[SUGGESTION][PLAYER][IMPLEMENTED] no auto replay on reverse or restart

[mobius]

Status: Will probably add an option, but waiting to see where discussion leads first, both in terms of whether it's really nessecary and how exactly it should work.

Have implemented for a test version, but seeking feedback on how well the current implementation works.

[mobius]

I know similar discussion on this happened before and I'm also not sure if there's already been an option for this in place but I don't see one in the options screen [version 1.38n]

Every time you restart and every time you backtrack/reverse one frame or several frames it automatically goes into replay mode. Now, I might be way off here, but if you're reversing isn't it usually to fix a mistake? So why would you often want to replay what you just did there? I makes you have to click an extra time to get out of replay mode.

Restarting is a slightly different matter. There I can perfectly see people always wanting to replay, I however do not and would appreciate an option.
Another suggestion, which nobody else seems to like because they didn't like this idea on another discussion... is to have two buttons; one for replay and one for restarting WITHOUT replaying.

[namida]

Most feedback has been in favor of increasing the use of this option (hence, for example, replaying after going through postview/preview screen on failure, rather than only on the hotkey), so I hadn't considered offering the option to disable it yet. I can certianly look at adding it, though.

One reason why you may want to retain the replay when reversing is that you may be looking to find the exact point where you did something; either so you can use that as a starting point for trying to correct it (eg. if you did a long build, and needed to reposition it, chances are you won't remember exactly where you placed it the first time), or so you can see where you did other moves that came later than the one you want to change.

[Simon]

Replay on backtrack: It's fastest to backtrack like people find pages in books. Open roughly where the page is. Move forward/backward in large intervals. Then move forward/backward by single pages. This algorithm depends on not losing book content on movement.

Replay on restart: This is the fastet way to open the book near the beginning.

Option or extra key: möbius is annoyed enough about this to warrant at least one. A second button seems bad design at first. All it would do were: (Duplicate the first button's function to restart level, which isn't the most frequently used button in the first place. Then cancel replay, which duplicates what a mouse click would do.)

With the current hotkey dialog, the almost-duplicated function isn't that bad of a design. People should bind only the function they use. Not necessarily both.

This dovetails into skill changes should be pure UI instead of replay content. That's a big contribution to not wanting replays.

Also wtf, make the hotkey dialog 2-3 times as tall.

-- Simon

[IchoTolot]

I think replay on backtracking is a must! 
If you accidentially go back to much in a hectic situation, you would loose your progress and this would be annoying as hell!

As Simon said:

Replay on backtrack: It's fastest to backtrack like people find pages in books. Open roughly where the page is. Move forward/backward in large intervals. Then move forward/backward by single pages. This algorithm depends on not losing book content on movement.

[Gronkling]

I was going to suggest an option to restart without replay too; I was thinking R for replay as usual, but shift+R or something similar to restart without replay mode. The same idea could also be applied to the backtracking keys.

[IchoTolot]

I was going to suggest an option to restart without replay too; I was thinking R for replay as usual, but shift+R or something similar to restart without replay mode. The same idea could also be applied to the backtracking keys.

I think this would add additional buttons for too little reason. We've already got a lot of hotkeys and ESC would inflict a restart with no replay already. Besides a simple left-click does automatically cancel the replay which is in my opinion easier than any hotkey.

[Simon]

If Gronkling and möbius want replay at least sometimes, I agree with Icho very much.

Gronkling and möbius: What are your use cases? Why do you feel hotkey + click is insufficient, and instead suggest another hotkey? Do you want replay-free restart almost every time? But then why shift+key instead of key+click, which looks similarly hard to hit?

Let's assume skill-change not in replay gets fixed. There would be plenty of time to cancel the replay before the first spawn.

I think möbius never wants to replay, which justifies the extra functionality.

-- Simon

[Gronkling]

Yeah I agree actually, if the skill-change thing got fixed my point really stops mattering, so I withdraw my point

[namida]

There would be plenty of time to cancel the replay before the first spawn.

