[Palas]

What a wonderful and inventive level design I'm seeing, Strife. I really liked the dilemma imposed on the player. This is risk vs. reward at its best - even moreso because the player will most likely get the card.

About the geometry guiding the player, I agree with Jayextee completely - rings serve many purposes and one of them is to show to the player that there is something to do there. If there is a ring - the player ill think - it's possible to collect. It's the "how do I get there" issue at its simplest and, at the same time, finest.

[Jayextee]

Palas, on 27 May 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

risk vs. reward

I'm actually a big big advocate of risk/reward in games. Simply put, higher-level play should be more difficult, and 'safer' play always the option for the poorer players.

One of my absolute favourite risk/reward mechanics is in F-Zero X (and subsequent games) where the boost gauge, activated in the second lap, depletes shield. Go faster, and the effect is stackable meaning some crazy speeds are possible. However, at higher speed collisions will do more damage; and you're likely to make more of them. It's a wonderful mechanic, and makes me wonder why Sonic's boost move didn't, from its very inception, use up rings. That would make for an interesting dynamic right there.

[Knucklez]

I think a Sonic game should have difficulty modes for playing the entire game in which each difficulty gives you a specific time limit on each level. The difficulty should also determine the amount of rings and badniks spread across a level.

So, if you're playing on easy mode, you practically get all the time in the world with an abundance of rings and very little to no badniks. But as you pump up the difficulty, your time gets more constrained with less and less rings at your disposal while being swarmed by a horde of badniks.

It's a pretty basic way of handling the gameplay difficulty, as well as testing a player's skill.

[Candescence]

Fantastic examples, Strife. Still can't wait for Freedom Planet.

Jayextee, on 27 May 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

Palas, on 27 May 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

risk vs. reward

I'm actually a big big advocate of risk/reward in games. Simply put, higher-level play should be more difficult, and 'safer' play always the option for the poorer players.

One of my absolute favourite risk/reward mechanics is in F-Zero X (and subsequent games) where the boost gauge, activated in the second lap, depletes shield. Go faster, and the effect is stackable meaning some crazy speeds are possible. However, at higher speed collisions will do more damage; and you're likely to make more of them. It's a wonderful mechanic, and makes me wonder why Sonic's boost move didn't, from its very inception, use up rings. That would make for an interesting dynamic right there.

Kid Icarus: Uprising also has a risk/reward mechanic with its difficulty system, the Intensity Gauge. The Intensity Gauge allows you to increase the difficulty by paying hearts, which results in harder/more enemies, but better rewards, and there are doors with rewards behind them that only open with certain intensity levels or higher. If you die, the gauge goes down a level. Though, I wish you could pay hearts to keep the gauge up if you die, kinda annoying that you have to restart the stage if you want to keep your intensity.

[Jayextee]

These are a few ways in which the gameplay could be altered slightly to include a mechanic that would add more challenge for higher-level players. I'm not advocating any of them, nor suggesting they be implemented.

BOOST EATS RINGS -- Sonic Rush boosting, with the top speed and enemy-killin', but it eats rings. Maybe three a second (the actual balance of this, I don't know without trying it). How this works is that faster times may be achieved by utilising the boost, but since it eats rings there will be fewer extra lives earned and potentially more danger of enemy/obstacle death when not boosting.
FULL SPEED DAMAGE -- at top speed, enemy collision could penetrate through a shield so that not only is a shield lost, but so are rings. No death, that would be a dick-move. But this would be a further challenge to those who manage to maintain a constant top speed.
BOSS PINCH TIME -- bosses should have a 'pinch' phase (think more like Sonic Advance 3 and how the speed and intensity of the boss are ramped up, instead of Sonic 4's pattern change). Risk/reward added by making the 'pinch' phase activate in fewer hits if they are close together; for example, if the last 4 hits are normally 'pinch' phased, then a boss attacked quickly might activate this earlier, like with 6 hits left or something.

There will be loads of ways to do this.

[Thousand Pancake]

Palas, on 25 May 2012 - 09:37 PM, said:

It's easy to implement difficulty in a Sonic game. All you have to do is to induce despair.

