About those outside the Sonic fanbsase getting on our case about us complaining...

[Shiny Gems]

Greetings, I hope it is not a bad idea to make this thread, but I want to say something, if that is okay. I already partially said this as a status update, but I don't think it would be harm to go into more detail as a thread.

Now, the third update for Sonic Frontiers is out, and it seems to be a mixed bag with some positives and negatives altogether, and with that, there are those who are part of the Sonic fanbase that are complaining about it, and those outside of it are getting on our cases for it, saying "get good" and other things. I have seen this mainly on Twitter/X, but I am sure there are other places as well.

Now, I, myself, love the third update so far, and with that, I still acknowledge that the update, as well as the other playable characters, could use lots of improvements. That said, I am not exactly and completely on the side of those outside the fanbase. What they say about what we should do and all is not so simple. First, the criticism is needed, so they can improve the characters and gameplay for the next game, if they use the other characters as playable again. Secondly, I am sure the complaining cannot be fully blamed on us. I mean, Sonic Team is part of the issue here, too. Given how Sonic Team has not performed that well in the past, that has fueled people being upset and complaining, and Sonic 06 and the update itself show that. If we really were complaining instead of being happy in the way those outside the fanbase think we are doing; as if we are never happen; the game would have been very great and we would still be complaining, but the fact is this; based on the mixed reception I have seen, the game was not flawless, or even very great. So complaints are to be had, though they would be better as constructive criticism, but you all knew that.

I mean, it is partly the fault of people overhyping themselves up, especially since more playable characters were coming in this update. Also, I do think this was Sonic Team's first time in years, so there is bound to be some mistakes, and Sonic Team may have been bound to be sloppy there. However, both the overhyping and the sloppiness are things for another time, and will not be considered important to this thread.

Still, as I have always thought, things are never truly simple, and this is a case that shows that. You can't just blame the fans fully for something like this, even if you like the game and especially if their complaints are valid. However...

It seems due to our history of complaining; whether there is good to be had in some Sonic games and even there being good Sonic games in general; people have gotten on our case for complaining whether the complaints are valid or not. With that, it is not even entirely our faults, and maybe it being our faults is by a fraction smaller us being half the problem. I think some people don't understand, especially those outside the fanbase in this case, that it is not simple enough to blame us. I mean, some people may have liked the game, but that is no reason to get on the cases of others like us, especially if the person who liked the game and gets on others' cases can't see the problems of something like the Final Horizons update.

So, what do you think of all this? I am rather curious to know what everyone's point of view on what I said would happen to be.

EDIT: To be clear, I am asking what the people here thought about people bashing us Sonic fans for disliking things and our history of doing so when it is not our faults entirely.

[Danj86]

To be honest, I'm a little confused in what you're asking, but I'll give it a try.

My first issue is taking notice of what is being said on Twixer or whatever you want to call it. That website isn't designed for discussion so it often doesn't have it. Just a cesspool of complaining about the most monotonous of first world problems.

In other words, I wouldn't overthink what people say there.

The same is true regarding others outside the fanbase. But that would only extend to those that haven't even tried the games. Casual fans that don't take this stuff too seriously are probably most likely to question why the fanbase seems to be negative most of the time. Even then, that's not the truth as it all depends on where you look and I haven't heard the Sonic fanbase ever drive somebody to attempt suicide.

The creativity of the fanbase is much more noteworthy and is heavily encouraged by Sega themselves, which helps them to thrive.

Constructive criticism is the foundation for improving and the other updates attempted to address some of them. These days, developers are more likely to get defensive and insult it's customers instead of taking constructive criticism. That was why I was surprised by how Sonic Team responded.

Yeah, I do feel some may have had too high an expectation for this last update. Who knows how many Devs from the Sonic Adventure era are still working at Sonic Team?

But Sega should also give the team more time to iron out problems and maybe give games more time in the play testing phase specifically.

