Hell no! I see the point with the Stoner vs. Freezer, but just because skills have a slight similarity, that doesn’t make them redundant.
This is precisely the kind of discussion that I feared — I jokingly teased it for Stacker vs. Freezer. But now you seem to actually mean it, and this could spread to any other skill.
We now have the Laserer, which is a much better way to create a horizontally-upwards tunnel through terrain.
I beg to differ.
I actually consider the Fencer superior for that purpose.
Have you ever tried connecting several Laserer tunnels with Builders? I tried to make it work on a Lemmings: Hall of Fame level. I’ve found out the Laserer tunnels are too steep to be connected with Builders — there is remaining vertical height that only Climbers (perhaps Jumpers) can get over.
The Fencer is great because its angle is exactly the same as that of the Builder. This also enables solutions where Builders are used to make a single Fencer go through — much like the Miner can go down Builders, too.
The SuperLemmix Laserer, with its unlimited range, can also do a lot more “collateral damage” to terrain you don’t actually want to destroy, which the Fencer doesn’t do, and the NeoLemmix Laserer does to a lesser degree than the SuperLemmix one.
The Miner is not an appropriate comparison or replacement for the Fencer at all, since it obviously operates from the other direction than the Fencer. Worker lemmings would have to be sent on a completely different path in order to mine a crowd out vs. fence them out. Just compare the first two levels of Lemmings World Tour and then tell me again that a Fencer could be swapped out for a Miner.
That’s also why comparisons to Lemmings 2: The Tribes aren’t helpful here, because the steeper angle of the NeoLemmix Fencer makes it much more useful than the “glorified Basher” that is the Lemmings 2: The Tribes Fencer.
Furthermore, both Miner and Laserer tunnels are already Shimmier-compatible - the Fencer would require significant work to meet this same standard
By “work”, I assume you mean “for the player” — not for you as the programmer? What exactly has changed about the Fencer or Shimmier that would cause you additional work at the moment? I’ll also reiterate that skills are far more integral to the game than Zombies & Co.
The fact that the Fencer tunnel isn’t Shimmier-compatible from the get-go is precisely what can be used for interesting puzzles. In fact, I’ve done exactly that in Lemmings Open Air. Just like the fact that the Slider is more restrictive than the Floater, in terms of where it can get down safely vs. where it can’t, is an interesting restriction around which level solutions can be designed.
On a general level, though, I feel far less confident about creating any type of content for SuperLemmix (and yes, that includes porting my NeoLemmix packs over to SuperLemmix, which I’ve already started working on) as long as fundamental changes of long-established features are even just up for debate.
Where is this supposed to end? If “it’s always been this way” isn’t an argument, are we eventually going to consider culling the Blocker, because the Freezer might be considered “superior”?
You might say this is an exaggerated example, because the Blocker is one of the classic eight skills — but by itself, that’s just as much an appeal to tradition as making the same defence for the Fencer (or any other NeoLemmix skill, for that matter).
The Culling Frenzy is the primary reason I refused to shift to NeoLemmix New Formats a few years ago. I only did once the first new skill (the Shimmier) had been introduced, which added so much to the game that I was ready to give up fairly fringe features like Radiation and Slowfreeze for it.
But I can already say I won’t start giving up established NeoLemmix skills for other new skills like the Spearer, Grenader, Ballooner etc. I’ve stated previously that I’d rather see no new skills added to SuperLemmix than to see any further old ones (i.e., aside from the Stoner) removed from it.For this discussion, specifically, keep in mind that “we now have the Laserer” is an argument that could also be made for NeoLemmix.
If the Fencer and Laserer were that similar, the Laserer wouldn’t have been introduced into NeoLemmix in the first place.I think you weren’t around yet at the time, but
during the shift to New Formats, Nepster proposed to cull the Disarmer (arguably the least-used NeoLemmix skill).
Even that didn’t happen. So don’t expect to get a more positive response regarding arguably one of the most useful NeoLemmix skills, which is precisely what the Fencer is. And thus far, the poll results are in accordance with that perception.
Finally, another historical anecdote:
During the shift to New Formats, Nepster once said that “existing content were irrelevant”. Granted, this was a more controversial statement at the time, since with the name “NeoLemmix” remaining, that of course comes with a stronger expectation that Old-Formats content should be made available in New Formats than SuperLemmix being an engine of its own. Then again, SuperLemmix is also still being referred to as a “fork” of NeoLemmix.
I still stand by what I said back then:
I have yet to hear somebody convincingly explain to me the actual benefits of culling anything — aside from making programming easier. For the latter reason, I understand why e.g. the gimmicks were culled from NeoLemmix.
But from both a player and level designer perspective, where’s the use in “taking some of people’s toys away”?Culling therefore seems especially inappropriate for SuperLemmix, which so far prides itself of offering more options to players and level designers alike. If I recall correctly, you said that “more options” is the only main “philosophy” SuperLemmix has so far
(rather than, as I initially understood it, “more of a mix between puzzle and execution difficulty, compared to NeoLemmix”).
I don’t like to escalate such discussions, since I honestly believe, with regards to culling, we shouldn’t be having them in the first place.
But precisely for that reason, as explained above, I’ll always side with the established skills over the chance to play with fancy new toys.
Therefore, I’ll make this as clear as possible:
If ANY further NeoLemmix skills are indeed removed from SuperLemmix for real, I’ll return to NeoLemmix and won’t look back. Not as a “threat”, but simply because this will then be the only way to keep using those skills.
And because I cannot trust an engine enough to invest time and effort into it if it keeps changing in such fundamental regards. It’s one thing if the behaviour of an existing skill is changed (such as what we’re doing with Swimmers at the moment). But where changed skill behaviour might make replays breaking more likely, outright removing skills is guaranteed to destroy both existing solutions and existing levels. By that, I don’t just mean old converted content, but also any dedicated SuperLemmix levels that are created in the meantime.
If it ever gets to that point, I’d also request the removal of any unofficial conversions of my packs for SuperLemmix. Yes, that would be me “taking people’s toys away”, but only because I could no longer guarantee that my NeoLemmix levels ported to SuperLemmix (such as Lemmings World Tour) would continue to work. Fewer and fewer levels in these unofficial conversions would feature a solution I actually intended, so with two skills missing, I wouldn’t want those packs to keep running under the same names (and therefore also under my username) as the NeoLemmix versions.
As stated before, I’m working on an official SuperLemmix conversion of Lemmings World Tour, with modified intended solutions; so those I’d actually get to sign off on. However, that’s enough work with just one skill (Stoner vs. Freezer) being different. Swapping Stoners for Freezers often just requires the level designer to replay the level exactly as before, and manually assign Freezers in the spots where Stoners used to be assigned. After that, the majority of levels will play out the same way.
This would not be the case if Fencers had to be replaced with Laserers. GigaLem has already outlined a few differences, I’ve added a few more. I can think of a couple of my World-Tour levels just off the top of my head that would become completely unworkable with Laserers instead of Fencers. And that’s just the ones I can name by heart; most likely, there would be a lot more.
So, as you can see, I’m still willing and eager to commit and contribute to SuperLemmix, in parallel to NeoLemmix.
Both in form of original, dedicated levels and converted level packs.
But discussions like these don’t make it easier for me.