There is no incentive to collect chaos emeralds unless you turn Super

[clairebun]

I realize that this has always been the case in the past, but it's moreso now that the NiGHTs stages are in place. Why? Because there is no gameplay difference between playing the stages as Sonic, or playing the stages as Tails or Knuckles. I know why the NiGHTs stages are in place, because it was in the official design document, it's closer to the trippy bonus minigame style that the old Sonic special stages, yadda yadda, but the strength that the old special stages had over this is that they were a different experience for each character. Sonic was better at covering horizontal distance, Tails could easily reach the midair ones and turn platforming into a cakewalk, Knuckles was inbetween.... It made it more of a special experience in each playthrough. In this patch, I only ever bother as Sonic because the stages are just the same thing every time now.

I guess this is more of a complaint thread than anything, I don't actually know what to suggest to fix it.

 

[Kaysakado]

Ah, but you forget that Tails and Knuckles have the privilege of acquiring guilt-free 50 rings from emerald tokens.

 

[pastel]

You can get continues from the special stages, but that's really more of an incentive to get a good score rather than actually collect the emeralds.

 

[Puppyfaic]

I take it you're saying that NiGHTS is no fun as Tails or Knuckles because they play the same as Sonic, just with no reward.

I know this will never be implemented, but a way to do it would be to offer different NiGHTS gameplay for each character. Sonic can have a good default speed and amazing drill speed (rivaling that of the bumper, even), while having terrible handling. Tails can have amazing acceleration and can cut really tight corners at the cost of not moving anywhere near as fast. Knuckles would be the inbetween.

 

[Rob]

This is something we've discussed in development. We have plans for a solution down the road.

 

[Mystic]

I still do not see this as a flaw in the game. In fact, I see it as a good thing that special stages are optional as two of our characters. If you don't want to replay the special stages on your second and third playthrough, DON'T. I know I sure didn't replay them in 2.0.X because they weren't interesting to replay as multiple characters. I actually DO replay them in 2.1.X because I both enjoy them and there are emblems with different requirements. Of course, I've played them enough in testing that I can totally get an all-A run in a single playthrough, but there's still a lot of different stuff to do in each stage that having three playthroughs allows you to get different things on each attempt.

tl;dr: If you don't want to play through the special stages again in subsequent playthroughs, DON'T!

 

[VelocitOni]

I see no issue in letting Tails and Knuckles go super in Single Player. Like Sonic 3, the two should just get a slight speed and mostly accel buff (not nearly on par with Sonic's). Knuckles would keep the same jump height he's always had, and Tails wouldn't get infinite flight-time.

I just see it as a dumb way to make Sonic stand out, when he stands out just fine. It feels like a tacky way to make him shine.

 

[Mystic]

We're not doing that argument again. Would you rather us simply remove special stage tokens from the game entirely as Tails and Knuckles? That would certainly solve the "problem", but I just don't think this is a problem to begin with.

 

[furythehog]

My incentive is my own completionist personality, but that's not really the game giving a reason as much as me making my own up in my head.

The best 'real' reason for the token existing as tails and knuckles isn't that the special stages are easier/different for them, its that tails/knuckles will generally have an easier time getting the tokens, making the 'clear 1P with all emeralds' emblem more merciful on people who aren't as good as sonic.

 

[Unknownlight]

It depends on the perspective you're coming from. For new players, playing the special stages as Tails and Knuckles are absolutely worthwhile. For one, you get continues, and two, you unlock Aerial Garden Zone for collecting them all. Also, a future version of the game will likely force you to collect all emeralds to unlock the final boss as well.

In all honesty, in my own replays of the game I always avoid collecting the emeralds as Sonic. I don't like playing as Super Sonic, so having all emeralds just forces me to not to thok. I really wish super transformations were mapped to jump+spin rather than double jump.

 

[clairebun]

I take it you're saying that NiGHTS is no fun as Tails or Knuckles because they play the same as Sonic, just with no reward.