They tried something new and it wasn't perfect. But I still respect the effort and have no hostility over the third update. Maybe if people politely mention some of the issues with the third update, they might be able to fix them, assuming Sega is okay with that.

[Shiny Gems]

5 minutes ago, Danj86 said:

To be honest, I'm a little confused in what you're asking, but I'll give it a try.

My first issue is taking notice of what is being said on Twixer or whatever you want to call it. That website isn't designed for discussion so it often doesn't have it. Just a cesspool of complaining about the most monotonous of first world problems.

In other words, I wouldn't overthink what people say there.

The same is true regarding others outside the fanbase. But that would only extend to those that haven't even tried the games. Casual fans that don't take this stuff too seriously are probably most likely to question why the fanbase seems to be negative most of the time. Even then, that's not the truth as it all depends on where you look and I haven't heard the Sonic fanbase ever drive somebody to attempt suicide.

The creativity of the fanbase is much more noteworthy and is heavily encouraged by Sega themselves, which helps them to thrive.

Constructive criticism is the foundation for improving and the other updates attempted to address some of them. These days, developers are more likely to get defensive and insult it's customers instead of taking constructive criticism. That was why I was surprised by how Sonic Team responded.

Yeah, I do feel some may have had too high an expectation for this last update. Who knows how many Devs from the Sonic Adventure era are still working at Sonic Team?

But Sega should also give the team more time to iron out problems and maybe give games more time in the play testing phase specifically.

They tried something new and it wasn't perfect. But I still respect the effort and have no hostility over the third update. Maybe if people politely mention some of the issues with the third update, they might be able to fix them, assuming Sega is okay with that.

That is pretty well said, actually. I agree all the way. To be clear, I was asking what the people here thought about people bashing us Sonic fans for disliking things and our history of doing so when it is not our faults entirely.

I have something not aimed only at you though, as it was something I forgot to say in the initial post. Everyone is different, and we have different levels of tolerance, and different ways of handling things, so if it so happens a person can't tolerate the controls or difficulty of something like the third update, not only is it more power to them if they end up not liking it, but there is technically nothing anyone else can do about it.

[Phoenix]

Ultimately, it seems to be the same problem we've had for over two decades now. The team is ambitious as hell, corporate doesn't want to give them the time, game releases too early.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Honestly, whenever there are some people outside the fanbase that state that we Sonic fans complain too much about the games, I usually don't mind about what they say for the most part, because I'm just glad that there are people out there who like the franchise for what it is.  Also, we all have our own personal opinions about the franchise, so of course, everyone's opinion about the third update for Frontiers is going to differ. I'm just surprised that the reactions are mostly mixed rather than negative, which is a good start in a way.

But, I do agree with @Danj86that Twitter is the worst place to gather constructive criticism from the fans because Twitter is set up in a way that you can't have full discussions about what you really want from the franchise and in that case, it would cause SEGA or Sonic Team to misinterpret what fans really want because they weren't given full information about what the fans really wanted.  Also, people tend to sling insults constantly on Twitter, so I feel like Twitter would be too toxic of an environment for any developer to get into and if there are any fans out there that just constantly insult Sonic Team by calling them hurtful names or do death threats, then that's just going to cause the developers to feel bad mentally and that could affect their work in the worst possible way.

However, there is a bit blame on the fans since expectations for the third update were set too high. I mean, if it took Sonic Team over 5 years to make Sonic Frontiers, it would have taken them a few more years to do the DLC.  The fact that the DLC was released a year after Sonic Frontiers came out was a bit of a warning sign to me, because I'm pretty sure it takes a lot of time for games to be finished and there was no way that the DLC would be in perfect condition in just a year.  Not to mention, since it's been years since we last played as Tails, Knuckles and Amy, the developers had to come up with new move sets for these characters and that would take some time to get it right. 