Unless the skill you wanted is the first one on the skill panel, or in the case of instant-restart, you selected the skill before (rather than after) hitting restart, you'd still need to select a skill anyway. And in the case of release rate changes, nothing other than cancelling the replay before the change would negate this (but it can quite easily be changed back - a single right-click on the decrease release rate will do it). For those worst case scenarios (eg. you nuke on the first frame), exiting the postview screen then going back into the level will clear the replay; since this is a very exceptional case, and a workaround does exist, I don't see much justification to add a dedicated key just to deal with it.

You could also press the restart key followed by any key that cancels the replay in quick succession, which would be no more difficult than, eg. shift + R (but slightly more so than a dedicated "restart without replay" key). The default "cancel replay" (without doing anything else) key is C; or else any skill selection key will also cancel it.

I'm happy to implement an option to not go into replay mode when restarting / backwards framestepping if that's desired, but I really don't see how it provides much advantage (especially since all situations other than restarting the level altogether, the game remains paused - thus allowing all the time in the world to cancel - and on a restart, you have plenty of time to cancel). Keep in mind also, that this would mean that if you nearly solved the level, then failed suddenly due to a small mistake, or hit Esc or R by accident, you would lose your entire attempt.

[namida]

I have not made any changes in regard to this suggestion in the V1.40n-C update, but I am still open to doing so in a later update if anyone still feels it to be nessecary, and not a case of "the cons outweigh the pros".

We've already got a lot of hotkeys and ESC would inflict a restart with no replay already.

Going through the postview/preview screens, provided one immediately retries the level (rather than exiting to the main menu or going to a different level) in fact does replay, since a few versions ago.

[mobius]

Sorry to dump another issue on you with a whole bunch of others the same day.

This is how it often occurs with me:  When I'm playing both Lix or NeoLemmix:

-Playing a level, doing things, having a good time.
-I make a minor mistake, I need to backtrack a few frames. I do so.
-Replay mode automatically goes on. I have to click to turn it off, because I DON'T want to replay the mistake I just made
-I restart the level with hotkey to try something new; replay mode automatically goes on, have to click to cancel again.
-I finish a level; don't save enough, I want to replay and see what I did to think about it more OR I have solved it and want to watch it again to remember the solution.
-I restart--oops, now replay mode doesn't turn on, just the time I wanted it to.
-no longer having a good time.
-As it currently is the replay is more of a nuisance than a help to me.

If memory serves; I've very rarely had an instance of the opposite. That is; I rewound and WANTED replay to be on. The Last one not so much; obviously many times I'll finish a level, let it go to the exit screen and go back and just retry, the first two are my biggest complaints.
Can these please be options on when replay turns on and when it doesn't? I'm happy to try a test engine and if it doesn't turn out the way I expect I'll retract my complaints.
Another option is having two buttons; one to RETRY, and one to REPLAY. WinLems even had this.

[namida]

This new topic was pretty much a duplicate of this other one, so I've merged them together.

Somewhat off-the-top-of-my-head, here's the possible options:

1. An option to not auto-replay.
The only advantage I see to this option (apart from simplicity) is that it does technically solve the problem.
The disadvantages is that - short of saving and reloading a replay, and rewatching from the start, there is no way to replay actions. Did you timeskip back further than you intended to? Congratulations, you've lost every action you performed since the time you went to.

2. Seperate hotkeys for replaying or not replaying.
This one won't be too hard to implement. It does result in having way more hotkeys (well, this depends on how the user configures them), but it can be seen as essentially having hotkeys that just combine multiple current functions into one - eg: you could define a key "go back one second then cancel replay", which would be equivalent to (based on default keys) simply pausing (if not already paused), pressing minus, pressing C, then (if desired) unpausing.

3. Seperate "Restart level" and "Replay level" options, without changing the behaviour for backwards frameskips.
This also wouldn't be too hard to implement. I don't really see much disadvantage to this, apart from that it doesn't cover the case of frameskips. It could cover in-level restarts by having an "instant restart, no replay" hotkey; this is only one additional hotkey. The problem comes if someone hits this key by accident, though this can be solved by either (a) autosaving a replay when the key is pressed, or (b) not having any key configured to this by default, and saying "configure at your own risk".