You see, obstacles only harm you in Sonic if you do something wrong. Generally speaking, of course. They are, most of the times, not directly aimed at you - it's your fault if you get hit. This specific type of difficulty is normally more subtle, even if it isn't really easier - just makes the gameplay far less based in trial and error. It integrates calmness to skill, and this is VERY interesting because it's Sonic we're talking about here. You have to build momentum, but the fear that of making the wrong move is doubled because of all the harmful elements that will only hit you if you screw up.

The challenge is supposed to be diffuse. Notice that whenever there is a chain of threats, such as missiles or shots etc. can ALL be avoided with a single, simple move. The more half-assed is such move, the more upcoming threats you have to avoid. Difficulty is built by your own mistakes to the point of the unbearable and irreversible.

Now, this is where I see the real difficulty in Sonic. The rest is skill tolls, challenge, but these don't bear intrinsic... how can I say it... desire to make you lose your lives and cry before the screen. Yeah. This.

So if you can puzzle the player's mind as to make him lose his temper and make the wrong move, you have your difficulty that still isn't cheap. It was the player's fault after all. And this much you can do by testing one's reflexes to the point one breaks down the stream.

Objects that come from nowhere are perfect. Well, take that section in Angel Island Act 2 in which a carrier drops bombs. If you keep running steadily, nothing will happen. But if you could add some obstacles that suggested that the player should jump (when he actually shouldn't), like missiles with horizontal trajectory that fly JUST over Sonic's head, the player would perhaps, in fact, jump. Then, a second missile would punish him/her for this and then the bombs would do the rest of the job.

Now I'm scared.

[Strife]

Thanks everyone! ^_^ I'm really excited at all the interest the project has been getting. I'm hoping that the ideas themselves translate well into the actual gameplay; I won't really know for sure until it's ready for testing.

Anyway, balancing risks and rewards is definitely the way you want to go if you want the game to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Hardcore gamers make up a significant number of players, as do casual gamers, and of course people who fall somewhere in between. If you can provide optional risks and challenges of varying degrees, and apply them correctly, then people of all skill levels will be able to appreciate what the game has to offer in slightly different ways. The most cost-effective way of achieving this is usually with Easy/Normal/Hard modes, but it definitely pays off to have something more organic.

[TheInvisibleSun]

Jayextee, on 27 May 2012 - 12:52 PM, said:

These are a few ways in which the gameplay could be altered slightly to include a mechanic that would add more challenge for higher-level players. I'm not advocating any of them, nor suggesting they be implemented.

BOOST EATS RINGS -- Sonic Rush boosting, with the top speed and enemy-killin', but it eats rings. Maybe three a second (the actual balance of this, I don't know without trying it). How this works is that faster times may be achieved by utilising the boost, but since it eats rings there will be fewer extra lives earned and potentially more danger of enemy/obstacle death when not boosting.
FULL SPEED DAMAGE -- at top speed, enemy collision could penetrate through a shield so that not only is a shield lost, but so are rings. No death, that would be a dick-move. But this would be a further challenge to those who manage to maintain a constant top speed.

I feel like the Super Sonic 1/sec ring loss rate (or maybe even 2/sec) would be sufficient; 3 could work, but might be a bit too much.

As far as full speed damage, I think that what you wrote should apply to the boost, but not when simply running at full speed. This way, players are discouraged from spamming the boost, but encouraged to get better and faster at the game without it. Basically, use the boost when you're good enough to use it well and dodge the consequences and risks.

[Jayextee]

TheInvisibleSun, on 27 May 2012 - 10:50 PM, said:

As far as full speed damage, I think that what you wrote should apply to the boost, but not when simply running at full speed. This way, players are discouraged from spamming the boost, but encouraged to get better and faster at the game without it. Basically, use the boost when you're good enough to use it well and dodge the consequences and risks.

I would be totally fine with this, you know? It would be like, first playthrough and boosting becomes the Suicide Button in a way. But subsequent playthroughs would be a different story as the layouts are learned; I'd be like Neo and shit. Only not Neo, but Sonic. But Neo. You know what I mean.

