lemforum: replacement and ordering (2016-2017)

[Proxima]

At the moment (in this topic) I'm going through the current state of the community pack and noting necessary or suggested changes to levels.

Some levels will have to be replaced altogether (assuming the game remains without VSI and time limits), and I'm making a separate topic here so these don't get lost in a long list of mostly small changes. These are just suggestions -- some of the levels are still solvable, and others could be made solvable rather than replacing.

I'll also note any suggestions I have for re-ordering. After I'm done going through the pack, so that I know how many levels should be removed and from which difficulties, I'll make suggestions for filling the gaps -- we have quite a few rejected levels that could be re-added, and some contest levels that could be added.

Removals

Simple 18 "Minimalism (Part 1)" -- requires VSI. This is the level that introduces the fling-bomber. Without it, the only Simple levels that contain fling-bombers are Lix Potion Number Nine and Snow Really, in neither of which the player is likely to use the skill. Perhaps in both of them, bombers should be changed to imploders.

Simple 34 "Fear of Heights". Intended solution is a single digger and VSI, other skills being red herrings. In fact it's solvable with a single digger after waiting until all lix are out. This feels like a weird hack and I'm not sure about keeping the level. In its favour, "sometimes it's good to wait until all lix are out" is a useful trick to learn.

Quirky 19 "That Pesky Gap" requires merging the crowd, by a combination of blocker placement and SI. If the SI is fixed at an odd number, there is an exact pixel for placing the blocker that works. I'm not wild about this level concept, and Simon isn't either. In its favour, it is a beautiful level using my terrain Note that Cunning 26 "Need a Boost?" uses the same core concepts, but makes execution a lot easier.

Cunning 14 "Don't Look Back" is a Just a Minute type, i.e. trivial if there is no time limit.

Daunting 8 "Too Far to Walk": same.

Ordering issues

Simple 11 "Little Miner Puzzle (Part 1)" is too hard for its place, as Akseli noted in one of the previous feedback topics.

Quirky 22 "Under the Rainbow" is a weird misdirection level, now that I know the ceiling route is intended. Assuming we remove one or two builders to prevent the build-across solution, I think this should move up to Cunning.

Quirky 24 "Another Lix in the Wall" and Quirky 27 "Impetus" both involve using cubers to turn climbers. Perhaps we shouldn't have two instances of the same trick this close together!

Cunning 2 "Merge Sort" and Cunning 6 "Mice in the Pipeline" are brick-wall "either you see it or you're stuck" levels, and it's no fun to have these so early in a set when the player is just getting started with a new difficulty. They should come later.

Cunning 10 "Elixir" is much too hard for its place (Akseli also noted this).

Cunning 16 "Every Which Way But Loose" is easier than many Quirky levels, and would be a good one to move down if Q22 moves up.

Cunning 30 "Tapestry" could come earlier.

Cunning 38 "A Completely Ridiculous Level" could come earlier.

I know that geoo loves keeping paired levels next to each other, but "Off the Rails", "Slipping" and "Buy One Get One Free (Part 1)" are much easier than their counterparts, and could all be moved down to Cunning -- if there's room

Daunting 32 "Alien Invasion" should go up to Vicious.

[Simon]

Merge Sort: rank 3 -> rank 4. Or put more steel, to point out where you should not mine.

Mice Pipeline: rank 3 -> rank 4 or 5. This is surprisingly red-herring-y. Doesn't look like one core trick.

Tapestry: late rank 3 -> early rank 3.

Obelisk: Reduce height by a factor of 3 or 4, or scrap the level. At full size, the execution is a pain in the ass. Hatch stacking is extremely misleading: With 130 in hatch, and a route that saves the top hatch, I cannot get 65.

If we keep this at reduced height, it's slightly underranked. I'd scrap this, and find an elegant puzzle instead of this repetitive click marathon.

Merde Merde: rank 6 -> rank 4 or 5. Elephant method works: ram your head against this until the solution drops.

Elixir: rank 3 -> rank 6. If you don't want to rank it up, then jumpers 3 -> 4. The backroute-proofing made Elixir extremely hard. Many middle-Hopeless levels are easier than this: Merde Merde, Panic Attack (assuming an adaption without RR-fiddling), No More Heroes (Proxima is unsure), Don't Catch Me.

For comparison:
I've tried Don't Catch Me in rank 6. I spent 30 minutes yesterday, and 10 minutes today, and solved it.
I've tried Panic Attack. About 25 minutes yesterday, then solved, followed by a long redesigning discussion.

Maybe those were too hard? Shall we compare the 5 hours against rank 4?
Repeating Patterns from rank 4: Took me 5 minutes.
Backlash from rank 4: Took me 1 minute to get 36/40 and 5 minutes to get 37/40. With chat in IRC in between.
Narbacular Drop: 15 minutes, including a private discussion with möbius and Proxima on how to adapt to fixed spawn interval. Thus, pure play time was about 5 minutes, too. Excellent level!

Do I want to downrank any of these 5-minute levels? No. I may be too used to the exact mechanics. Proxima doesn't have a 5-minute-time with them, and finds them adequately ranked, too.

