to find their way through the dark a little at a time by taking note of what does and doesn't work. Like pointed out before, Frontiers is the closest we've ever gotten to a truly satisfying solution. Don't give up on them now when the goal is finally in sight."
This is both encouraging and discouraging. Some things can be weird like that, huh?
I guess I can supply a few more ideas for a Boost and Spindash coexisting, while still maintaining what makes them their own moves.
1. One being relegated to a side-series. This one is a pretty good scenario, but it strains Sonic Team a lot. Sega still hasn't got over their major flaw since 2006, pushing out games too fast. "Gotta Go Fast" is Sonic's thing, not Sonic Team's.
2. One being relegated to a different situation within the same game. This is like the Mach Speed sections in Sonic '06. Sonic automatically Boosts forward, and you can jump and slide to dodge things.
3. One being relegated to a different character. I always thought Metal Sonic was a great fit for Boosting, but Metal would be really hard to bake into every game, so I think Shadow could possibly fit the role of Boosting just as well. He's very sparingly shown to actually curl up into a ball to do ANYTHING, so Sonic getting to use his Spindash, and Shadow just blasting forward is kinda in-character.
4. The moves are combined. Essentially your proposal.
5. One move is scrapped. This is essentially what Sonic Team is on right now, having scrapped the Spindash for quite some time now.
6. A gameplay style attempting to marry the moves into the same kit. Essentially my proposal.
"Nerfing Sonic's toolkit isn't going to make people want to play the game. Making the game fun first and foremost is the single most important thing to get right. Mario but his jump is lower isn't going to attract more players, it turns them off because you're basically neutering what people like about the game in the first place in the name of what you think is "balanced".
To that end, I need to address the balancing in particular. You seem to have this idea in your head of certain aspects of spindash and boost being inherently balanced or unbalanced. Nothing in a characters toolkit when it comes to mobility is inherently balanced or unbalanced; you need to take the stage design itself into account before you can reach a decision on that matter. After all, the characters you play as in games are designed around clearing through the stages in their game. These are the two halves of what make characters and abilities balanced and unbalanced. Don't just think to yourself that because an ability is stronger or more instantaneous than another ability in another game was, that this immediately makes it OP. Balancing a moveset is largely about balancing the stages with that moveset in mind. Instead of nerfing Sonic he should be given a moveset that feels good to use, especially if you can manage to make him feel faster and more powerful than he did in previous games while still maintaining that good sense of control. Then, design stages with these controls in mind so that the moveset doesn't just feel good to control in general, but within the stages of the game they are used in."
I don't know how to combine the moves into the same kit otherwise. That's it.
"They really don't. The differences are in your head. if "boost" was in the original SA1 or SA2 or Sonic 06 or etc, it would have replaced the spindash and functioned identically to how spindash did in those games. The "charging" animation would be Sonic in a pose like he's about to sprint forward (think holding the boost button while standing still in Frontiers), and then the "spinning" animation would be replaced with Sonic running along the ground with a boost aura. The differences in gameplay between games are because they're you know, different games with different design mentalities. Spindash and boost functioning differently in the same game is to justify them existing in the same game. What I'm trying to get across is that this doesn't have to be the case; the ability can animate as either/or and doesn't have to have two separate functions just for the two animations to co-exist."
This is because the Boost wasn't balanced with the Spindash in mind. The Boost is simply "better" than the Spindash.
I don't have any other thoughts to offer right now.
I suppose the gameplay style I proposed has some flaws, but again, I really don't think reskinning the Boost will solve this whole problem.
