[Zephyr]

Don't really have enough room in the Title to explain. Some friends and myself are designing a Sonic the Hedgehog card game. There are many card types, the two relevant ones to this topic being Characters and Zones. Each Zone card has a series of tropes represented in it (such as the Ancient Ruins, Underwater, and Underground/Cave tropes represented by Labyrinth Zone). Each character has some tropes that they would call home, where they would thrive (receiving a buff to their stats when the active Zone card contains one such trope), and other tropes where they're out of their element (receiving a nerf to their stats when the active Zone contains one such trope).

I would like to use this thread to discuss what tropes certain characters would thrive in, and which ones they would be out of their element in (based on their personality, species, abilities, etc). I'm having an easy enough time rationalizing what tropes each character would call home, but am having a tougher time with the places that certain characters would be nerfed in, based off of the tropes listed here.

So let's start with Vector. He's a crocodile. Crocodiles live in swamps, thus Jungle would be a clear "Home" trope for him. But where would he be out of his element?

Mods feel free to move this to Creative Works if it's more fitting there.

This post has been edited by Zephyr: 15 December 2013 - 10:59 PM

[Dark Sonic]

Hmm, here's what I think for some at least (+ for home world, - for out of element)

Sonic - Tropical +; Sky - (Due to his ground based/speed skills); Underwater - (can't swim)
Tails - Sky +; Cave - (No room to fly)
Knuckles - Ruins +; Mechanical - (Can't dig and explore in metal); Haunted - (ghosts seem to scare Knuckles in SA2)
Amy - Urban +; Jungle - (No real reason, she just seems like she wouldn't like jungles because they were gross or something)
Cream - Sky +; Casino - (she's too young for casinos); spooky - (probably scared of ghosts)
Big - Jungle +; Urban - (He has no place in a city)
Shadow - Space +;
Rouge - Casino +; Mechanical - (same reasons as Knuckles)
Espio - Haunted +; Jungle +; Winter - (no where to hide)
Vector - Jungle +; Casino - (he seems like the type that'd have a gambling problem if his Heroes persona is to be believed).
Charmy - Sky +; Spooky - (I imagine he'd be frightened of ghosts because of the fact that he's retarded a child)
Silver - Lava +; Urban +; Winter - (Silver's world seems like a literal hell, I don't think he'd be accustomed to cold temperatures, also nothing to pick up)
Metal Sonic - Mechanical +; Underwater - (he's a robot); Lava - (high temperatures could be bad for metal)
Eggman - Mechanical +; Space +; Tropical - (hates nature)

I can't think of a minus for Shadow. We don't know if he can swim or not like Sonic, and his rocket shoes would somewhat help for sky tropes.

This post has been edited by Dark Sonic: 15 December 2013 - 08:41 PM

[Strife]

Suggestions:

Sonic - Thrives in City or Green zones, nerfed in Water zones
Tails - Thrives in Laboratory or Sky zones, nerfed in Desert / Space zones
Knuckles - Thrives in Ruin or Labyrinth zones, nerfed in Ice zones
Amy - Thrives in Theme Park zones, nerfed in Factory zones
Rouge - Thrives in Casino zones, nerfed in Sky zones
Shadow - Thrives in City and Space zones, nerfed in Casino zones
Eggman - Thrives in Laboratory, Factory, Space or Theme Park zones, nerfed in City zones
Big - Thrives in Water zones, nerfed in City zones
Gamma - Thrives in Factory zones, nerfed in Ice zones
Cream - Thrives in Green zones, nerfed in Space zones

[Dude]

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

I can't think of a minus for Shadow.

Shadow is admittedly 'The Ultimate Life', so that does make sense.

[Zephyr]

Wow, only 3 replies and already a bunch of great suggestions. Thanks!

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

Espio - Winter - (no where to hide)

Strife, on 15 December 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

Sonic - Thrives in City
Knuckles - nerfed in Ice zones

These ones kind of have me confused. How would Winter make it difficult for Espio to hide? Why would Sonic thrive in the City? Why would Knuckles be nerfed in Ice Zones?

