What we lack and need the most. Icho's observations and planned future steps.

[namida]

Okay, but then levels with only a small number of lemmings can be very easy even though they would technically fall into your "flow control" classification, e.g. "Nightmare on Lem Street".

I think that's valid. Nightmare on Lem Street does indeed require either (a) crowd control, or (b) very good timing*, despite only having one lemming other than the worker. Perhaps the issue is that "crowd control" is a misleading name; "non-worker control" might be more suitable. (EDIT: Or not; I was thinking of its repeat, sorry.)

* With regards to the "very good timing", I'm referring to the solution where...

...you have the first lemming build the path, while the second floats down, bashes through the block, climbs up on the right while the first lemming is building over the 2nd gap, and lands on the first lemming's bridge.

[Strato Incendus]

I rebutted that point with a detailed examination of what the player learns from each Fun level. That's not just hypothetical; it's how I learned the game. And sure, it didn't put me in a position to cope with really difficult puzzles (even solving "The Steel Mines of Kessel" on Mac took me ten years after beating the rest of the game); but it did equip me with the knowledge I needed for the mid-Tricky levels where it stops holding your hand.

What you are saying here actually doesn't stand in opposition to what I said.

As you just outlined, the Fun levels can help to prepare the player specifically for the Tricky rank - as it should be. There are still things that they don't teach, like the three-builder-wall, digger pits etc., but if that's kind of the point of the solution of the Tricky to Mayhem levels in the first place, i.e. having to find this out, then it makes sense for the Fun levels not to spoil those things. In the context of original Lemmings as a standalone pack, this works.

However, we're talking about preparing players for the difficulty of custom packs here . And most custom packs fail spectacularly at what Fun accomplishes in this regard.

No wonder, because, as we agreed upon before, custom packs tend to exceed the difficulty of Mayhem even in the early ranks. Hence, I'm not saying this is an easy thing to do! But it does seem necessary in order to avoid a further division of the already small player base.



In the "Immediate turnoffs" thread, I pointed out how in my view, most 10-of-everything levels in custom packs are more akin to the Tame rank from ONML than to the Fun rank from original Lemmings. The Tame rank is infamous for its insignificance before the first somewhat challenging level hits the player out of nowhere in "Dolly Dimple" at the beginning of the Crazy rank.

That is precisely what you do NOT want, because that is what will make new players quit your pack. They will likely even feel somewhat "betrayed", because they were lured into the pack by these ridiculously easy levels, only to have the pack reveal its true face at the beginning of the second rank. And especially since the beginning levels were so easy, the players will most likely blame themselves and their own stupidity - how can it be that they suddenly have no clue how to approach a level, after the preceding ones were absolute cakewalks?

Packs that do this lie about their actual average difficulty by disguising themselves in a sheep's clothing of easy any-way-you-want levels.

I gave myself the nickname "he who usually only makes it up to rank 2" to joke about my own inability to solve harder packs, i.e. blaming it on my own stupidity indeed. But now we see the effects of something more systematic, in form of a widening gap between skilled players and casual players.

What was already kind of a weakness of original Lemmings - i.e. players who find out about three-builder walls, digger pits etc. get past Tricky, the rest don't - is multiplied in custom packs: There are people here who can solve almost anything, and people who can solve almost nothing - because nothing easier is there, at least in New Formats.

but I would respond that they have to get from A to B first

That is usually neither the ambition nor the task of a custom pack. Any new player can be expected to start with original Lemmings to get familiar with the skills, or, specifically, with a NeoLemmix introduction pack that actually shows you what all the new skills do, as well.

If you want those introduction levels to be part of your own pack, as well, great for you - I also like teaching players those things.

However, in order for that to work, you must, must, must adopt IchoTolot's ambition to have your pack be able to "stand on its own", as a standalone game. You cannot rely on other, easier custom packs to teach the player stuff in the meantime so that they will be able to beat your harder levels afterwards.

