Sonic Forces | PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC "The Next Generations"

[Shadowlax]

Just now, Hero said:

Sega's really doesn't want to deal with backlash from using anyone other than Sonic, and for the time being we're going to have to deal with that. 

 

They are going to face " backlash" ( people reposting dumb memes) regardless of what they do, sites who literally praised sonic games, went back around and called the people who liked those games delusional. They should not fear these people, because they people don't really have a vested in interest in anything other than their confirmation bias. They should just do shit, and make it good. Its sonic, people are going to buy it because they like it

[Diogenes]

4 minutes ago, Zaysho said:

My beef with the Wisps is that they sometimes feel like they're there to give Sonic powers that seem more appropriate for his friends to wield. I don't mean to say I want to see the characters reduced to power-ups, but rather making them playable and giving them a playstyle that complements Sonic's (which is to say they play similarly, but have a unique ability that allows them to find paths Sonic can't access naturally)

What I'm saying is that wisps and other characters being playable aren't in conflict even if some of the abilities are similar. Yes, hover works a lot like Tails' flight and drill could be adapted into Knuckles digging, but Sonic being able to get hover and drill wisps doesn't work like playing as Tails and Knuckles. Wisps are one capsule, one use, and generally tied to a specific nearby puzzle or obstacle, while Tails' flight and presumably Knuckles' drill-like digging would be available to use wherever and whenever you please. And while they can easily design levels that include both hover and drill wisps for Sonic to pick up, typically a Sonic game wouldn't allow you to switch characters in mid level, so you couldn't pick Tails, then switch to Knuckles if you find a spot to drill.

A game could justifiably include both multiple playable characters and wisps. One isn't a replacement for the other.

[Chris Knopps]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

What I'm saying is that wisps and other characters being playable aren't in conflict even if some of the abilities are similar. Yes, hover works a lot like Tails' flight and drill could be adapted into Knuckles digging, but Sonic being able to get hover and drill wisps doesn't work like playing as Tails and Knuckles. Wisps are one capsule, one use, and generally tied to a specific nearby puzzle or obstacle, while Tails' flight and presumably Knuckles' drill-like digging would be available to use wherever and whenever you please. And while they can easily design levels that include both hover and drill wisps for Sonic to pick up, typically a Sonic game wouldn't allow you to switch characters in mid level, so you couldn't pick Tails, then switch to Knuckles if you find a spot to drill.

A game could justifiably include both multiple playable characters and wisps. One isn't a replacement for the other.

Hey, here's a game with multiple characters. Oh, but they all can do the exact same thing so all they are is a bunch of Sonic re-skins.

Because f@$k being unique, the Wisps make everyone capable of the exact same stuff, may as well stay as solo-Sonic..

[Diogenes]

Or, get this, the characters aren't identical, because Tails can fly anywhere at any time, while Sonic can only fly for a little bit if he finds a hover wisp and if he's in an area the game considers valid for using that wisp.

If there's a high ledge and no hover wisp around, guess who can get there and who can't.

[Chris Knopps]

2 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Or, get this, the characters aren't identical, because Tails can fly anywhere at any time, while Sonic can only fly for a little bit if he finds a hover wisp and if he's in an area the game considers valid for using that wisp.

If there's a high ledge and no hover wisp around, guess who can get there and who can't.

It really is hard to justify the Wisps, isn't it?

That's not a bad thing, it's called good stage design and replayability, gives you REASON to play as somebody else, which is... The point.

[Diogenes]

Just now, Chris Knopps said:

It really is hard to justify the Wisps, isn't it?

No? It's very straightforward.

[Zaysho]

3 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

What I'm saying is that wisps and other characters being playable aren't in conflict even if some of the abilities are similar. Yes, hover works a lot like Tails' flight and drill could be adapted into Knuckles digging, but Sonic being able to get hover and drill wisps doesn't work like playing as Tails and Knuckles. Wisps are one capsule, one use, and generally tied to a specific nearby puzzle or obstacle, while Tails' flight and presumably Knuckles' drill-like digging would be available to use wherever and whenever you please. And while they can easily design levels that include both hover and drill wisps for Sonic to pick up, typically a Sonic game wouldn't allow you to switch characters in mid level, so you couldn't pick Tails, then switch to Knuckles if you find a spot to drill.

A game could justifiably include both multiple playable characters and wisps. One isn't a replacement for the other.

