Sorting skills in panel

[ccexplore]

Hmm, so you'd feel 14 buttons to be too crowding in the current setup.

Actually based on the screenshot alone (no PC access yet), 14 looks fine.  My suggestion is more thinking about future-proofing as well as naturally wondering whether some of the lower-right buttons really deserve the amount of space currently allocated to them.

If we go with this idea and 14, then may I suggest for the "few" levels featuring skills outside of the "chosen 14", level author can optionally override the default scheme to present skills in an ordering of their choosing (but strongly recommended to be as consistent as possible with the standard).  Levels using only the chosen 14 will not have this option honored (skill placement will always be standard).

[ccexplore]

Is there a limit on how many skills a single level can have? If so, a possible solution may be to dynamically resize the empty slots, and perhaps (if nessecary) abbreviate multiple empty slots to just a single one.

Possible, but in that case it starts to feel like you might as well just leave no empty slots at all (enforce an ordering but not specific slots)?

[Simon]

Limit of different skills: currently 12.

With any redesign to fit more buttons on the panel, this limit becomes oddly arbitrary. It has come only from the UI restrictions. Since 14/15 isn't much more than 12, I'd love to get rid of this limit.

One alternative is to keep only 12 buttons, and sort, producing such abbreviated gaps. That's already much better than unsorted panel. But it would maintain the strange number of 12 buttons for 14/15 skills.

Enforce ordering without gaps: That's the first thing I tried, and I have working code that does that. Then I felt the problem to be in the strange number of skill panels.

ccx:

Hunch about too much space allocated to non-skill buttons: Thanks, interesting feedback. I'd have imagined them more important.

Future-proofing: These days, I'm actively discouraging ideas for new skills. Looking back at the past 5 years, I have regrets about having implemented the runner, despite people liking it. The batter is a must-have. The runner only makes sabotage better, which is strong enough without. Should the game ever get more skills, which I consider unlikely in the next 3-5 years, then another UI change is in order. And people would then have to live with 20 skills allowed at the same time, or re-impose a limit of skills per level, then fix existing levels.

New skills would increase the burden on new players. For experienced players, the single-hand hotkey layout is already full, and can't take additional unique keys well at all. You don't want to put distinct skills on the same hotkey. If you put similar skills on the same key, then they're probably similar enough to cull one from the overall design.

If I got to cull skills without people revolting, I'd cull L1-exploder first, then runner, then floater. Climber stays in, it is amazing and makes excellent use of the rodents-navigate-pixel-terrain core idea. Everything else gets eaten by the clam.

-- Simon

[ccexplore]

Hunch about too much space allocated to non-skill buttons: Thanks, interesting feedback. I'd have imagined them more important.

I specifically mentioned the zoom and framestepping buttons as 1) they seem more geared for advanced players (who also are more likely to be using hotkeys anyway) and 2) they seem more likely to be used while the game is already paused (in which case player likely can target the mouse more accurately).  I actually also thought from the screenshot that the pause button look rather big, though clearly that button is important (but important enough to warrant the extra width of a second paw? Hmm...)

Future-proofing: These days, I'm actively discouraging ideas for new skills. <snip>

The points you listed feel like very multiplayer-centric arguments, except for the one about burdening new players.  I do have to admit that maybe runners don't add as much to the game as some of the other skills (maybe it should be a more generic double-speed skill?), though it could also just mean I'm not as good utilizing it in singleplayer as more capable level designers.

Floaters being on your cull list was a little surprising.  I suppose it's not as amazing as the climber and perhaps serves a similar purpose (granting a limited number of lemmings immediate access to certain areas of a level), but enough so to warrant culling?  Wonder what other people make of it.

[ccexplore]

The points you listed feel like very multiplayer-centric arguments

After a shower, it dawns on me that the same can be said of my view being singleplayer-centric.  Ultimately, if we accept the following three points:

1. Lix's primary reason to exist is multiplayer, regardless of the actual proportion of SP vs MP usage.
2. Hotkeys are the best way to handle MP play.
3. Hotkeys work less and less well against growing number of skills.