All I have to say is Both Boost and Spindash can't co-existence as they both function as two different game-styles, Boost for Modern & Spindash for Adventure plus they can't be in the same game because Boost is/going to be definitely better than the spindash if they both in the same game together, they only way it can CO-EXISTENCE is to do what Frontiers did, function like the Boost but with momentum ONLY for Open-Zone (and as a unlockable), for traditional Boost games... don't add it lol because it's unnecessary, "But the Rush games has the spindash and THOSE was boost games!!!!" yeah, those was 2D games, not fully 3D, so my point still stands
Before anything, I think it's important I clear up any potential misunderstandings related to this. Like I pointed out before, I have a tendency to speak bluntly but that shouldn't be mistaken for hostility. It's my honest belief that people can have different opinions from each other and even debate those opinions without any hard feelings over it. More than that even, I think being able to do so is important, for there's not really any other way to become exposed to other viewpoints. If you are just locked in an echo chamber of those who agree with you for the sake of feeling uncontested, you're blocking yourself off from being able to see the full picture in favor of a small corner you happen to like.
What I'm trying to say in short is that just because two viewpoints don't align doesn't mean that contest between them should be treated as hostility. Not agreeing isn't the same thing as throwing an insult and debate between ideas isn't the same thing as fighting.
I hope I've conveyed what I mean well enough, but I don't think I can do any better than that right now so I'm going to get back on topic from this point forward. That being said, I don't think it would be really productive to just do the same thing of placing a direct quote and then addressing it specifically this time around as what I'm trying to say doesn't really seem to be getting communicated that way, so instead I'll try to explain my point of view a different, more direct way in the hopes that by covering my viewpoint more directly instead of in the form of rebuttal to specific quotes I might be able to make what I'm trying to say easier to understand by eliminating the lens of what I have to say being contrary to something else that has been said.
1. The matter of boost vs spindash
My viewpoint on this tidbit is this: boost vs spindash is completely imaginary. The two moves are for all intents and purposes one in the same. Any nuance that exists for one of them in one game could just as easily exist for the other in another game. We've already seen newer games treating the spindash as the boost, but there's also nothing stopping another game from treating the boost as a spindash. The function of the ability in any particular game boils down to the design mentality that went into that game; what the developers thought would work best for the playstyle and stage design they were crafting at the time. Both abilities are at their very core essence are a way for Sonic to gain speed even from a standstill and to use this speed as a way to attack enemies.
2. The matter of which design mentalities are better
There's a lot of subjectivity that goes into this matter, and it's easy to get lost in a metaphorical forest of subjectivity when it comes to arguing in favor for which design mentalities you would like to see come back in future titles and which ones you would not. Ultimately any one person is going to like what they like, and that's fine. However, there is a little bit of objectivity that can be drawn from; the series roots and what design mentalities have resulted and larger popularity and sales. Innovation is an iterative process that relies heavily on feedback, and it's always important to remember from where you've come so as to not lose your way. I'll get back to this topic a bit later, but for now I want to highlight the importance of remembering the broader scope of what made certain games in the series successful rather than zooming in on more specific nuances. That will be important later.
3. What my proposition actually is
I think a big part of the pushback against my proposition is born of the bias of thinking of boost and spindash as being different abilities, and then holding preference towards one or the other and then seeing the flaws of whichever thing you don't prefer in my idea. The issue with this is that my proposition ultimately isn't about boost or spindash; it's about an ability that utilizes the same core concept that makes up both of them and innovates beyond what either of them were in the past. I firmly believe it's important that for games to innovate and improve, you can't be stuck in the past. At the same time however, you can't forget your roots either.
These are two core principles in what I am proposing; the ability that I am suggesting is reminiscent of both boost and spindash, and serves the same purpose in a practical sense. However, functionally my proposition is different; speed is tied to rings, there's no boost meter, skillfull play is rewarded with more speed, which also introduces more risk but rewards those who can overcome that risk with faster clear times. It draws from how the "spindash" has been handled in the past in regards to physics interactions with the environment, but also draws from how the boost has been handled in regards to risk vs reward and interacting with hazards and obstacles.
Regarding the matter of rings, it's rather apparent that the lives system is on its way out and score doesn't always show up either. The score time rings system of the original games and how it tied together with your lives count was a carefully constructed system that rewarded the player for playing well by allowing them to grow a safety net, while playing poorly would punish you as incentive to get better so that you could see parts of the game you hadn't been able to reach yet. It often gets compared to the quarter eating tendencies of old arcade games, but I don't see it that way. It wasn't about artificial difficulty to rip you off of your hard earned cash, it was about introducing a relatively strict skill floor to make progress itself a reward for the players that could prove their mettle to get that far.
