Thoking

[on Edge]

People hate it because it speeds characters up past the normal limits of running. I believe that thoking is more useful than that, and uses more inteligance.

Please note that all abilities have advantages.
1) Flying can easily clear obsticals in all gametypes, that delay most other abilities.
2) Climbing can make quick work of complex ctf maps.
3) Gliding has a higher possoble abiliy speed than thoking, and is constantly propelling the character, instead of just a push. (This is worse than multithoking if the glide is fast enough.)
4) Double jump is a quick boost upwards that can be used for many things: gaining air time, height, and drastically changing direction from down to up, evading bullets.
5) Super Sonic hover can easily skip platforming, deathpits, and ground traific. O_O Red flag! Cheapest ability ever!
6) SA walker hover can clear some platforming, clear some pits, and some ground traffic. More balanced.
7) Swim: just like fly, but only underwater.
8) No ability. Must be suicidal to use this ability. Has NO benifits.
Rolling: Can move as fast as thoking but takes time to charge. Actully makes better distance than thoking because it move at 60 from the start.


Uses of thoking are:

1) Moving across long drops quickly
2) Taking tight corners
3) Accelerating
4) Dodging bullets



1) Thoking can be used to cross long drops at high speed. This is thoking's true use to me in race. Suprisingly uses only one thok.

2) Thoking "negates" all previous motion, ad can be used to take tight corners. Jump in air next to the inner wall and alighn yourself for a clear thok after the turn.

3) Accelerating is crutial to all races. The only other ability to have this is gliding. Sadly, glide/climb stops short with contact to walls.

4) Doging bullets is the most important part of any gametype, though this is really just a combination of 2 & 3.

Note: 1 & 2 can also be used together in certain race maps for extreem speed.


Thokfest is relative to the player. I actually preffer running on wavy cources. Speed is just a benifit to thoking, and is only the main attracion for newbs (and also n00bs too.)

 

[Spazzo]

Thok this. *bricked*

In all seriousness, I feel that thokking is useful for sonic players. I can see why people would want to downgrade it, but there is no real reason to, as far as I can see.

 

[Blitzzo]

The thing about thokking is that, in a well-designed Circuit course, you actually have to steer yourself, or time yourself correctly, or else you'll hit an obstacle and stop dead. This means that it requires skill to use masterfully. On less well-designed courses, typically ones that are too open, the game does indeed become a thok fest, and it's only about who can thok the fastest. Just don't play on those levels.

 

[Shuffle]

Sonic's supposed to be the fastest, so it wouldn't make much sense to get rid of/gimp the thok.

 

[Mystic]

The thing with the thok is a little more than that.

The thok's main use is negating inertia. If you're moving ridiculously fast in one direction, one thok and you're moving ridiculously fast in a completely different direction. People probably think I'm suicidal for using the thok when jumping in AGZ, but it's quite a powerful tool for nailing platforms directly. Of course, if you screw it up, you die horribly in AGZ, but it's still great for performing jumps not even remotely feasible without it.

 

[BlueZero4]

Mystic, do you thok in Silver Cavern Zone?

 

[on Edge]

Well, of course thoking is more than that; (I can't really write out every single use.) Thanks for contributing to the disscusion, though.

 

[Mystic]

Mystic, do you thok in Silver Cavern Zone?

Yes, in certain spots. You can do some obscenely big jumps that way.

 

[ST218]

First of all, it's "thokking" not "thoking, TC. You double the K or you change the pronunciation of the root. </grammarnazi>

I thok in Silver Cavern as well. It's one of those levels that you really do have to be boderline insane to thok in, but it's cool as hell when you do.

 

[clairebun]

Monitor bouncing in Silver Cascade ftw.


As for thokking, I'm fine with it. The only problem is that most of the circuit stages are only built for thokking. I'm fine with having a few stages where switching to Sonic is essential, but Tails' flying almost never comes to use due to his crappy speed, and Knuckles doesn't have the speed of Sonic OR the flying of Tails (and unlike Sonic 3 & Knux, Knuckles does not have the ability to uncover secret passageways), so he's useless as well.

I'd like Tails faster, as he was the same speed as Knuckles in S3&K (faster when he's following Sonic, but that should figure). His annoyingly low speed is a different story in the case of even characters, though, as I've personally found him much more useful in netgames than Knuckles otherwise. While Knuckles can slowly scale walls all the way to the top, there's rarely a level where Tails couldn't get to the same point, if not faster. Meanwhile, Tails can carry other people to those places, which can prove to have ultimate advantages in some spots in CTF.