It is rather inescapable conclusion that Lix should discourage growing the number of skills and perhaps even cull a few, even if there may be moderate gains on the SP side with the addition of skills (and corresponding losses with culling).  In this context, I think I might actually accept Simon's proposal as-is down to even the "only one bomber type per level sharing same slot" part.  Maybe even the runner-culling part too, though perhaps we should at least try to push that to a last resort.

[Simon]

I love hotkeys in singleplayer, too.

Yes, the second post is how I'd put it myself. I'm reluctant to curb what the community has made good use of. If there were no existing levels nor tradition from Lemmings, I'd cull faster.

One exploder per level doesn't hit the community culture. Removing the runner would make a noticeable dent in the content, forcing lots of reworking. Bugfixing, I don't care if that breaks levels, making consistent physics is more important. However, the runner is not a bug, but a cute non-essential feature.

I've got something cooking again, shortening the control buttons from 40 to 34, and increasing the skill buttons from 34 to 36. This adds up exactly to the fixed resolution width of 640. I'll post images/test versions when the graphical bugs are ironed out.

Making zzz/zoom smaller is again a good idea to keep in mind, if this doesn't suffice.

-- Simon

[GigaLem]

There's a Mac version of Lix.

I have windows 7

[Ramon]

Personally I'd hate to see the runner go I'm sure over half my levels use that skill. It kind of provides interesting dynamics in combination with timing or the jumper skill.

I am also still in favor of keeping both bombers, but add distinctive icons to them. I'm no expert on things and it's just my opinion.

[Simon]

Runner will stay in for now.

I have fragile code for both 14 skills, and colored bars to visualize multiplayer score during play.

I'm getting erratic, rare crashes in places where I haven't touched the code for years. And I gotta prepare a seminar talk for next week. >_>; Don't expect anything to be out too soon.

-- Simon

[Simon]

I believe I've sorted out the crash.

I'd like to do some multiplayer testing tonight (Tuesday, June 2, around 20 to 24 UTC). Come online in IRC. :-) Testing versions will be given out there, release will be made in 1-2 days when it's proven to be stable.

I've striven to keep backward compatibility for replays and networking. Therefore, even with 14 sorted panels, only 12 can be used per level now. I will lift the limit when we've done some testing.

The user can change the skill sorting order.

The F1-F12 hotkey option becomes superfluous, use the normal keybinding options for the position-fixed skill buttons instead.



In multipalyer, a colorful bar graph displays saved counts and potential scores. It's obvious on first sight who is ahead, and who has lots of unsaved lixes on the map. This is so much better than the weird cups in the panel, few people have ever looked at those.

-- Simon

[namida]

Looks good! If I'm free at the time, I'll be happy to help out with the testing.

[Simon]

The above-described version 2015-06-02 has been released. 12 skills per level only for backward compat.

Roadmap:

• Allow for 14 skills per level instead of 12, and thus force update for networking.
• Introduce a field in the level format for preferred number of players. This will be useful generally. Allowed levels are changing anyway, so this is a good time.
• Make the appropriate UI in the editor skill menu. -- Done in my code, but not released yet. It allows for 14 skills to be written into the level once that's supported.
• Decide on the exploder problem, because that's relevant for the editor skill window. Current idea: Allow both exploders in both game modes. Slightly leaning towards L2 exploder always timed, L1 always untimed, for consistency. It's also the intersection of this change and singleplayer L2 untimed in addition. Make some statement in the linked topic.
• Make a better replay format. Changing skills should not be part of the replay at all. During playback, the currently selected skill should never change by the replay. Each skill assignment should carry information about both the skill and forced direction.
• Make something better in the options menu for assigning hotkeys to skills. Show the skillbar in the options menu. -- Done and released, see next post
• Nice to have: If exploder timing changes, do it in the same release as allowing 14 skills, so there is only one release that forces updates.
• After that: Next level button as proposed by Keiya, and stuff on the bugtracker and the wishlist.
  

-- Simon

[Simon]

Version 2015-06-04 has been released.

Download Lix.
View the changelist.
Feed a bug to the frog.

The single change over 2015-06-02 is in the options dialog. It displays a copy of the now-sorted skillbar, with a row of key-mapping buttons. This looks much nicer.

Maybe Giga should update, he loves to have hotkeys arranged like the skill buttons. Everyone else doesn't have to. (Still only 12 skills per level, etc., all backwards compatible.)



-- Simon