Celestia

luigi is unstoppable 

none can be saved

Yep yep

A lot of issues with players missing platforms when flying off of ramps would be fixed, Loop the loops with correctional terrain would be fixed, hitting enemies in a 3D space without a homing attack would kinda be fixed...

It's really weird that no one has made a game that capitalizes on this yet, tbh. I mean we have a 3D World fangame for Sonic, but it doesn't even use any dynamic physics in the first place...

Loops are honestly the biggest issue I'm thinking of here. Maybe the camera could adjust specifically for those? Not the most elegant solution but could work.

I'd prefer that to the way 3D Sonic fangames (+ Sonic R) handle it where you stay behind your character's back all throughout the loop, gah.

Well if you're viewing them from the side, like 3D Land/World are usually, there's not much of an issue with them. Just make the terrain carry them around it naturally, through scripting or pathwork, but allow the player to fall out if they want. Lego Dimensions did basically that, so it's definitely not impossible.

Unless you're saying you want the loops to be behind the back, instead? Because with the way you worded it it sounds like you don't want that, lol

(also it'd fix running up a wall in a straight line, as so many players seem to have trouble with in Adventure whenever they miss the boost pads in Emerald Coast)

Yeah I wouldn't want loops to be behind the back.

And to be fair moving in a straight line at all in Adventure is......I don't want to say "impossible," but,

it'd probably work well enough, but, eh, I dunno. 3d world's style definitely has roots in how blocky 2d mario games are, and 2d sonic always had a more organic feel in comparison. as much as it would solve some issues, I don't think the tradeoff would be entirely worth it.

and talking about loops specifically, I'd honestly rather do away with loops than do something to make them work that I feel would compromise other parts of the game. the traditional loop doesn't make a whole lot of sense in 3d anyway, it's hard to justify taking the loop rather than going around or cutting through the middle. as iconic as loops are I feel they're something that needs to be changed to better adapt to 3D or simply dropped.

Well that's where you and I disagree then, lol, behind-the-back loops are absolutely awesome and I won't rest until we get an amazing Sonic game containing them :V

It's like a bloody roller coaster and I love it so much augh

But yeah the mere concept of locking Sonic 8-ways really does fix a ton of problems with the franchise and 3D, yeah. And it'd be amazing in it's own way. Like, just imagine starting the level platforming up the side of a mountain ala Bell Hills, then rolling down said hill from the rear, manuvering around stuff, then pulling a hard right with a half pipe concave in the side of a wall at the end, and then carrying all that momentum to the side with Sonic blasting along a 2D-esque speedway, going through a loop or two without requiring any input on your end, and then getting flung into the air by a ramp, allowing you to either use that height to reverse course and get the 1-up at the top of the loop you just saw, or make a "leap of faith" onto a high route that you can't see just yet, and then continues on into another forward-facing 3D platforming section

It'd be sogood

@Diogenes loops in 3D are justified by the speed they give you when you manage to go through them, my goodness it's really not that hard to justify at all sdkhfsjhgf

They're not an obstacle anymore but they darn sure still have a purpose

how much speed do you actually gain from a loop, balanced against the difficulty of completing it and the time lost travelling it? even if you do come out ahead, I don't think it'd be that enticing to a player over taking an easier, safer route unless they're dead set on shaving a few seconds off their time.

Now that I think about it, maybe you could just have the corkscrew loops instead? It'd make sense for them to be the standard for loops in 3D Sonics since the camera wouldn't have to reposition at all. The brief spectacle is there while still requiring player input + speed so it can be an obstacle of sorts.

Admittedly I'm imagining it'd be scripted so you just need to hold in the direction you were moving, but I'm fine with that as long as you fall out of them if you slow down too much / try to stop for whatever reason. (I...actually don't recall if the corkscrew loops in Generations actually work that way, but this is all hypothetical anyway, not "Sonic Team can definitely do this thing.")

Well then at that point what is even the point of high-route, low-route design in a Sonic game, if the player is just going to tend to be satisfied with the absolute bare minimum and not tend to use Sonic's abilities for what they were designed for in the first place? Why roll down a hill? Why jump at the end of a platform?...

I really wouldn't mind having level design actually being built around how much speed you have to progress, though. It'd make sense, to teach the player how to play the game, and actually develop their skills around it, like Mario does with his platforming mechanics. It's probably why we have so many video game players who have played Sonic but don't fully understand him, tbh.

@Celestia: I'm not sure what you're saying, though; why does the camera need to reposition for loops? Are you talking about when Sonic is running away from the camera, hypothetically? Because the solution is just not to have loops in the level design in that case, really :V

Corkscrews would work fine too, though. They'd be a lot more apparent with the scripting, though, yeah.

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Well then at that point what is even the point of high-route, low-route design in a Sonic game, if the player is just going to tend to be satisfied with the absolute bare minimum and not tend to use Sonic's abilities for what they were designed for in the first place? Why roll down a hill? Why jump at the end of a platform?...