If you use your "Fun" rank to get the player from A to B, i.e. teach them about all the skills and game mechanics, then your "Tricky" rank must take them from B to C.

As however many custom packs feature this sudden spike in difficulty once the creator starts dishing out their "regular puzzles" after the any-way-you-want levels, you have A to B on rank one, whereas rank two takes you from, say, E to F.

Yes, there are people who can learn something from the levels on your second rank - but it's not the type of people you have just "created" with your rank one; it's a different type of player. The ones that have played other packs before and now take a shot at yours. Those people were probably bored to death by your rank one, because they don't need to get from A to B, they're long past B.


I actually enjoyed how nin10doadict did this in CasuaLemmings - he's also the one who made me use pre-level texts much more often than I would have done otherwise. You can tell he specifically set out for each level to teach the player one thing, and one thing only.

The main issue with open-ended 10-of-everything levels is that you can try almost anything, but you don't really have to do anything specific. And while it might be fine to have such a "playground" level either at the very beginning or the very end of a rank, so that the player can test out their current amount of knowledge of the skills, every further one of those levels that gets added in succession weakens the purpose.


In short:
Skill-restricted levels are the lessons. That's where you teach the player.
The 10-of-everything level is the schoolyard. That's where you send the player to take a break and toy around.

[Dullstar]

The problem isn't really the any-way-you-want/x-of-everything levels; the problem is poorly crafted difficulty curves.

The original game, as discussed preivously by Proxima, used any-way-you-want levels to introduce some of the game mechanics and allow the player to gain some familiarity with the skills before having to solve puzzles with them. One benefit of these levels over the tutorial levels that are designed simply to demonstrate the skills is that, even if the correct choices may seem obvious, start forcing the player to think a little about which skills to select in a safe environment where many mistakes can be recovered from, and the player doesn't have to think about skill conservation. Remember, in a demonstration level (such as Fun 1-7 in the original game), the player doesn't have to think about skill selection at all because they'll do the right thing simply because it's the only thing available.

However, many packs (notably including ONML) skip the part of the game where players are asked to solve simple puzzles. They're mostly treating the x-of-everythings as an obligatory scrap to throw at less experienced players before getting to the actual puzzles their creators wanted to design, rather than using them as a tool to build experience in these players. If a pack is going to skip directly from x-of-everythings to hard puzzles, then it should just skip those levels. Less experienced players would be better served by these packs being upfront about their difficulty.

[Strato Incendus]

However, many packs (notably including ONML) skip the part of the game where players are asked to solve simple puzzles. They're mostly treating the x-of-everythings as an obligatory scrap to throw at less experienced players before getting to the actual puzzles their creators wanted to design, rather than using them as a tool to build experience in these players. If a pack is going to skip directly from x-of-everythings to hard puzzles, then it should just skip those levels. Less experienced players would be better served by these packs being upfront about their difficulty.

Couldn't have said it better!

Indeed, even I enjoy the challenging type of X-of-everything levels - which is why I think they should come later in the pack, with at least one of the skills actually being accounted for. This happens a lot on the levels from NepsterLems, where you'll usually run out of builders, so the challenge lies in finding uses for the remaining skills to save builders.

[Proxima]

(We've wandered quite a bit off the original topic, so maybe the last few posts would be better merged into the original "The problem with 10-of-everything levels" thread. On the other hand, Icho started be saying we need more beginner levels, and this discussion is relevant to anyone wanting to design beginner levels, so maybe it can stay?)

Strato: So is Dullstar essentially right in saying that your problem is not with the quality of the 10-of-everything levels themselves, but the difficulty jump that follows? If so, then why on earth did you not simply say so? If you'd said that way back in the original thread, we could have had a much more profitable and interesting discussion. But when you say "Custom 10-of-everything levels tend to be Tame-like rather than Fun-like", that sounds like you're saying they have the same flaws as the original Tame levels -- no hazards or risk of failure; extremely simple solutions; no progression within the set.