However, that design is clearly being phased out, and so the interwoven mechanics of the system are becoming unraveled. Rings rewarded players who could hold onto them with a 1-up every 100 rings they could hold onto without taking a hit. Even if you couldn't pull that off, holding on to just 50 was all you needed to get into a special stage, and later to transform into your super form. The only one of these that's really still around in modern games is Super Sonic, and even that doesn't feel as rewarding as it used to. This introduces a problem in my opinion; holding onto more than a single ring doesn't really hold much meaning anymore. As long as you can keep picking it up or collecting at least one more, you can't die in most circumstances, and there's borderline no reward to holding onto more of them beyond that point.
That's where my idea behind tying speed to rings comes in. The idea is to repurpose the concept of rewarding players for holding onto rings without losing them by tying how fast the "boost" can take you to your ring collection, all the way up to 100 rings in reference to collecting a 1-up.
Just going fast and reacting to incoming obstacles and hazards has some fun value but it also leaves a lot of room for improvement. In the past, the spindash has been used to interact dynamically with the environment. Going downhill increases your speed, going uphill reduces it, and flying off a ramp or jumping off a hill at the right angle could send you flying with a limited amount of control afforded to the player to steer themselves to where they want to land. I think this is important to bring back, not just in reference to the series roots but in service to the gameplay itself and achieving an enjoyable flow state. There's an intuitive simplicity to this design that easily makes sense and clicks for players without too much in the way of explanation needed, and that's indicitive of good design. The process of getting good at manipulating the physics to your advantage and using them to craft your own shortcuts to cut down on your clear times despite taking risks in doing so is something that will always be satisfying in just about any game that knows what it is doing with it, and this is the big thing that recent 3D entries have largely forgotten.
To get back to the matter of point number 2; I don't think that boost games or spindash games are inherently better or worse than each other. I think they both do things that the 3D games have been needing to do for a long time now, but that no 3D game has ever brought together in just the right way. Both design mentalties are two halves of a larger, greater whole that can only be brought to its full potential when pieced together. Spindash never reached its full potential in 3D. Boost design mentality was the answer they came up with, but while it addessed many of the issues they were having with spindash design it also came with eliminating some of the appeal. Instead of getting caught up in nuances that worked for specific games, I think it's important to look at all of the games that did well regardless of whether they used spindash design mentality or boost design mentality, ask what players thought did and didn't work from each of these games, and then also ask how this could be learned from to make Sonic's controls in future titles feel better and more fun to play instead of emulating the mistakes of the past.
As for the matter of cosmetically emulating both boost and spindash, this is also inspired by the perspective of remembering and paying homage to the series roots. There are always going to be those who prefer a spinning animation or a running animation during gameplay and honestly I don't really see any reason why it can't be either or. Spindash is always always represented as starting from a standstill while boost is mostly used while already in motion, so it makes a lot of sense to choose which animation set to use based on that despite the move itself not functioning any differently either way.
The way the Rush games handle the infinite boost meter has always been my favorite of their attempts so far; rewarding the player for interacting with the game mechanics while also having an element of only lasting for as long as the player can keep it up. This is more fun than simply drawing an infinity symbol and then having an invisible timer or having to be paranoid of taking hits due to not being able to collect rings. I've already explained my perspective on the issues the meter simply existing has brought to the series, and spindash design never relied on a meter anyway, but I wanted to represent that fun and addicting aspect from the Rush games in some way, so that's where the max boost concept I came up with comes from. I combined the idea with the max boost from Frontiers and the end result was for it to be a system in which you can buff the speed of your boost, but only for as long as you can keep it going. The idea is that if you play well, you are given the opportunity to take bigger risks for the chance of faster clear times that are more satisfying to pull off.
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