[DISC][STANDARDS] Overlapping of identical hatches to modify spawn order

[Proxima]

And yet we have several such people on the forum and none of them have ever suggested this

[namida]

Also, "one could make the case" is weasel words. If you think a case could be made, then do so; otherwise you've added nothing to the debate.

I disagree. To me, this would mean "I do not support this idea personally [this could imply either "against" or just "neutral"] but I could understand how there could be support for it".

[WillLem]

That's not a bad idea!

The reason Dullstar brought that up I think is because it has already been used on a level .

Haha, I know; I made the comment because it's something I did in Tame Gone Wild - it's the level Proxima is referring to as being "trollish". When I did TGW I was still in my naughty newbie phase. I'm only just coming out of it, really...

Maybe we can prevent such cases of hatch stacking though by making it easier to modify the limited-number hatches... If all you want to achieve is "I want the 70 lemmings from hatch A to come out first, and then at the end the 10 lemmings from hatch B"... then it would probably be best to have a box you can tick that chooses between "alternating hatches" and "successive hatches".

+1 for this. Super idea!

That would prevent the author needing to stack 20 hatches to get this result, but they would still need to stack two, and they would be doing so for the explicit purpose of deceiving the player. I'm on board with many use cases of stacked hatches being legitimate, but not this.

On the other hand, I can see legitimate puzzle potential in wanting 70 lemmings from hatch A to be released, followed by 10 from hatch B, if A and B are visibly separated -- so there could be discussion about such a feature

Good point. Although I still think the easiest way around this is to have an in-game indicator that the hatches are stacked, or how many there or, or something... it does need discussion, but I generally don't like the idea of not allowing a feature that's a good idea just because it might be used trollishly. A visual way to represent stacked objects (or indeed a warning system) is all that's needed to circumvent this issue.

However, this is a general problem. One could certainly make the case that each and every hatch should always display the number of remaining lemmings inside, for consistency and visual clarity.

An interesting point: it's currently possible to stack a limited hatch above a regular hatch, so maybe all hatches should display the number of lems yet to appear. This info could then be removed from the panel in favour of something more useful, perhaps.

[Strato Incendus]

I disagree. To me, this would mean "I do not support this idea personally [this could imply either "against" or just "neutral"] but I could understand how there could be support for it".

Thanks, namida! That was precisely how I intended it.

[namida]

An interesting point: it's currently possible to stack a limited hatch above a regular hatch, so maybe all hatches should display the number of lems yet to appear. This info could then be removed from the panel in favour of something more useful, perhaps.

I'm not opposed to this idea. I'd need to see a decent amount of support, and the default assumption would be it's an always-on thing (but this could change if there is specifically a lot of support for "make it an option"; even this, it's likely I would make it always-on at first then offer an option later if demand for one remained).

[namida]

Alright so it seems:

- People aren't as opposed to this as I thought, but
- It is apparent that, in general, spawn order needs to be made visible to at least the same extent as other attributes of entrances are.