Exploders in Lix, with/without fling/timing?

[ccexplore]

If it's because they are similar, well Tribes has a lot of similar skills.

It's definitely an anti-goal for Lix to wind up like Lemmings 2 with its borderline-silly cornucopia of 50+ skills.  My understanding is that with the evolution of Lix, it just started off with the original 8 and only slowly and deliberately do other skills get added, often out of multiplayer experiences (which often have vastly different considerations than singleplayer).  So it's hardly surprising that Simon has brought up eliminating one of the two.  In fact, I wouldn't mind an official story of how the flinging-style bomber came to be included in the first place.

I'll give credit to the Lemmings 2 skillset for novelty factor, and for the most part I feel almost-neutral about it.  But it's rather telling that no newer game in the series has ever featured anywhere close to that many new skills ever again.  Indeed, I think even if you count other types of new elements in the newer games (eg. disappearing floors, switches, antigravity, creatures and what-not), the total may likely still come out to lower than 51.

To be fair, I'm not sure how much the vast skillset in Lemmings 2 actually translates into a learning problem for most people.  That is, even for the people who don't like the vastness of the skillset, I'm not so sure that many are actually getting confused or stumped by it, as opposed to simply seeing the vastness of the skillset as inferior and not particularly compelling.

[Ramon]

If anything I'd change the fling-bomber's icon to something more distinctive than the normal exploder - I couldn't tell at the beginning whether I had normal or fling bombers. You could for instance add a few 'flung' Lix into the icon somewhere.

I don't care much about the bomber timing except for one exception, so Prop 3 would be fine by me. I honestly don't think having two similar exploding skills is a real problem, as long as they're distinctive.

[geoo]

I generally like options allowing for personal preference, but in the timed/untimed case there's the issue namida mentioned. Having a level specific is even worse consistency-wise, as it essentially means having 4 skills all of which can be used in single player, rather than Proposition 2 where we have 4 different behaviors, but only 2 pertain to singleplayer and arguably only 1 to multiplayer (who wants non-fling bombers in multiplayer?).

I think avoiding skill redundancy is more about elegance, simplicity and having a few concepts used to their fullest instead of a lot of concepts that are just touched here and there (see Simon's writeup on rules, especially the very last quote). I don't remember being annoyed at having to learn all the L2 skills and in fact to me L2 has the most replay value, but it's true that many things lean more toward gimmicks than features.

I think the reason we have fling bombers in lix is that it's more fun and useful for blocker removal in multilplayer which is Simon's focus, though Simon should have the definitive word on that.

I think at this point the decision is basically down to Proposition 2 or 3 plus more distinctive icons, with 3 being more elegant but 2 making singleplayer fling levels easier.

@Ben H: Are you by any chance the Ben Hunter who created Cheapo levels back in the day?

[Ben H]

If it's because they are similar, well Tribes has a lot of similar skills.

It's definitely an anti-goal for Lix to wind up like Lemmings 2 with its borderline-silly cornucopia of 50+ skills.

I agree that the number of skills was border-line ridiculous.
Especially when many of them were redundant.

To be fair, I'm not sure how much the vast skillset in Lemmings 2 actually translates into a learning problem for most people.  That is, even for the people who don't like the vastness of the skillset, I'm not so sure that many are actually getting confused or stumped by it, as opposed to simply seeing the vastness of the skillset as inferior and not particularly compelling.

I don't think it is was confusing either.
But I also don't think that it was warranted, and feel that it took away from the gameplay a bit.
For me the novelty factor wore off pretty quickly, and it tended to become more a distraction.

I generally like options allowing for personal preference, but in the timed/untimed case there's the issue namida mentioned. Having a level specific is even worse consistency-wise, as it essentially means having 4 skills all of which can be used in single player, rather than Proposition 2 where we have 4 different behaviors, but only 2 pertain to singleplayer and arguably only 1 to multiplayer (who wants non-fling bombers in multiplayer?).

I think avoiding skill redundancy is more about elegance, simplicity and having a few concepts used to their fullest instead of a lot of concepts that are just touched here and there

That's also very true.

Ben H: Are you by any chance the Ben Hunter who created Cheapo levels back in the day?

Nope. Different Ben.

[Simon]

Yes, I'm leaning most towards proposition 2 now: Remove timers from both exploders in singleplayer, keep everything as-is in multiplayer. The skills need to become more different in the panel.