Now, I don't know which specific examples you're thinking of, and doubtless you've played some packs I haven't and vice versa. But I can certainly point to custom packs with a first rank that's more Fun-like than Tame-like (in the above respects), e.g. Lemmings Plus I, or the Lix community pack (which has some limited-skills puzzle levels, but also has a lot of X-of-everything levels). I would say these are fairly good examples of easy X-of-everything levels done right.

The main issue with open-ended 10-of-everything levels is that you can try almost anything, but you don't really have to do anything specific. And while it might be fine to have such a "playground" level either at the very beginning or the very end of a rank, so that the player can test out their current amount of knowledge of the skills, every further one of those levels that gets added in succession weakens the purpose.

In short:
Skill-restricted levels are the lessons. That's where you teach the player.
The 10-of-everything level is the schoolyard. That's where you send the player to take a break and toy around.

No, this is wrong. As my examination of the original Fun levels showed, what X-of-everything levels teach well is coping with diverse situations (e.g. RR 99 and lemmings heading for danger; wide gaps with low ceilings; high walls to get up or down; terrain mazes with many hazards; etc etc etc). There may not be a specific intended solution, but there is a situation that you have to cope with (again, contrast the Tame levels, where the situation never changes from "some terrain is between you and the exit"). Every level that presents a new situation will result in the player learning how to deal with that situation; levels like Fun 19 that just rehash an old situation are meaningless filler.

Now let's look at that difficulty leap. Again, I haven't played all the packs you have, so I don't know if this really is a recurring problem with existing content; but regardless, let's consider how to avoid it in future.

After the player has gone through a Fun-like rank and learned how to cope with diverse situations with plentiful skills, there are a few things you can do next. One is to start with very simple puzzles where you only have a few skills and there is a specific intended solution -- such as "It's lemmingentry, Watson" and "From the Boundary Line". (Those particular levels do have some surplus skills and allow other solutions, but that's not relevant here -- I'm just using them to illustrate a type of level.) Another possibility is to keep X-of-everything and increase the difficulty and complexity of the situation, as in "Bitter Lemming" and "Lemming Drops". Another is to do X-of-everything but omit a useful skill, as in "Heaven can wait (we hope)". And of course, you can include all of these types of level, as original Lemmings does.

I'm not sure exactly how to wrap up this post, but I hope this is at least useful food for thought for anyone wanting to make some easier content

[IchoTolot]

I don't mind the topic wandering off.

My goal was to state my future plans, my thoughts about what we need the most currently and how my plans try to satisfy that need. That was achieved.

The secondary goal was to start a discussion what other people think about how we can satisfy that need, or if there are any other needs. And you delivered excellent popcorn material.

The only way to top that would be if any new projects emerge from these discussions or ongoing projects receive a boost in ideas as a result.

[Strato Incendus]

Strato: So is Dullstar essentially right in saying that your problem is not with the quality of the 10-of-everything levels themselves, but the difficulty jump that follows? If so, then why on earth did you not simply say so? If you'd said that way back in the original thread, we could have had a much more profitable and interesting discussion. But when you say "Custom 10-of-everything levels tend to be Tame-like rather than Fun-like", that sounds like you're saying they have the same flaws as the original Tame levels -- no hazards or risk of failure; extremely simple solutions; no progression within the set.

Why I didn't stress the difficulty spike earlier? It simply took some time for me to make up my mind on that and figure this out consciously, i.e. become aware of the connection between early X-of-everything levels and sudden difficulty spikes .

In fact, part of the credit for me realising this goes to you: for pointing out the difference between "Fun X-of-everything levels" (literally) and "Tame X-of-everything levels". Or more accurately, I created this distinction, but based on the fact that you defended specifically the X-of-everything levels from the Fun rank against my criticism, by showing to me what you can learn from these specific levels in Fun.

From playing custom packs, however, I did perceive the correlation that the chance of an early custom X-of-everything level being more akin to a Tame- than a Fun level is very high. And while the difficulty spike following a long series of X-of-everything levels isn't guaranteed either, such a level structure definitely makes a (usually unintended) spike more likely, as well.