Oh, no, I can see both working, potentially. Sort of like how Sonic 3 gave Sonic extra abilities via the shields, but Tails and Knuckles could reach places he couldn't due to their abilities. I'm not asking for them to be switched in mid-level, I'd just like to see other options available for Sonic while opening the levels up for other characters. Like, I don't like the Wisps as characters so I'd rather see them replaced with other power-ups, but that aside, I do like the idea of Sonic getting more use out of a power-up, whatever it is, while other characters can use their abilities to progress a level in different ways. We wouldn't necessarily have, say, Hover or Drill powers for Sonic to use, for example.

[Joellui]

4 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

Or, get this, the characters aren't identical, because Tails can fly anywhere at any time, while Sonic can only fly for a little bit if he finds a hover wisp and if he's in an area the game considers valid for using that wisp.

If there's a high ledge and no hover wisp around, guess who can get there and who can't.

But why put Sonic in that situation in a level when, you can just give those situations to Tails? Like if that's the case why even have Tails, he still get's tired any ways when you fly him, he doesn't fly infinitely when you play as him, that's the same or similar Sonic has with the hoover. 

So if Tails gets tired and Sonic doesn't have hoover, they're both f#@$.

[Shadowlax]

Or you could make the wips give other characters other powers

Or in some cases, some characters couldn't use them

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, Shadowlax said:

Or you could make the wips give other characters other powers

Or in some cases, some characters couldn't use them

All the more to show how ridiculous the notion that wisps HAVE to be in confrontation with multiple playable characters is to begin with.

[Joellui]

2 minutes ago, Shadowlax said:

Or you could make the wips give other characters other powers

Or in some cases, some characters couldn't use them

Well I hope it's only certain wisps can be used by other characters, because I don't think it would be a smart Idea to give a hover wisp to Tails or the Drill to Knuckles, when they can do that already.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

also on the hovering, Sonic can ring dash and it recharges the hover. I really hope that Eagle comes back though, that was my favorite wisp from Lost World but the controls were confusing

[Bowbowis]

I've suggested in the past that the wisps be reworked into Shadow's Chaos powers and given to him as a unique ability, while Sonic gets parkour to balance it out. Basically, replace the aliens with Chaos drives and depending on which color Shadow picks up he gets a different Chaos Power. For instance:

Green = Chaos Control (Warp)

Blue = Chaos Control (Time Stop)

Red = Chaos Blast

Yellow = Chaos Spear

Purple = Chaos Shield

etc.

 

Whatever they do with the mechanic it needs to be streamlined so that it doesn't interrupt the flow of the game so much. Instead of being single use power-ups let wisps be toggled on and off as long as there's energy left in the gauge. Get rid of the pause when transforming and have the wisp form retain the player's momentum. If a stop is required, as with the laser wisp, the player's momentum should be restored, albeit possibly redirected, when movement resumes. No wisp form should have a lower top speed than the player's normal form.

Basically, right now  using a wisp looks like this: The player grabs a green wisp, hits the button, waits while game pauses for a second, comes to a dead stop, lazily floats across a gap until the gauge is empty, and then is dumped back out into normal form.

Instead, it should look like this: The player grabs a green wisp, hits the button, transforms into hover without missing a beat, zips across the gap at full speed, releases the button or hits for a second time, and instantly resumes normal play while any leftover energy can be put to use later on.

[JayRaR]

Yeah, if Sega had the sense to add a 3rd gameplay style to stray the gameplay away from being stale, then they should have some sense that it's stale to keep playing as Sonic + Wisps for 9 years.

[Shadowlax]

3 minutes ago, Joellui said:

Well I hope it's only certain wisps can be used by other characters, because I don't think it would be a smart Idea to give a hover wisp to Tails or the Drill to Knuckles, when they can do that already.

That's how I would do it. Even sonic would have ones that he couldn't himself use. The wips's might be drawn to different people, as an in lore justification, and they give those characters different powers. 

Then you could do fun things like " oh the whips don't like shadow because he's a different type of alien related to the black arms, so they wont let him use them "

and now you have hard mode. Or he just uses his powers... because he probably wouldn't need them. 

 

4 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Joranvexeon said:

All the more to show how ridiculous the notion that wisps HAVE to be in confrontation with multiple playable characters is to begin with.

True

[StaticMania]

48 minutes ago, Joellui said:

But why put Sonic in that situation in a level when, you can just give those situations to Tails? Like if that's the case why even have Tails, he still get's tired any ways when you fly him, he doesn't fly infinitely when you play as him, that's the same or similar Sonic has with the hoover. 

So if Tails gets tired and Sonic doesn't have hoover, they're both f#@$.

The ledge doesn't have to be that high in order for Sonic the hedgehog not to be able to reach it, so this isn't actually a problem. Really, it could be just about as high as the peak of his jump...and since this is 3D Sonic, he doesn't gain jump height due to momentum.