But overall, I do think that some of the fans' concerns are valid, especially due to the track record this franchise had for putting out rushed games constantly and for the most part, most fans just want the franchise to do better, because we as fans have seen this franchise soar when it's handled with care and with Sonic Frontiers, this game was obviously an ambitious project for Sonic Team and I hope that Sonic Team continues to improve more with the game mechanics set up in this game.  But I do think that Sonic Team needs to find another website that can take in constructive criticism without having the fans' criticisms be shortened due to Twitter's set up and they also need to be on a site that's not so toxic like Twitter, so that way, they wouldn't be so stressed out by the insults and other things thrown their way.

[Shiny Gems]

Yeah, I know Twitter is not a good place for discussion, at all. Still, aside from Twitter, I think what I said in the initial post can be applied to other places on the internet as well. Not just horrible places like GameFAQS, too. I can imagine other places, possibly even the good places get on our case for complaining so much, even though it is not entirely our fault. I think more awareness could help in situations like this. It is probably not the only thing that would make things better, but if more people knew the other factors aside from ourselves, I do think there may be a chance, and just a chance (no certainty) that we would be looked upon in a better light. I do think, or know, even, that there is more to why we Sonic fans complain than things like just for the sake of it or just being unhappy.

[Super Sonic Speed]

It’s been a long while since I posted here.

18 hours ago, ShinyGems said:

EDIT: To be clear, I am asking what the people here thought about people bashing us Sonic fans for disliking things and our history of doing so when it is not our faults entirely.

I don’t worry about it. I know why they think it and it does stem from criticism being the only thing outsiders and casual sonic fans see. 
 

Before coming back on rush I was an outsider since the last sonic game I played before rush was when the megadrive was new.

I’ll just say this much. When I was outside all I heard was criticism. Social media has probably made this worse since then.

Thing is some sonic fans I talked too on social media that are loud in their criticism want that to be what sega hears. They have even said they don’t want those who like the games to be heard because sega might get the wrong idea. When this starts to happen you’re going to start getting an opposing side due to people feeling attacked. Now you have your defensive side wanting criticism shut down. 

This ends up effecting everyone  (a crossfire effect) since no one can tell the genuine from the extreme. Normal people who want to talk about what they dislike get bashed. People who just want to enjoy the games become scared because they are bashed also for liking a game. I know a few in this position.

A side effect on top of that that people don’t think about in response to making sure sega only hears criticism. The outside people will only hear criticism too also. To them it looks like sonic fans don’t like their franchise at all and that all games are bad. They get annoyed after a while and this is the result because they start bashing.

Criticism and positives exists in all fandoms but most fandoms don’t have people trying to shut down each other.

However in the end the company still gets the wrong idea because different people have different criticisms and something ends up changed that someone else wanted to stay.

I see it but don’t worry about it because this was happening before I re-entered the sonic fandom. When you enter a fandom you take it’s good with it’s bad.

That said this forum doesn’t have the issue. It’s more a social media thing these days.

Edit: People know that sonic fans are not happy with the games quality. They just see a different game criticised every week which makes he franchise look like it never had a good game after a while. You would probably have less backlash if there was a balance allowing both sides to express their feelings without going into attack and going into defence to the extremes of wanting the other side shut down but I don’t think groups of sonic fans doing this on social media will allow this. It’s a shame because I’m sure the majority f sonic fans just want to talk about their likes and dislikes normally like other fandoms.

[televoxica]

I was talking to someone outside the fan base who had heard that Frontiers won the excellence award at TGS. She said “Won’t make a damn difference”. And it turns out she was right. While I agree that criticism is warranted, I can see outsiders view as well. It seems to them not even things like an award or even two Fresh-on-RT movies makes the fan base happy.

[Shiny Gems]

2 hours ago, televoxica said:

I was talking to someone outside the fan base who had heard that Frontiers won the excellence award at TGS. She said “Won’t make a damn difference”. And it turns out she was right. While I agree that criticism is warranted, I can see outsiders view as well. It seems to them not even things like an award or even two Fresh-on-RT movies makes the fan base happy.