And yes, especially the Lemmings Plus-packs are guilty of that, most of all the earlier ones. Later Lemmings Plus-packs, I think starting around LPIV or so, began with easy puzzles right away. If I remember correctly, namida actually made a survey about precisely that: How the forum members wanted future releases in the Lemmings Plus series to continue and what the early ranks should look like.

I haven't played the Lix community pack all that much, because I don't really play Lix in general. Maybe that pack is an exception?

Another is to do X-of-everything but omit a useful skill, as in "Heaven can wait (we hope)".

That is indeed something I suggested in my "case-against-X-of-everything levels" thread as well: Reduce or remove one of the skills, probably the most powerful one. Or, as I said in this thread, take the Nepster approach, where it looks like you have an any-way-you-want amount of every skill, but actually, due to the shape of the terrain, some skills end up being more scarce than others.

Looks like, while you are always happy to defend the Fun X-of-everything levels, I will do the same for the X-of-everything levels from NepsterLems. Though the latter usually tend to be on the tougher side . And even though Nepster himself has stated he doesn't actually like this level-building style anymore, I still consider it a masterpiece when you can pull such a thing of, and I still regard "Final Frustration" as the prime example of a great, challenging X-of-everything level.

[namida]

Later Lemmings Plus-packs, I think starting around LPIV or so, began with easy puzzles right away. If I remember correctly, namida actually made a survey about precisely that: How the forum members wanted future releases in the Lemmings Plus series to continue and what the early ranks should look like.

Lemmings Plus IV was a roughly even split between X-of-alls and easier puzzles, with LPV and LPVI leaning even more towards easier puzzles (but still including a few X-of-alls). Lemmings Plus Omega II nearly entirely does away with X-of-alls, having only one level that's a true traditional-style X of everything level (which even lampshades this in the title: "There had to be ONE...") - and even this mixes some NL skills, including the Fencer which was new at the time, instead of just using the traditional 8 - plus one more that has such a skillset but is a rather unique concept and doesn't at all play like such levels usually do; aside from those two, the early levels are all relatively simple puzzles. Lemmings Plus Alpha has no such levels at all (unless you count "Expedition", but that's a To The End style level which isn't really anything like the traditional X-of-alls), although LPA is aimed purely at the high-level players so doesn't really have anything in the way of easy levels - just some levels that aren't quite as hard.

Lemmings Plus I definitely went too far with the X-of-alls, I'll accept that. By the end of the second rank, the player has encountered maybe 4 or 5 levels that aren't X-of-alls; and the first few levels of the third rank are X-of-alls too (although the second one only gives 2 builders instead of 20 - something that barely matters if you just want to beat the level, though it becomes significant if going for 100%).

[mobius]

I'm just adding here that I have been working on my (old) level pack and I'll probably be releasing it within a few weeks or so (maybe sooner even). And it's by now of easier difficulty overall; than most packs these days. Actually it was a bit on the easy side even for when I first made most of the levels around 2012-2013.

"proper maintenance of content" is something that I won't promise. As to backroutes of my old levels, most of them have been long since fixed to a good point and to any new ones I probably won't care. Beyond that I'm likely not going to update the pack for any breakages due to changing game physics or graphical changes. If anyone wants to take over that job at that time they are welcome to.

[mobius]

I'm just adding here that I have been working on my (old) level pack and I'll probably be releasing it within a few weeks or so (maybe sooner even). And it's by now of easier difficulty overall; than most packs these days. Actually it was a bit on the easy side even for when I first made most of the levels around 2012-2013.

"proper maintenance of content" is something that I won't promise. As to backroutes of my old levels, most of them have been long since fixed to a good point and to any new ones I probably won't care. Beyond that I'm likely not going to update the pack for any breakages due to changing game physics or graphical changes. If anyone wants to take over that job at that time they are welcome to.

I think I'll be waiting until the version update complete with the shimmer among other things is here to update and release my pack, for several reasons. Just in case anyone was curious.