It's a matter of scale. again, how much do you actually gain from doing a loop vs going around? the higher the risks and the lower the reward, the less people are inclined to take it even if it's ultimately beneficial. considering the difficulty of going around a non-automated loop and that even done properly a loop isn't going to give you a crazy amount of speed, it's a bit of a hard sell.

and it's not like I'm saying they should get rid of crazy roller coaster styled level elements entirely, just that they should focus on the ones that work best in 3d and not cling to ones that are more trouble than they're worth. celestia mentioned corkscrews, and I think that's probably the best way to reinterpret loops for 3d sonic; they're essentially just a stretched out and slightly twisted loop, and I think they'd allow for better camera angles and a better degree of control than traditional loops do.

What I mean is, the camera kinda has to do something if it doesn't stay right behind your character and follow 'em through the loop. That's an option, sure, but I really don't like the feel of it in everything that's attempted that, and sometimes it's straight up dizzying (especially when it comes to the corkscrew style loops, lol).

I can respect why people think it's a good direction for loops in 3D, but I feel like it's ironically best to keep them simple. Even in, say, a hypothetical game that brings the pinball/rolling physics back to the 3D games.

@Diogenes: ..... Que????

Have... Have you played any 3D Sonic games where you run through corkscrews???

Because shuttle loops are a million times easier to stay inside of. And we haven't even had any examples that make use of visual lines to show how straight you are when running through one, either. Just chaotic checkerboard textures, and yet they still make more sense.

There's a reason Utopia gave the two corkscrews you could find in it guardrails

And nah, I'm not implying the loops be the dinky things found in the classics or Utopia; they should be much more GHP than not. Large, incredibly rewarding in terms of speed payoff, and irresistible. Smaller loops would have more merit as an outright obstacle than not, tbh. Unless we're talking the 3D World approach, in which case it doesn't matter, they'd be super easy to navigate; as easy as 2D.

@Celestia: But that's only if you're running away from the screen, which you do very little of in Mario 3D Land or World. If you only use loops from the side, all the problems are fixed. In which case, why would you use them when running away from the screen, lol?

Though if it were a see-through, glass loop, I could see it working, maybe. But it really wouldn't be as effective as it would be from the side. You could just have a route transition inside the away-from-camera 3D section which turns Sonic 90 degrees to go through a loop, and then spit him out 90 degrees back to keep going in 3D, as well.

But basically yeah, it wouldn't work well when running away from the screen through one, I agree, lol

Oh, I was talking Sonic games in general, obviously this wouldn't really be an issue at all in something based on 3D World's camera / movement.

Now I see where the confusion is here lol

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Have... Have you played any 3D Sonic games where you run through corkscrews???

really the question is "have i played any 3d sonic games that didn't control like garbage", and right now the count is at 1...ish.

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There's a reason Utopia gave the two corkscrews you could find in it guardrails

well yeah, isn't that the most reasonable way to do either of them? also iirc utopia's corkscrews are super, super narrow, I was thinking more something like this, where you actually have a fair amount of leeway and, unlike a traditional loop, you keep moving in a sane, mostly-forward direction.

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And nah, I'm not implying the loops be the dinky things found in the classics or Utopia; they should be much more GHP than not. Large, incredibly rewarding in terms of speed payoff, and irresistible.

Big loops require proportionately more speed, increasing both the chances of and penalty for failure. I'm not sure it changes the equation that much.

Well I have the experience of playing games outside of Sonic that control well but contain both loops and corkscrews, and yeah, they're much harder to tackle overall, lmao

If you turn inside a loop, you merely have to reassert yourself to retain control over your path, since you have grip at all times. Corkscrews, on the other hand, have a very specific arc to follow to have grip in the first place, due to how low the centrifugal force is with that kind of a shape. And one misstep/steer outside of that arc, and you're a goner. It's why width =/= a better corkscrew, in any and all cases. It's inbetween the difference of a neverending loop and a cylinder, and the arc needed to stay grounded.

And especially important, we're talking about a series with dynamic speed here. Unlike loops, where there is a minimum success speed and no max, (unlike real life where it'd crush your bones, lol) corkscrews need that minimum speed to clear, and a maximum speed to stay in easy control of. With that speed comes a force that wants to continue going straight, rather than be redirected by the curve, and will as a result will stray towards the outside of the corkscrew rather than the inside, and that's if you have an on point trajectory in the first place. It's why some corkscrews are designed slightly facing the character in the first place, but that introduces it's own steering problems.

And because all of that is so important... no, walls aren't a be all, end all fix, lol. If the corkscrew is narrow and the walls are ridiculously slippy, it'll keep you inside it, yeah, but if not, they're just as much of a guarantee of your failure as falling off the edge of anything wider than the necessary arc.

I'd say that Utopia's handling of them was probably for the best, (though the turn before entering the screw at the first one was a bad move) and even then... They really aren't easy to pull off in 3D, that's all that needs to be said, lol. They need to be controlled, either with scripting or barriers, because the fail rate would be astronomically high if it were anything otherwise.

Compared to just... running/driving slightly straight through a loop.

That All Stars clip really isn't a good representation of how these actually work, lol. The uneven arc it presents you in fact would throw you off before you reached the end for anything with real physics going for it.

And the whole point of playing a Sonic game is to go fast idjkga why are you even arguing that idea