Yeah.

They say bad things about us Sonic fans complaining. Sometimes, it may be a vocal minority. (In the case of the Sonic Frontiers Update, I don't think that necessarily applies, to be clear) Who ever is the majority or minority, though, I will say that us Sonic fans are not the cause, or source for what happened. There are other factors to consider, and Sonic Team can easily be considered the source of why fans feel the way they do, if partly. Other reasons may include how a person is mentally, emotionally, their personality, their limits, preferences, etc. But we will focus on Sonic Team for the most part, for it is hard to determine how each individual is like on the inside.

But yeah, everything happens for a reason, and like I said, situations like these are not as simple as people may think or want them to be. Still, while reception for the last update for Sonic Frontiers is mixed among people and not just fans, at least the complaints in this case are more warranted than some of the other things fans may complain about.

[televoxica]

My entire point is that if outsiders saw more sentiment like “I don’t like this update, there are things that are iffy about it” and not “BAWW SONIC TEAM IS THE MOST INCOMPETENT DEV EVER” maybe this perceived opinion wouldn’t be as relevant. The most incompetent dev ever? After we just last year saw models mutating and  falling through worlds in Pokémon Scarlet Violet? 

14 minutes ago, ShinyGems said:

Yeah.

They say bad things about us Sonic fans complaining. Sometimes, it may be a vocal minority. (In the case of the Sonic Frontiers Update, I don't think that necessarily applies, to be clear) Who ever is the majority or minority, though, I will say that us Sonic fans are not the cause, or source for what happened. There are other factors to consider, and Sonic Team can easily be considered the source of why fans feel the way they do, if partly. Other reasons may include how a person is mentally, emotionally, their personality, their limits, preferences, etc. But we will focus on Sonic Team for the most part, for it is hard to determine how each individual is like on the inside.

But yeah, everything happens for a reason, and like I said, situations like these are not as simple as people may think or want them to be. Still, while reception for the last update for Sonic Frontiers is mixed among people and not just fans, at least the complaints in this case are more warranted than some of the other things fans may complain about.

 

[Rabbitearsblog]

I think the reason why the fanbase is so split up is because of two things: SEGA's lack of care for the franchise and there being so many different takes on the franchise in regards to characterization and story lines.

For decades, SEGA hasn't really taken that much care of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise when it comes to the games.  Sure, they had a few games that were really good (Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania (although this wasn't made by Sonic Team), the Sonic Adventure Games, Sonic 3, etc, etc).  But, the gameplays were often lanky or not improved upon and for some reason, SEGA has a nasty habit of pushing out the Sonic games without giving the developers enough time to really work on the games.  Heck, this started way back with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as that game was rushed out (although thankfully, the game still came out good).  I think that if SEGA took better care of the franchise and just give the developers more time to work on the games, then maybe the games will be consistently good and there will be less complaints about the games in the near future.

Also, there are so many different takes on this franchise that there are different fans of each game.  Like, you have the classic Sonic fans who liked the classic Sonic games from the 1990s, the Adventure Era fans, the Colors Era fans, the Frontiers fans.  Heck, you even got the Archie Fans, the Movie Fans and the IDW fans rolled into this and each set of fans want to be catered to.  So, whenever they see something in the games that doesn't align up with the Sonic the Hedgehog that they grew up with or the Sonic the Hedgehog that they like, they are not satisfied with whatever games come out, even if said games are good.  Like for example, Sonic Mania is widely praised, but then you might have some modern Sonic fans who are not satisfied with the game because it doesn't feature Modern Sonic in the game.  Now, there are some Sonic games that tried to cater to all the fanbases, like Sonic Generations catered to both the classic fans and the modern fans and that was done very well.  But then you get games like Sonic Forces which tried to do the same thing, but failed at that.  And then, you have Sonic Frontiers that kind of serves as tying in everything that happened in the franchise to that point.