Elixir is rank 6.

-- Simon

[Proxima]

Okay, I've completed 75% of the community set, and I think this is a good time to list my suggestions for removals, additions and reordering. The last 25% is more robust anyway, as every level there is ridiculously hard and any VSI- or time-dependent levels should be fixed rather than removed.

This list doesn't cover every level that I felt somewhat out of place, since difficulty is subjective and everyone would make different calls here and there. But it does fix the main problems that I've felt in playing through the set.

Simple

11 - A Necklace of Raindrops (contest level)
18 - Little Miner Puzzle (Part 1) (from S11)
34 - The Road Not Taken (from the outtakes)

removed: Minimalism (Part 1), Fear of Heights

Quirky

19 - Another Lix in the Wall (from Q24)
22 - Every Which Way But Loose (from C16)
24 - All Around the World (contest level)

removed: That Pesky Gap

Cunning

2 - Under the Rainbow (from Q22)
6 - Tapestry (from C30)
10 - Diggin' the Air (from the outtakes)
14 - A Soulful Bounding Leap (from the outtakes)
16 - A Completely Ridiculous Level (from C38)
30 - Mice in the Pipeline (from C6)
38 - Elixir (from C10) (this is assuming we give an extra jumper, otherwise it should go to a higher rank)

removed: Don't Look Back

Daunting

8 - Merge Sort (from C2)
9 - Backslash (from D27)
27 - The Crimson Room (from V21)
32 - Passing Engagement (from D9)

removed: Too Far to Walk

Vicious

13 - Alien Invasion (from D32)
21 - Merde Merde (from H7)

Hopeless

7 - Crown Jewel Heist (from V13)

[namida]

In its favour, "sometimes it's good to wait until all lix are out" is a useful trick to learn.

Agreed, definitely.

[Simon]

Lix 0.6.6 will have all changes up to this post. Exception: Elixir remains at Cunning 38 with 3 jumpers, not 4 jumpers, for now. Release of Lix 0.6.6 will be in 30 minutes.

For further suggestions, please make a new post. I won't look through the posts above anymore.

-- Simon

[geoo]

Don't Look Back: Attached is a version that works without a time limit and keeps the spirit. Even if there are backroutes they are probably harder than the original level.

Elixir: Keep it with just 3 jumpers and move it up. The intended solution is pretty neat yet completely elementary.

A Completely Ridiculous Level: I originally placed it in early Cunning. Then I got complaints by NaOH (and I think Akseli, or someone else too) that it's way too hard and then I looked at it again and it took me quite a while to find a solution (this happens each time I try the level now, in fact). So wanted to move it to Daunting (where I think it belongs), but moved it to the end of Cunning because moving it cross-rating is more work.

Buy One Get One Free: I was aware they are quite different difficulties. The rationale behind putting them together was that the player will see that the only difference is that a blocker has been replaced with a basher. Now that skills have a fixed order, that's not as evident anymore anyway, so I guess it's fine putting them further apart. Simon also found a backroute which I addressed below. -- Placing steel is a bit of a delicate issue as mining still needs to be possible.

Ob3lisk: I think it's cool visually, but not that fun. You can ease execution notably if you think it out beforehand, but it's still quite repetitive.

[Proxima]

So now that I've been put in charge of maintaining the community set for the D port, I'll use this topic to post further changes to be made, using the 0.6.6 version as a baseline.

Simple 30 "Minimalism (Part 2)" -- rename to "Minimalism"
Quirky 31 "Minimalism (Part 3)" -- replace with C24 "All Over the Place"
Cunning 16 "A Completely Ridiculous Level" -- move to C24, place geoo's new version of "Don't Look Back" at C16
Daunting 20 "Slipping" -- use my new version
Daunting 21 "Slipping Again" -- use my new version, remove floater
Hopeless 6 "The Hotel in Hell" -- use the final version here
Cunning 38 "Elixir" -- switch with D29 "Buy One Get One Free (Part 1)", use geoo's new versions of both Buy One parts
Daunting 16 "Derailed Level" -- reduce exploders to 1
Vicious 14 "Five for Fighting" -- use my updated version (I have uploaded to dropbox and shared the link on IRC)

[Simon]

Having solved Elixir, I favour a simple switch of Elixir and BOGOF Part 1. We're discussing this in chat at the moment; Simon disagrees.

Elixir: I have solved this too now, after 8 or 9 hours total time invested. It's still Vicious or Hopeless. I want to make an argument later for why it's so surprisingly hard.

BOGOF 1: Daunting->Cunning is good! I retract my sketchy earlier disagreement. The BOGOF 1 solution is different from anything I've tried in BOGOF 2. BOGOF 2 is much harder than BOGOF 1: Whatever I try in 1 can be extended to a solution; most things I tried in 2 could not.

Off the Rails: In chat, I said "I don't remember whether I solved both OffRails and Derailed, or only one." I believe that I have only solved Off the Rails back then, and have solved it now again.