Proposition 3 is an alternative, removing the L1 bomber timer, and deprecating its usage in multiplayer.

By now, there are too many levels dependent on the non-flinging physics of the L1 bomber. From multiplayer design, the L1 bomber is a barnacle that has attached to the ship and can't be scrubbed off easily by now. From a singleplayer level designer's viewpoint, however, the L1 bomber is more valuable than the L2 exploder. Thanks to the various level authors for sharing their ideas here.

Nepster is right in how arguing against the L1 bomber provides arguments against the L2 exploder instead. The L2 bomber will stay in at all costs for now. This is an important attacking skill in multiplayer.

Design history: The L1 bomber came in 2006, when I was aiming at a Lemmings 1 clone, as a learning project for C++. Everything should be close to L1, but with bugfixed physics if possible. I did not care much about contemporary game design back then.

The multiplayer mode came in 2008, and the L2 exploder had to come because blockers on steel turned out unremovable by the opponents. Level exits had to have lots of steel around them, and the L1-included levels had lots of steel in general. The batter was a much later addition in 2011.

-- Simon

[RubiX]

Honestly I like keeping it how it is, or we start moving too far away from Lemmings.

[namida]

While I don't know how strongly my opinion should be weighted as I don't really play Lix too much, and when I do it's solely multiplayer (at least so far), but I quite like the idea of making both untimed in single-player, leaving them timed in multi-player; and definitely, make the icons more different.

[RubiX]

I dont see the need to break something that isnt broken.
Doing this can change a lot of singleplayer maps to be broken.  I just feel theres better stuff to work on than a change like this, which shouldnt even need to be changed :S

[namida]

I'm sure at the very least, you can agree the icons need to be differentiated more?

[Nepster]

Doing this can change a lot of singleplayer maps to be broken.

The only change in game mechanics discussed right now, seems to be the removal of timers to bombers. As far as I know, there are only very few levels, that might be affected by instant bombers (e.g. Won't get fooled again, though I can't confirm that right now).

And while there is no need to break things that aren't broken, one can do so, if it results in easier gameplay .

[Ben H]

Not just easier gameplay, but better gameplay too.

Personally I think it's not much fun having to restart the same level multiple times, just to figure out where every timed bomber in a level should be activated.

[Proxima]

I enjoy the challenge of bomber-timing levels and the satisfaction of overcoming the challenge. And it's not drastically different from something that's an inevitable part of the game -- precision placement of other skills, especially builders and miners.

However, the current paradigm of having only timed bombers means that any level including a climbing bomber, falling bomber or which cannot contain blockers due to backroutes gains an element of execution difficulty that the designer may not want. For instance, my level Changing of the Guards -- it's meant to be a "quickie" where figuring out the solution is the real challenge, and the execution difficulty is an unwanted side-effect.

So I'm still in favour of (3) over (2) -- designers are able to choose the bombers that suit their level concept better, but we gain untimed bombers, and we don't have (2)'s inconsistency of different behaviour in multiplayer.

Also, (2) would mean that non-fling bombers would be almost a completely wasted skill in multiplayer, whereas (3) makes them a new useful skill. Somewhat overpowered, but then designers have the option of providing as few or as many as they like.

[RubiX]

Yea breaking as in easier gameplay.   I dont see why we should take away the challenge that timing can bring
I'll agree with different icons between the bombs for sure though.

[Simon]

challenge that timing can bring

For singleplayer, many consider that a chore, not a welcome challenge.

Singleplayer needs tools and aids to easen execution. This design guideline has been very well received in the past years. Untimed exploders fit right in.

Multiplayer is not touched at all -- except maybe for proposition (3), i.e., consistently untimed L1 bombers, which are not used anyway in multiplayer.

The choice between (2) and (3) is whether consistency or ease-of-use is more important.

-- Simon

[NaOH]

The choice between (2) and (3) is whether consistency or ease-of-use is more important.

I think that spells it out succinctly.

Personally, I don't much value consistency. Sure, it's important on some level, but it's not the be-all and end-all. Lix is already so streamlined, for multiplayer and singleplayer. Tailoring the gameplay just a little to each is all that's needed to make it perfect.

Differing behaviour between singleplayer and multiplayer w.r.t bomber timers is not so hard to figure out. It's certainly easier than figuring out the difference between bomber1 and bomber2, which have the same icon.