So, with all this being said, I can see how many people outside the fandom would be frustrated with some Sonic fans, especially if the franchise is doing good, but there are still some fans who will complain about everything, because it's not the Sonic the Hedgehog that they grew up with.  I think that if SEGA continues to put out good Sonic games, we'll see if the complaining within the fanbase starts slowing down or not.

[Shiny Gems]

26 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

I think the reason why the fanbase is so split up is because of two things: SEGA's lack of care for the franchise and there being so many different takes on the franchise in regards to characterization and story lines.

For decades, SEGA hasn't really taken that much care of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise when it comes to the games.  Sure, they had a few games that were really good (Sonic Generations, Sonic Mania (although this wasn't made by Sonic Team), the Sonic Adventure Games, Sonic 3, etc, etc).  But, the gameplays were often lanky or not improved upon and for some reason, SEGA has a nasty habit of pushing out the Sonic games without giving the developers enough time to really work on the games.  Heck, this started way back with Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as that game was rushed out (although thankfully, the game still came out good).  I think that if SEGA took better care of the franchise and just give the developers more time to work on the games, then maybe the games will be consistently good and there will be less complaints about the games in the near future.

Also, there are so many different takes on this franchise that there are different fans of each game.  Like, you have the classic Sonic fans who liked the classic Sonic games from the 1990s, the Adventure Era fans, the Colors Era fans, the Frontiers fans.  Heck, you even got the Archie Fans, the Movie Fans and the IDW fans rolled into this and each set of fans want to be catered to.  So, whenever they see something in the games that doesn't align up with the Sonic the Hedgehog that they grew up with or the Sonic the Hedgehog that they like, they are not satisfied with whatever games come out, even if said games are good.  Like for example, Sonic Mania is widely praised, but then you might have some modern Sonic fans who are not satisfied with the game because it doesn't feature Modern Sonic in the game.  Now, there are some Sonic games that tried to cater to all the fanbases, like Sonic Generations catered to both the classic fans and the modern fans and that was done very well.  But then you get games like Sonic Forces which tried to do the same thing, but failed at that.  And then, you have Sonic Frontiers that kind of serves as tying in everything that happened in the franchise to that point.

So, with all this being said, I can see how many people outside the fandom would be frustrated with some Sonic fans, especially if the franchise is doing good, but there are still some fans who will complain about everything, because it's not the Sonic the Hedgehog that they grew up with.  I think that if SEGA continues to put out good Sonic games, we'll see if the complaining within the fanbase starts slowing down or not.

Oh, I forgot about the many takes thing! Thanks for that!

But yeah, that can help make things harder for a fanbase and its people to be so divided and sour about things. I do think the formula for Sonic Frontiers is the way they should go in the future, and one they should stick to. Sure, it needs more refinement and polish next time around, but it works, at least. It may not be everyone's wanted take, but that should not deter Sonic Team from keeping it.

1 hour ago, televoxica said:

My entire point is that if outsiders saw more sentiment like “I don’t like this update, there are things that are iffy about it” and not “BAWW SONIC TEAM IS THE MOST INCOMPETENT DEV EVER” maybe this perceived opinion wouldn’t be as relevant. The most incompetent dev ever? After we just last year saw models mutating and  falling through worlds in Pokémon Scarlet Violet? 

 

Yeah, I see what you mean.  I wonder how many people in the fanbase have actually said the "I don't like this update, there are things iffy about it" thing, though? I mean, not everyone may have said it, but it would help the opinion of outsiders, probably, as you said.

[Scritch the Cat]

I think a lot of the reasons for this were addressed here.  But to clarify, I think to outsiders, the Sonic fandom can do no right, because most positive aspects of their behavior don't really matter if you're not a Sonic fan, and similarly, neither do nuances. 