Knuckles is fairly fast and all, but if he can't access those breakable wall passages from S&3K that others can't, then he's got nothing going for him in a threeway between Tails and Sonic. Tails can actually SHOOT AND DODGE people when he's ascending up a floor. Knuckles is a sitting duck when he climbs in match.

To sum up my rant, I don't have anything against Sonic's thok, but Tails/Knuckles' defects teaming with biased level design is my real beef with a few gametypes, especially circuit. I'd personally like a redesign of some of circuit stages so that it's actually possible for Sonic to lose against Tails or Knux half the time.

 

[Mystic]

To sum up my rant, I don't have anything against Sonic's thok, but Tails/Knuckles' defects teaming with biased level design is my real beef with a few gametypes, especially circuit. I'd personally like a redesign of some of circuit stages so that it's actually possible for Sonic to lose against Tails or Knux half the time.

The main issue is that there is really no reasonable way to balance the characters properly.

My main goal is to make at least Tails relevant in match, and I think I succeeded. I'm hoping to make Knuckles not suck for match in 1.1, but it's going to take a lot to make them interesting. However, I don't pretend that I can get there to not be a "best character". I simply want it to be more of a choice than "Sonic is the best. Use him."

In race, balancing the characters is an impossible proposition. Even attempting to balance between just Sonic and Tails in a race map is nearly impossible. Adding in areas you can fly over for shortcuts won't work, for the simplistic reason that separate is inherently unequal. The only result you'd have if you changed the way the levels were set up is that all the players who memorized the stages would choose the proper character for the round, and everyone else would copy him. You might as well forceskin the character in the map header. Nobody would notice.

Circuit is an unabashed thok-fest. It was actually intentionally designed like that, and there isn't any plan to change it.

So yes, I agree, there is a major lack of balance in the game, especially in Race. However, I contend that Race is not going to ever be balanced no matter what we do, and attempting to balance it is something that would require FAR too many resources, and we wouldn't even succeed. Instead, I suggest the basic, obvious answer:

If you're playing a mode that involves Race, I suggest playing as Sonic unless you happen to know exactly what you're doing.

 

[wise.rain]

[partially off topic]

People probably think I'm suicidal for using the thok when jumping in AGZ, but it's quite a powerful tool for nailing platforms directly.

What do you mean? I thok in AGZ too and I don't think I'm crazy. Of course my friends think I'm crazy...[/partially off topic]

Thoking isn't too cheap, unless you use it too much. If we had to wait 5 seconds after we thok that might work.

 

[Warpshade]

Something about knux that I've been meaning to bring up for a while:

Have you ever went into a glide in S3&K just before you hit an enemy? Knuckles goes skywards in a big way.

Try the same thing in srb2, and (unless you're falling at something similar to terminal velocity), you bounce off with less height than a jump. Really, as this game is attempting to use the style of S3&K (In most cases, water shield bounce would be nice), surely something should be changed there.

And with that, *Runs to suggestions*

 

[Blitzzo]

I'm hoping to make Knuckles not suck for match in 1.1, but it's going to take a lot to make them interesting.

Make Knuckles have a full turning and aiming range while climbing. That would allow for things like sneak attacks from the edges of areas people don't bother to look. That would at least make him somewhat more useful.

 

[Ritz]

I second that notion.

 

[Kroze]

I'm hoping to make Knuckles not suck for match in 1.1

Spidey Knux plz!
And yes, I know I am not helping.... :P

 

[NeoJames]

The main thing I want you to do is get rid of the "Sonic is the best" and "Tails is for beginers" Thing in the 1P character selection screen

That really can drive you away from characters, belive it or not

 

[on Edge]

My main goal is to make at least Tails relevant in match, and I think I succeeded.

Bull. He was good before too. Just fly (almost directly) over your opponents and open fire.

In race, balancing the characters is an impossible proposition. Even attempting to balance between just Sonic and Tails in a race map is nearly impossible.

Hey; that's insulting. I placed decently as tails in your contest map serv. Not that you remember, but I placed in 4th a-lot!

 

[clairebun]

So yes, I agree, there is a major lack of balance in the game, especially in Race. However, I contend that Race is not going to ever be balanced no matter what we do, and attempting to balance it is something that would require FAR too many resources, and we wouldn't even succeed.

I'm quite fine with race in general. Obviously, in every map, one character is going to have the advantage over the others. In which case, switching to Tails or Sonic in Mystic Realm races proves to be strategically effective, ingame or during an intermission. My main concern was with the fact that circuit was all Sonic. If it's going to stay that way, though, then that's fairly understandable.

 

[Warpshade]

Really, the only way to make the other characters have a chance is if you add areas that only they can access, or SADX-style speed rings from tails's missions.