[Blacklightning]

45 minutes ago, Diogenes said:

If there's a high ledge and no hover wisp around, guess who can get there and who can't.

Just off the top of my head:

- Homing Attack chain

- Spring

- Quarter pipe to wall climb

- Wall jump

- Just... don't make high ledges a mandatory pathway in the first place if they're unreachable?

What you're criticizing here is level design specifically built to pigeonhole into mandatory Wips usage and acting as though something will be amiss if they're gone - the thing is, level design is generally made after the moveset design is finalized so the level designers can effectively design around them. They're not just going to conveniently forget certain characters can't do certain things, and even if they theoretically somehow did the QA department would catch it in short order.

[MegasonicZX]

Kind of a crazy idea but what if sonic could just get a load out of wisps before starting a level? Something like generations where you could equip a skill before a level and then it'd be in effect that whole way through only with the wisps you could cycle through them (if you can hold multiple anyway, if we were to get more than 4 then I'd say maybe 2 per load out) and when you used one it'd have a cool down timer so that you couldn't spam it. Of course you'd need to rework level design elements so that coming to a stage with a specific wisp automatically ruins whatever plans you had if you picked a different one and the stage (plus secret routes within the stage) would have to accommodate for every angle that the player might try rather with the wisps or with sonic standalone in terms of getting through the stage without  needing that one specific wisp.

Its not a perfect solution of course since I feel like it'd remove some of those particular moments that could only be designed as well as they are because they had a specific path in mind for the player but I think it could open fun and interesting ways for the player to tackle levels without necessarily limiting them to one set method of advancing through it and in the process the wisps could become more than just one time use power ups that only serve as a means of progression.

[Dejimon11]

Lost world sort of did that to some extent. The problem was they didn't feel like they added anything to the game even stuff like the elemental shields felt like they were tacked on. 

[Radiant Hero Ike]

The Hover Wisp does have that ring dash ability. Tails can't ring dash... Wonder if they made it so that Tails could use the Hover Wisp but it just gave him the ability to ring dash?

I dunno... I guess there'd have to be certain flight-to-ring-chain paths for both Sonic and Tails. Maybe Tails could first fly and then activate Hover after he reaches his peak height. Or maybe just put the capsule out of homing attack range, but Tails can reach it by flying?

[Diogenes]

17 minutes ago, Blacklightning said:

What you're criticizing here is level design specifically built to pigeonhole into mandatory Wips usage and acting as though something will be amiss if they're gone - the thing is, level design is generally made after the moveset design is finalized so the level designers can effectively design around them. They're not just going to conveniently forget certain characters can't do certain things, and even if they theoretically somehow did the QA department would catch it in short order.

It wasn't meant to criticize anything, it was explaining how wisps and multiple playable characters can coexist in the same game without the wisps invalidating characters with similar abilities. Some routes could be accessed by Tails and hover wisp Sonic. Some routes could only be accessed by Tails, by not giving Sonic access to a hover wisp.

[LongcrierCat]

You know, it's interesting that Classic Sonic never had to have alien friends in order to get special power ups but Modern Sonic does. It feels like a needlessly complicated way of explaining why Sonic can suddenly fly or blast off in a daze of fire. 

You know, Sega, you could have made this as simple as it was in 1993. Wisps don't have to stick around, you know. People are fine with gamified mechanics as long as something about ludonatural discobiscuits isn't a big issue. Man, I don't know. The Wisps feel like something that's become a problem with story basing your power ups when they maybe didn't need an overly complicated exposition log to read through. 

[Chris Knopps]

And people thought I was terrible to have around.

Look at all the great conversations and debates I've kicked off!

Stay tuned to tomorrows posts folks.

[StaticMania]

20 minutes ago, LongcrierCat said:

You know, it's interesting that Classic Sonic never had to have alien friends in order to get special power ups but Modern Sonic does. It feels like a needlessly complicated way of explaining why Sonic can suddenly fly or blast off in a daze of fire. 

You know, Sega, you could have made this as simple as it was in 1993. Wisps don't have to stick around, you know. People are fine with gamified mechanics as long as something about ludonatural discobiscuits isn't a big issue. Man, I don't know. The Wisps feel like something that's become a problem with story basing your power ups when they maybe didn't need an overly complicated exposition log to read through. 

Elemental shields are useless now that Sonic the hedgehog basically has nerfed versions of those shield's abilities. And the shields would be stripped of their primary abilities, only having their secondary effects if given to Modern Sonic hedgehog.

[Nepenthe]

7 minutes ago, Chris Knopps said:

And people thought I was terrible to have around.

Look at all the great conversations and debates I've kicked off!

Stay tuned to tomorrows posts folks.

Don't flatter yourself.