[Mosqui]

I am a firm believer in the motto that games should be mastered in order to be completed as opposed to the current hand-holding that current games push upon you. It doesn't help that developers are handed a set of guidelines that the game has to follow in order to be accepted for release to the mass market. I understand that no-one reads the manuals anymore (did they in the first place?) but putting the controller functions in a window or making the first level a tutorial of sorts is really dis-heartening to me.
Difficulty should rise as the game progresses. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but most games should follow it. Sonic 2 does this rather well, I think. The levels themselves seem to be more difficult as the game progresses.
The thing that stands out to me as "wrong" in the current games is the constant force of the homing attack in 2D. I know there was a discussion about this before (I won't bring it up) but I still don't see the need for homing gattack in a 2D setting. It also hinders the difficulty by going along with the hand-holding of newer games as players don't even need to time a jump anymore; just spam the jump button. And don't get me started on death pits. Putting a sign above them does not make them less frustrating, it just makes the levels look stupid and is a poor attempt at creating artifical difficulty in level design.
In summary, I may have gotten really good at the sonic games over the years and as a result, something I would have found challenging is now not too hard. But I don't play games that often anyway which does lead me to believe that difficulty in the series really isn't there... or handled that well.

[Hukos]

Jayextee, on 27 May 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

Palas, on 27 May 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

risk vs. reward

I'm actually a big big advocate of risk/reward in games. Simply put, higher-level play should be more difficult, and 'safer' play always the option for the poorer players.

One of my absolute favourite risk/reward mechanics is in F-Zero X (and subsequent games) where the boost gauge, activated in the second lap, depletes shield. Go faster, and the effect is stackable meaning some crazy speeds are possible. However, at higher speed collisions will do more damage; and you're likely to make more of them. It's a wonderful mechanic, and makes me wonder why Sonic's boost move didn't, from its very inception, use up rings. That would make for an interesting dynamic right there.

I wouldn't say safe play is the option for a poor player. Using Castlevania as an example for the umpteenth time, recklessness often ends in a quick, swift death for the player. Caution and intelligent play are what's encouraged, memorizing and analyzing enemy patterns and striking when the moment is just right. Of course, that has hardly anything to do with Sonic, but I felt I should point that out regardless.

It's kind of controversial, but one way I think to help introduce a more "fair" difficulty curve in Sonic games would be to limit the ability to collect rings you've lost after getting hit. Maybe not removing that ability altogether, but say you can only re-collect a ring one time and one time only. So it discourages the player from getting hit over and over again and collecting the same lost ring an unlimited number of times and forces them to learn how to actually dodge things.

[dsrb]

Yeah, I quite like that idea! It could be made so that spilt rings are visibly damaged or otherwise distinguished; and once lost again they shatter or otherwise disappear.

Alongside platforming/environmental hazards, badniks, and bosses that all actually pose a challenge—the last two of these being able to aim projectiles or body-weight attacks competently and without a fortnight's warning—, a limited ability to free-ride on health could actually imbue the game with a requirement of some skill, not just luck and/or memory.

This post has been edited by dsrb: 01 June 2012 - 11:47 AM

[Jayextee]

Hukos, on 01 June 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

Hey guys, I play CastleVania. CastleVania, you guys - I play it. I play CastleVania you guys. GUYS, CASTLEVANIA!!!

GUYS?

*cough*

Snark time over. Allow me to execute a more serious response.

Hukos, on 01 June 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

I wouldn't say safe play is the option for a poor player. Using Castlevania as an example for the umpteenth time, recklessness often ends in a quick, swift death for the player. Caution and intelligent play are what's encouraged, memorizing and analyzing enemy patterns and striking when the moment is just right. Of course, that has hardly anything to do with Sonic, but I felt I should point that out regardless.

Don't get me wrong, I love CastleVania, mostly the first game -- but you're not exactly rebutting my point there. Get hold of the cross and spam a few kills with it to get the 'III' icon, and then as long as you can keep your hearts up, you can cover a lot of the screen at one time with them and safeguard yourself from all minor enemy attacks, and damage a few major enemies whilst you're there. The game is made much easier doing this; because it's 'safe' play. The smarter players, of course, will find out that the holy water is a subweapon of choice, notably for bosses. It's not faster, but is riskier -- slogging through level 4 with the holy water (more of a struggle than with the cross, hello flea-men :P) is worth it when the boss (Frankenstein's monster and pet flea-man) absolutely freezes under a holy water flame -- which is the payoff, the reward.