I think one thing that is going on here, and a reason there's a widespread belief that Sonic fans absolutely never stop complaining, is that people who aren't more associated with the brand will see things more in binary terms of non-Sonic fans vs Sonic fans.  If you don't play Sonic games, then you probably won't understand that there are Classic Sonic fans, Adventure Sonic fans, Boost Sonic fans, and probably some other subsets I missed, and you as such won't understand what elements distinguish them; to outsiders there are only people who aren't fans of Sonic and people who are fans of Sonic, but seem to paradoxically hate Sonic more than the non-fans.  The fact that somebody is complaining about Sonic no matter what it does, exacerbated by how people rant online more than they rave, and how rants about games online tend towards AVGN-esque theatrics, creates the impression that the Sonic fandom as a whole is like that.

But also, when you don't like Sonic games anyway, then only the concepts behind these games are really noticeable, with their actual execution being more opaque.  An old reliable example would be Sonic 4: Episode I; to people on the outside looking it in, they just see a game made specifically to satisfy people who were complaining about "Sonic's shitty friends" and wanted them to go back to 2D gameplay and simple plots, only to be met with more complaining instead of appreciation.  To actual Sonic fans, this isn't surprising, since the gameplay is a dismal failure at replicating the older Sonic games, but people who don't play Sonic games and have no idea how they're "supposed" to play don't notice that; they notice the over-dramatic man-baby whinging about Sonic's eyes being green and his limbs being long, so just assume no complaints Sonic fans have are valid.  As the pendulum swings hard in the other direction regarding other characters, the same is occurring now; after decades of fans demanding to play as the other characters again, SEGA caved in, but people are still complaining about Update 3, and because outsiders don't care about its actual gameplay, they only see fans being ungrateful even after SEGA granted one of their big wishes.

As an extension of the above, being more challenging, on its own, doesn't objectively make games worse, but people who haven't actually played Sonic Frontiers don't realize that a lot of its base mechanics are so sloppy and unwieldy that every new demand placed on them presents another opportunity for them to break in erratic ways.  There have been improvements from past games but a lot of regressions, too, and as particularly noticeable in Cyberspace, stage design elements that were no problem before have become annoying-to-deadly now that going airborn adversely affects Sonic's speed (which I'm convinced that Update 2's new slider hasn't fully fixed), the quick-step overshoots and drift is only sectionally and conditionally available.  I think the main things that saved the game from getting this sort of backlash a lot sooner, were that it was fairly forgiving of failure and almost none of its harder bits were mandatory to complete the story.  Those crutches don't apply to the Update 3 content, and so now the underlying roughness of the game's core gameplay shine through and become much harder to ignore.

[Rabbitearsblog]

47 minutes ago, ShinyGems said:

Oh, I forgot about the many takes thing! Thanks for that!

But yeah, that can help make things harder for a fanbase and its people to be so divided and sour about things. I do think the formula for Sonic Frontiers is the way they should go in the future, and one they should stick to. Sure, it needs more refinement and polish next time around, but it works, at least. It may not be everyone's wanted take, but that should not deter Sonic Team from keeping it.

Yeah, I see what you mean.  I wonder how many people in the fanbase have actually said the "I don't like this update, there are things iffy about it" thing, though? I mean, not everyone may have said it, but it would help the opinion of outsiders, probably, as you said.

I hope that Sonic Team sticks with the formula set by Sonic Frontiers as well.  One of the biggest issues I had with how Sonic Team was handling the franchise in the past decade was constantly changing gameplays styles for the games, instead of improving on the gameplay style they had previously set up.  Like for example, the gameplay style for Sonic Generations was praised for being very good.  And yet, in the next game Sonic Lost World, they completely changed the gameplay style to a Mario style game set, despite the fact that the previous game Sonic Generations wasn't set up that way.  The reaction to Sonic Lost World's gameplay style definitely spoke out to Sonic Team...