A number of fans that represent the Sonic Forces: Speed Battle mobile game community have set up an unofficial survey asking fellow players to assess the state of the HARDlight multiplayer – fearing that the developer may soon shelve the game.
Titled ‘State of Sonic Forces: Speed Battle’, the survey aims to be a positive and constructive way for fans to collectively present suggestions for improvements for the game to SEGA HARDlight – including balancing issues that have reportedly persisted since the inclusion of Tikal back in June 2020.
“We as a community are concerned the game might end up sharing the same fate as other passionate projects, like the now discontinued Sonic Runners and SEGA Heroes,” reads the survey text, adding that they fear the reason for this will be the age-old mobile developer tradition of “priorities set on a path that’s consumer-unfriendly and possibly leading up to discontinuation because said games weren’t bringing enough money/income anymore.”
While SEGA HARDlight has been exceptional with content updates for the competitive endless runner, some players have expressed concern in recent months that the inclusion of new characters has resulted in balancing problems. Additionally, Android users have experienced input lag that has negatively impacted their online experience.
Although this might seem like an unprecedented move from passionate players of a popular mobile game, it’s important to note that SEGA and HARDlight have a close relationship with what they call ‘Brand Ambassadors’ for their games. It is these Ambassadors for Sonic Forces Mobile that have organised and created this survey – and no doubt forms part of the collaborative responsibility between fan and developer in providing important feedback.
So we’d say that this Google Form is simply an extension of the good work done by Brand Ambassadors already. However, the fear of the shutdown of Sonic Forces: Speed Battle is concerning, especially as it is, for the most part, a pretty entertaining mobile game. Hopefully the player base will get their concerns heard and things can move forward.
If you are a Sonic Forces: Speed Battle player and would like to register your feedback, you can do so by heading to the survey here. Remember to keep your feedback civil!
I feel like the characters need different running animations. I feel like everyone runs the same as sonic. Also, real multiplayer would be nice and landscape mode.
Balancing issues since Tikal was added? There’s been balance issues since Big was added. Tikal is above average, Big is like using God Mode.
Man, I would be very disappointed if Sonic Forces: Speed Battle was cancelled. It was bad enough for me when SEGA Heroes was cancelled.
Well, I’d like a “Story Mode” (for instance, since every runner appear and disappear in red cubes to reach the Phantom Ruby prototype, it could be something like Eggman is training his army of Replicas before taking over Earth in SONIC FORCES, and the presence of Phantom Ruby prototypes could explains the presence of Replicas of dopplegängers from other dimensions like Vampire Shadow, Santa Big or Slugger Sonic) in the game, new races and more and more characters (the three main promotional Avatars from SONIC FORCES for example, new original characters and new dpllegängers from other dimensions)!!…
The game will continue to be developed, with premium IAP content added, balanced to encourage purchases, until it is no longer profitable or there is a legal issue between the companies involved. (like with SEGA Heroes). There is no “passion” coming into play here. I’m not saying the developers are not passionate, but they have basically no input on the future of the game. To me this survey is at best pointless, at worst insulting to the people who work hard to bring a good, generally fair game to their customers. To me this feels like a twitter/discord conversation that has gotten out of hand with an entitled player base. I feel sorry for all the developers involved who have to be on the receiving end of this survey.