I should have worded my title a little better, but basically this. The lack of reward wouldn't even bother me if they actually played differently.

 

[fickleheart]

The emeralds are an optional part of gameplay anyway. Heck, once I unlocked NAGZ I never made another effort to get an emerald. They're much better off as something that's there if you want to get them than something that you need to get to experience the full game, and adding incentives as Tails and Knuckles is pushing it more toward the latter. If anything it'd be neat to see an all emeralds only ending in the final game (just animate the characters force-feeding Eggman broccoli or something), but even that's not really required, and anything more would seem like cheating out the players who don't have the ability to pass SS7.

 

[Sigmund_Froid]

I know this isn't final because this current build doesn't even have an ending. It just goes to the credits after Metal Robotnik bites the dust.

 

[Mystic]

The thing is, the stages were designed with fixed player statistics in mind, and I'm positive that doing things like making Sonic have a lower turning radius would be a horrible idea. The way we've set them up right now is very strongly assuming certain player statistics, which would make the "correct" line break in many rooms if we messed with the player's stats even minorly. One old cute idea was making Tails and Knuckles unable to transform and have to run along the ground, but as the stages fit together that concept was dropped because it simply wouldn't play well with the level design we've got.

I don't object to adding variety if there's a good way to do so, but I REALLY don't think the idea of changing character statistics is a good way, and more dramatic ways seem a bit more complicated. The intended final solution to this problem is having a separate "good ending" for each character, but who the hell knows when we'll finally have an ending sequence, never mind four?

 

[Pogofenn]

Actually in 2.2.x, I think the special stages should be like the blue sphere stages and the characters should have special abilities, Sonic should have a small spin that colects the spheres around him, Tails should have a small jump boost, and Good ol' Chuckles should have a glide to cover more distance.

 

[Unknownlight]

One old cute idea was making Tails and Knuckles unable to transform and have to run along the ground, but as the stages fit together that concept was dropped because it simply wouldn't play well with the level design we've got.

I think I might've suggested this before, but can one of the additions to Pandora's Box be the ability to play the special stages without transforming? It doesn't need to actually work or be fair, but it would be a nice little addition to screw around and have fun with. Pandora's Box has very little going for it in its current state (which is good, because very few players will ever get all emblems, but I think it ought to be a little bit more rewarding).

 

[Metal Blake]

This is more of a thought, but since Tails and Chuckles have custom pallets for their super forms, is there any chance they will eventually get their own sprites for special stages, rather than magically turning into Sonic?

 

[RetroRampage]

I never even understood why Tails/Knuckles can't change into their super forms anyway.. I mean, they BOTH do have super forms (tails did need to get the super emeralds to transform, so him not being able to makes sense I guess..). Is this a design choice, or just not having the time to implement them into the game? Cause if it's meant to be like this, it makes almost NO sense to get the emeralds in the first place, because there is no reward for doing so (besides in the secrets checklist) Continues are pretty much useless, especially as tails, and I'm pretty sure no one cares about the score outside of record attack.

 

[Unknownlight]

It's a design choice. Super Sonic is meant to be the reward for getting all emeralds while playing as the hardest character.

 

[Mystic]

It is a deliberate design choice that you can't go super as Tails and Knuckles. There even ARE super forms for them in the game accessible in match mode where it would be unfair if only Sonic could go super. There is a long, tedious as hell flamewar of a topic located here if you want to read up on more details as to why we are not adding super forms for characters other than Sonic in single player. We're not changing this, and we're not going through that flamewar yet again in this thread.

The main issue is that we still need an ending for our game; the good ending is what the intended "reward" for getting all emeralds as Tails/Knuckles is. Most of the old Sonic games used a good ending as the only reward for emerald collection. The only major exception was S&K and its lock-on variants. I'd also like to note that there wasn't a gameplay difference for the special stages by character in the classics, either. Sonic 2's special stages were nerfed if you played without Tails following and MORE nerfed as Knuckles, but the gameplay was the same. Sonic 3K's special stages were completely the same as each character, just with different sprites.