Hukos, on 01 June 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

It's kind of controversial, but one way I think to help introduce a more "fair" difficulty curve in Sonic games would be to limit the ability to collect rings you've lost after getting hit. Maybe not removing that ability altogether, but say you can only re-collect a ring one time and one time only. So it discourages the player from getting hit over and over again and collecting the same lost ring an unlimited number of times and forces them to learn how to actually dodge things.

This however, would be neat. Although the ring-loss mechanic is a great boon to poorer players, it is open to abuse (another personal no-no). However, such a mechanic could get confusing without additional data for the player to understand why the spilled rings are behaving as they do -- dsrb's 'damaged ring' idea is a solution; but whether or not the additional visual 'clutter' could confuse a player remains to be seen.

I love topics like this. Everyone, keep it going. <3

[Sik]

Hukos, on 01 June 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

It's kind of controversial, but one way I think to help introduce a more "fair" difficulty curve in Sonic games would be to limit the ability to collect rings you've lost after getting hit. Maybe not removing that ability altogether, but say you can only re-collect a ring one time and one time only. So it discourages the player from getting hit over and over again and collecting the same lost ring an unlimited number of times and forces them to learn how to actually dodge things.

SRB2 does this, actually (sorta). If you keep getting hit and you don't get more rings, the vanish counter is not reset, to the point that eventually rings will spawn already blinking. You need to grab more rings to prevent that from happening.

There's also the Chaotix route where you will always lose some rings permanently if you get hit (those rings will fly away from the screen, out of the 2D plane - such a thing wouldn't work on a 3D game though).

EDIT: actually, the original games do implement a countermeasure to permagrabbing. Sometimes rings won't collide with the map and will fly off-screen. Those rings are pretty much lost forever unless you're really fast and manage to catch them before they fall off (the recoil makes this nearly impossible). Playing as Sonic & Tails kind of breaks this though (you can get Tails to catch those rings, which is much easier than waiting for recoiling to end).

This post has been edited by Sik: 01 June 2012 - 02:04 PM

[Hukos]

Now that you mention it, I am a Holy Water kind of man when it comes to Castlevania. Of course, I love using it on Bone Pillars since it immobilizes them. Hell, that's what I love about the Holy Water, it absolutely destroys everything in CV1 if you know what you're doing. The cross is faster and more aggressive, but I find that the Holy Water is more efficient, getting a greater effect out of less effort. In fact, because of the immobilizing factor of the Holy Water I would have considered it the safer weapon to use, since once you know how to properly use it, there's very little that can threaten you (Outside of good old knockback, of course .)

Level 4 isn't that hard to get through, outside of the bat being able to bump you off of the floating platforms (Unless you know where to spawn him). The fleamen follow a pattern, you can whip them the moment they touch the ground and they'll never touch you. It requires a bit of patience to deal with that section, but some practice and it honestly isn't that bad to deal with.

Quote

SRB2 does this, actually (sorta). If you keep getting hit and you don't get more rings, the vanish counter is not reset, to the point that eventually rings will spawn already blinking. You need to grab more rings to prevent that from happening.

There's also the Chaotix route where you will always lose some rings permanently if you get hit (those rings will fly away from the screen, out of the 2D plane - such a thing wouldn't work on a 3D game though).

EDIT: actually, the original games do implement a countermeasure to permagrabbing. Sometimes rings won't collide with the map and will fly off-screen. Those rings are pretty much lost forever unless you're really fast and manage to catch them before they fall off (the recoil makes this nearly impossible). Playing as Sonic & Tails kind of breaks this though (you can get Tails to catch those rings, which is much easier than waiting for recoiling to end).
Jayextee

I had forgotten that Chaotix does that, but it only comes into play in boss fights since Chaotix is devoid of a lot of enemies (My main issue with the game, despite actually liking it).

I thought the "countermeasure" was that only up to 20 rings would spawn on-screen after getting hit? Anymore than that would simply be lost forever, but there was nothing stopping you from grabbing those 20.

This post has been edited by Hukos: 01 June 2012 - 02:43 PM