4. Dialog box every time an action that may trigger a replay is used.
I'm sure most of us can imagine how annoying this would be. Go back one frame "Do you want to maintain the replay?" Go back another "Do you want to maintain the replay?" etc. Just listing it here in case there's someone who had this idea but didn't think about how it would work in practice.

[mobius]

-I knew I talked about this before but I forgot I was the one to start a whole topic on it.

in replay to previous comments about backtracking and re-reviewing your solution. I understand this; however I simply don't use the feature in this way. The most often I really desire to use the replay feature is to:

1. go through a long tedious process [lots of building/ many skills steps] or if I screwed up near the end of a level.

2. Watch a level from the beginning; either watching my own or someone else's replay on a level; to get ideas or look for odd things.

Replaying on restart is important but more often then not I find myself wanting to restart without replaying. Two buttons for this would be my favorite request.
*see my suggestion below.

As to auto-replay on backtracking;

"Did you timeskip back further than you intended to? Congratulations, you've lost every action you performed since the time you went to."

I don't see this being a problem for me. As usually I don't backtrack an extensive amount, but even if I did and backtracked too far, I don't see this as a major annoyance. What bothers me more is the game doing things automatically I don't want.
And another important thing: Lately I've been using save states more often then I used to. These have the same problem!!! IT still auto-replays on save state. I don't know how else to put this; it seems obvious to me. I want to go back to CHANGE something in my solution, NOT do the same thing over again. And usually this is done quickly so having replay on when not desired is a hinderence.

Whenever I do want to go back and look at exactly what I did I usually just restart and watch the replay from the beginning. It's easy enough to skip ahead to get to a part you want. I don't think I've ever backtracked and wanted to keep replay on.

-And to my last point: I find that often I finish a level and get to the menu screen and would like to REPLAY it. For whatever reason this just feels natural to me that replay should automatically begin here. But it's the only time it does not. Several times I got to the menu screen only to realize I forgot to save a replay so it's forever lost.

Lemmini has some sort of system that saves a temporary replay file for every level you're currently playing. Maybe you could adapt a system similar to this one. How about:
When every level starts the replay information is automatically saved to this file so you can replay at any given time [without saving a regular replay]. Now the user can configure whatever auto-replaying options they want. But the replay file will exist regardless. Another advantage to this is that if you close the game and forgot to save a replay, the replays is salvagable [all you need to do is copy/paste that temporary file]

1. I'd prefer this; at least on backtrack. Not sure about restart. Honestly I think if the backtrack issue was changed I'd be happy enough.
4. No dialogue box please.

----
It's a tad unrelated but it's funny that while these features appear to make the game more friendly and it certainty makes the level solving less tedious; I don't recall having these frustrations on Lemmini. I think that's because of a by-product of having "too many user-friendly features" is you're style of playing changes to micromanaging the game in ways you never tried to do without these features. The result is that you circumvent the whole point of the features in the first place and the balance the features tried to implement is again lost. Now we're still complaining about problems that basically sum up to "the game isn't user friendly enough".
There is a good balance to be reached I believe. And personally I believe that as few and as simple features as possible lead to game play that is simple and level design that is likewise simple.

-Just some more random thoughts and opinions:
If I was the game developer, I'd want to focus on developing the aspects of the gameplay and expanding the game elements into new and exciting directions. Lately we've been spending way more time on user friendless. Honestly I think the game was user friendly enough before, even Lemmini was acceptable to me.

[namida]

-And to my last point: I find that often I finish a level and get to the menu screen and would like to REPLAY it. For whatever reason this just feels natural to me that replay should automatically begin here. But it's the only time it does not. Several times I got to the menu screen only to realize I forgot to save a replay so it's forever lost.

This particular case can be avoided by turning replay auto-saving on. Do note that versions from V1.38n-B to V1.43n-D (inclusive) have a bug where auto-save might not work correctly sometimes, and just saves an empty replay instead - to be precise, this happens when you exit from the postview screen directly to the main menu (the bug won't trigger if you advance to the next level instead). V1.43n-E fixes this bug.