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

Metal Sonic - Mechanical +; Underwater - (he's a robot); Lava - (high temperatures could be bad for metal)

Strife, on 15 December 2013 - 08:55 PM, said:

Gamma - Thrives in Factory zones, nerfed in Ice zones

Really like these suggestions. Electronics definitely don't mix well with water or extreme temperatures. So do you guys think that Underwater, Lava/Volcano, and Winter would be bad for robots in general?

Dude, on 15 December 2013 - 10:53 PM, said:

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 08:37 PM, said:

I can't think of a minus for Shadow.

Shadow is admittedly 'The Ultimate Life', so that does make sense.

Great point. Agreed.

[Dark Sonic]

Gamma I could see being nerfed in Ice zones due to the wheels he uses when trying to go fast. I don't feel like that would be as much of an issue for Metal Sonic though since he hovers/flies. I don't see how winter themes would hurt electronics overall though, unless being really cold could freeze some parts. Also my logic with the winter theme with Espio may be slightly flawed, I kind of came up with it because I couldn't think of anything for him either, but I figured if in a potential open environment it'd be more difficult for Espio to surprise attack someone with Ninja skills since he wouldn't have anything to hide behind or in or whatnot since it'd just be snow.

I didn't think of the Ultimate Life Form when thinking of Shadow oddly but that kind of works. Although to somewhat nerf Shadow I would maybe consider not giving him any home world or whatnot. That way he doesn't have any weaknesses but is never at full strength either.

As for Sonic in cities, there are a lot of city levels, and if they involve highways they could be excellent areas for Sonic to gain some speed (Speed Highway, Rooftop Run, and City Escape are some of Sonic's fastest levels when you think about it, hell, 4/9 levels in Generations put Sonic in cities.)

[Strife]

Precisely. Sonic would excel in cities because they have a lot of roads for him to run extremely fast on. He could also thrive in Green areas since Green Hill Zones tend to have open grassy areas with few obstructions.

Now that I think about it, Knuckles would probably be nerfed in Casino areas rather than Ice areas, particularly because casinos require intelligence and luck to master and he canonically has neither.

[ICEknight]

Sonic's minus would definately have to be water levels, for reasons.

This post has been edited by ICEknight: 16 December 2013 - 10:11 AM

[Mykonos]

As far as Espio having a minus for Winter tropes go, maybe tie in the fact that he's a chameleon and wouldn't do well in the cold.

[RuRi]

Blaze would be good in the lava/volcano trope, but would be terrible in any sky/high altitude tropes.

[Master Emerald]

If I were a character I'd call any zone with a bed my home.

[Rush]

I could say Shadow would be not proud of Green Hill-type zones because he doesn't bond at all with all these bright colors and nature.

[Roller]

Thinking about a character nobody else has touched yet- E-123 Omega likes jungles for some reason, so that could be his home zone. In '06, he's in a jungle temple until Rouge asks him to go back to the future save Shadow, and in Shadow The Hedgehog, Omega is first found in Iron Jungle, hunting Eggman down this time. He could potentially be out of his element in mechanical and desert zones- as his defeat in Sonic Chronicles was in Metropolis, a zone that appears both arid and machine-like at the time, he disliked his fate of being locked up and used to protect the base the original Shadow was stored in enough to make him turn on Eggman, and in Sonic '06 he is overpowered by Mephiles in the cutscene immediately after the Dusty Desert boss battle.

That said, the link to desert zones is more tenuous then the link to mechanical zones, that's for sure.

This post has been edited by Roller: 16 December 2013 - 04:05 PM

[Reddie]

Running under other videogame's logic, I could say that:

-Sonic, Tails & Knuckles would do well in Tropical/Greeny/Beach zones.
-Sonic would do well in City/Highway zones, Ice/Cold zones and Crazy/Bright zones. He'd do bad in High/Flying/Sky zones, and also zones with water for obvious reasons.
-Tails would do good in High/Flying/Sky zones and would do bad in Haunted and Space zones. (He wouldn't be able to go fast in the last one because no air means no propelling when spining his tails, thus nerfing his speed.)
-Knuckles would do well in Ruins, High and Rocky/Mountain zones. would do bad in Mechanical, Casino, Bright and Haunted zones.
-Non-Eggman/G.U.N. Robots would do well in Mechanical/Eggman Base zones, and do bad in Hot/Volcano zones (Heat is bad for metal), Beach/Sandy/Desertic zones (Sand is also bad for metal) and Ice/Cold zones (They lose traction if they use wheels). Water zones wouldn't really be a problem since most of these robots are waterproof in all canons.
-Silver would do well in Hot/Volcano zones, Ruins zones and Greeny zones. He'd be off put in anything else since he's not used to any other enviroment.
-Shadow would do well in Space, Crazy and Dark zones and he could do bad in Bright zones (Too much light for him, eew).
-Eggman's Classic Badniks would do well in Mechanical, Bright, Hot/Volcano, Desert, Dessert and Rocky/Mountain zones overall. Underwater Badniks would do well underwater for obvious reasons. Motobug-based Badniks wouldn't do well in any other zone that isn't Tropical/Greeny/Beach zones, unless you take Colors' Motobug.
-Eggman's Modern Robots would do well in Mechanical, City, Dark and Rocky/Mountain zones overall.
-G.U.N. Robots would do well in Mechanical, City, Dark and Highway zones.
-Blaze would do well in Volcano/Hot zones, Beach zones (Sol Dimension is filled with these) and Desert/Sandy zones.
-If you put Super Forms, they would do well in all zones exept Burning Blaze in Underwater zones. As a suggestion they should last a few turns (3 to 5) before wearing off.
-Babylon Rogues should do well in Sky/High zones, Ruins/Desert zones, Dark zones and Mechanical zones. They should do bad in Tropical/Greeny/Beach zones and Bright zones.

I'm not sure if that'd be all, but that's all I can think of at the moment. Maybe I put in too much buffs in the first ones, my apologies.

[Zephyr]

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

I don't see how winter themes would hurt electronics overall though, unless being really cold could freeze some parts.

That was kinda my thought process. The low temperatures would freeze their joints or something. But then I remembered all of the winter-zone specific robots in the games, and that logic kind of falls to pieces.

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

As for Sonic in cities, there are a lot of city levels, and if they involve highways they could be excellent areas for Sonic to gain some speed (Speed Highway, Rooftop Run, and City Escape are some of Sonic's fastest levels when you think about it, hell, 4/9 levels in Generations put Sonic in cities.)

Good point. That makes sense.

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

Although to somewhat nerf Shadow I would maybe consider not giving him any home world or whatnot. That way he doesn't have any weaknesses but is never at full strength either.

From a design standpoint, that would make sense in order to maintain balance. But from an in-universe perspective it would make more sense to let Shadow have his no weaknesses, while there are still some tropes he'd call home (Outerspace being one). If that ends up being too broken/unbalanced I'll make him a trope-neutral character.

Dark Sonic, on 15 December 2013 - 11:24 PM, said:

if in a potential open environment it'd be more difficult for Espio to surprise attack someone with Ninja skills since he wouldn't have anything to hide behind or in or whatnot since it'd just be snow.

I dunno. It seems like a ninja would be able to take advantage of a snowy environment, in my mind. Like he'd be able to cover himself with a white sheet or something and blend right in before going in for the kill. Though Mykonos brings up a good point about him being nerfed there due to his species.

Roller, on 16 December 2013 - 04:03 PM, said:

Thinking about a character nobody else has touched yet- E-123 Omega likes jungles for some reason, so that could be his home zone. In '06, he's in a jungle temple until Rouge asks him to go back to the future save Shadow, and in Shadow The Hedgehog, Omega is first found in Iron Jungle, hunting Eggman down this time. He could potentially be out of his element in mechanical and desert zones- as his defeat in Sonic Chronicles was in Metropolis, a zone that appears both arid and machine-like at the time, he disliked his fate of being locked up and used to protect the base the original Shadow was stored in enough to make him turn on Eggman

I actually never gave Omega that much thought. Didn't realize how much he seems to like jungles. I was initially going to make him be at home in Industrial/Mechanical zones, but that would definitely clash with his personality.