Derailed: Couldn't solve within 20 minutes. I believe I haven't solved it 1-2 years ago either. Feels harder than Daunting. Or instead prune some ideas that don't belong to the core tricks? Which would require that it looks differently from Off the Rails.

We had a heated discussion about whether it should look exactly like Off the Rails. The core ideas are different. But that's matter for a fresh thread -- this thread is only about relative difficulty.

-- Simon

[Simon]

Derailed: 29/28. After 3 hours. If this is the intended route, please have a serious word with me on IRC. This is hairy.

26/28 is possible with a convoluted high-precision backroute. The backroute uses 1 cuber and 2 exploders, therefore can't save more than 27/28. I accept partial blame here: The UI should notify when you have killed to many.

You could remove the cuber, but if you commit to exactly Off the Rails's terrain, you accept risky design. Once you forget to account for the cuber, 30 - 2 exploders = 28/30. This makes the backroute enticing, and the backroute uses exactly all the skills. Dangerous!

There is lots of strange pixel precision in the terrain, no matter what method we try. A normal level feels weird when a backroute has too much precision, that serves as a hint. Here, everything feels weird. Only at the end of the backroute, timing becomes so insane to get right to feel like backroute, i.e., weirder than most of the level.

-- Simon

[Nepster]

I went through Quirky and the replays in Simon's git-repo. Attached some alternative solutions (most of them already known for C++). Moreover I have a few suggestions:
1) Flugtag: Remove the imploder, as the player has to save 100%.
2) Can't reach it - Don't need it: Save requirement of 30/30 or even 20/20 instead of 40/40. Currently one can finish creating the path to the exit while there are still ca. 5 lix in the hatch.
3) Downpour: This level is the only level that I know of that starts zoomed in. I have no idea where one can change this setting, but it feels extremely weird to see only a quarter of the level (actually only the three hatches in the middle with a lot of empty space around) instead of all of it.
4) Impetus: Save requirement of 18/20 instead of 38/40. With some solutions the path is finished while there are still 15 lix in the hatch.
5) Infrastructure Budget Cut: Save requirement of 29/30 instead of 49/50. One can finish creating the path with approx. 12 lix still in the hatch.
6) Tower of Babel: Replace the fling-bombers with imploders. Otherwise one doesn't need to create a tower, cf. one of my replays.

[Simon]

Yeah, I agree with these changes.

3) Downpour: Known bug, I want to fix this before we declare the community set fully playable.

-- Simon

[Simon]

I've included all changes above in 0.6.7. For new changes, please make a new post.

-- Simon

[Nepster]

Here are some additional Cunning replays and suggestions for changes:
1) Lix: Usually ca. 10 lix are still in the hatch when the path is finished. If we want to preserve the 59 theme, I would suggest either changing the SI to 9 or the save requirement to 5/9. Otherwise I would suggest a save requirement of 10/20 or 15/30.
2) Leap of Faith: Remove the imploder, because the save requirement is 20/20.
3) Cry For Me: My route is finished while there are still 20 lix in the hatches. So I would suggest to reduce the number of lix from 55 to 30 and adapt the number of climbers accordingly from 40 to 24. This has the additional benefit that the player can better compute how many lix are allowed to float down.
4) Compression Method 2: This has a very long wait at the beginning. So I would suggest changing the save requirement to 10/60 instead of 50/100.
5) Completely Ridiculous level: With Proxima's solution one has to unnecessarily wait for 30 lix at the end. In my solution it is even 50 lix. So instead of 19/100, I propose a save requirement of 10/60.
6) Need a Boost: Remove the three fling-bombers, because the save requirement is 30/30.
7) Go West! The new basher mechanics disallow a few tricks that worked in C++ Lix. Together with the reduced skill set, this makes the level a lot harder. I would suggest changing the skills to 3 or 4 of each destructive skill (instead of only 2), if we want to keep the level at its current place.
8) Jacob's Ladder:

Spoiler

Currently the bashers have to start very early for the next lix to be able to turn around in the basher tunnel. As I consider this part of the main trick in this level, the execution should be made easier. Something like SI 30 would help a lot.
However this leads to another problem: One can only bash 8 times, but has to turn around 9 lix. With variable SI, one was able to turn more than one lix in a tunnel, and with SI 50 the last lix could simply turn around at the bottom without becoming a climber. Neither is possible for SI 30. The current layout allows for bashing into the sawblade area to turn this last lemming around, so the level is still solvable with SI 30. Nevertheless I would prefer adding an extra step to the "ladder" to allow turning around 9 lix in basher tunnels.
The attached version of the level shows how such changes may look like.

PS: What is the reason behind the SI change from 32 to 27 in Impetus?

[Proxima]

I've again removed the previous zip of the lemforum pack. This one has Cry for Me fixed, switches Go West! and Little Miner Puzzle (Part 3), and has further lix count reductions as Nepster suggested. After chat discussion I decided to revert Impetus to SI 32. LIX now has SI 24.

[removed]

[Nepster]

Passing Engagement (Daunting 32): I strongly suggest moving back to the C++ version. The ugly steel was placed there intentionally to prevent backroutes! See the two replays attached below.