Cull Disarmers, Triggered Decorations and Radiation/Slowfreeze?

[GigaLem]

I have to agree with Icho too.

Removing them would be a major set back to those who have disarmers. Besides I don't like have to build over traps all the time, its monotonous.
Hell Having a good set up with Builders and a Disarmer could prove that the Disarmer ain't worthless.

I rather we reinvent them, then say, get rid off them.

[namida]

One case to consider with antisplat vs updraft: They behave the same if the lemming lands inside the trigger area... Not so much so if the lemming falls through it, possibly including due to the ground under it being removed.

[nin10doadict]

Indeed; in Casualemmings's "Janky devices" (Twitchy 13) you must build the ground beneath the splat pad to make it work, which wouldn't be applicable with an updraft as it breaks the fall before the Lemming hits the ground. There's another level in Paralems that does the same thing ("The opportune moment" - Abhorrent 16). Still, apart from this one type of case, replacing them with updrafts would almost always accomplish the same task...
The disarmer can create puzzles by being misleading as well, such as in "Dangerous Detour" (Lemmings Plus IV - Touchy 9). You may think you have to disarm all the traps but that is a trap in itself.
Slowfreeze is admittedly harder to use than radiation. For these objects the trouble with making a good puzzle out of them is finding a way to build the level so that it's actually a challenge to figure out how to set the lemmings off in the right spot as opposed to just making it more annoying to do so.

[Nepster]

Some decisions:
1) Disarmers will stay.
2) Triggered decoration objects will be removed.
4) Slowfreeze objects will be removed. Sorry to everyone having used them.
6) 'Fake' and 'Invisible' flags will be removed.

I still don't have decided what to do with radiation objects and anti-splat pads:
3) Radiation objects:
There seem to be a lot more people willing to see them go compared to disarmers, and I consider their timing issue that doesn't fit NeoLemmix a far better argument than the non-usability of disarmers. Therefore I am leaning towards removing them, though I feel with all the level designers who used radiation objects in creative ways. If you have further input on this matter, please tell me.

5) Anti-Splat pads:
namida's point is a valid concern. Still both object types look far too similar to me.
Casualemmings's "Janky devices" (Twitchy 13): Wouldn't the level still work if you add a trap or water below the anti-splat pad if it would work like an updraft? Actually you probably only have to prevent climbers getting out of the pit below the pad.
Paralems's "The opportune moment" (Abhorrent 16): I got the feeling that the anti-splat pad basically has already the function of an updraft in this level. One has to build from below to catch the lemmings, and the only difference would be that one doesn't have to place the builders as precisely as now to arrive within the trigger area. So the change would only mean that the execution becomes easier.
Here I am still leaning towards removing their sprites and replacing them with updraft objects. This would keep the appearance of updrafts uniform, hence easy to recognize for the players. Again additional feedback is welcome.


@Raymanni: Now that disarmers stay, I would be very happy to include better animations for them. So if you happen to create them, they would be a welcome addition to the new-formats version.

[Wafflem]

I don't mind if radiation is removed. However, is it possible if we can have all the radiation and slowfreeze objects converted into fire objects?

Another suggestion that should be removed if you haven't done so yet: Manual Steel Areas. I really don't see the need for them anymore especially since we have Autosteel. I think you may have already done that though, not sure.

[Nepster]

I don't mind if radiation is removed. However, is it possible if we can have all the radiation and slowfreeze objects converted into fire objects?

I will certainly not automate this process, i.e. automatically let the NeoLemmix player (or some converter tool) keep the object and just change what it does, without telling the user about it.
If we remove radiation objects, then it's totally possible to reuse some of the graphics and animations for new fire objects. But most likely level designers will have to open their levels in the editor and add the new fire objects manually, if they want to have them there.

On the other hand, if we keep radiation objects, then I would much prefer not to add the slowfreeze sprites as fire objects, just because they look far too similar to radiation objects and I don't want to reintroduce all this confusion.

Another suggestion that should be removed if you haven't done so yet: Manual Steel Areas. I really don't see the need for them anymore especially since we have Autosteel. I think you may have already done that though, not sure.

Very good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.

[Strato Incendus]

"The opportune moment" would work with an updraft instead of an anti-splat pad, however "Break my fall" wouldn't, and other levels featuring splat pads, like "Who put that thing there?" or "It's not always what it seems" wouldn't either. So splat pads should definitely stay, and if there are splat pads, I don't see why there shouldn't be an anti-splat pad as a logical counterpart.

I also mentioned in the Paralems thread that, while I appreciate your ambition to solve disarmer levels without using the disarmer, your favourite way of solving levels (as I observed, you really seem to like builders ) doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. I also want to remind you that the version of the pack you played is a first draft still containing lots of backroutes. "Buried knowledge" in its finished state will not be possible to solve without using the zombie disarmers.

In general, I don't get this constant search for things to remove from NeoLemmix. The same concern that has been uttered here for disarmers I have voiced in an earlier discussion: There are existant packs featuring these objects, gimmicks, and skills. New players will come to the game and get to know these older, oftentimes quite famous packs, e.g. by playing the NeoLemmix introductory pack, and they will want to use them, too. One of my levels for example could have made excellent use of the Frenzy gimmick. It's quite unfair to new creators in my view to treat them like "we were able to toy with this, but you don't get to, just because you happened to find our community too late".

Somehow, whenever the discussion of removal comes up, I can't help the feeling that a specific gaming philosophy is being forced upon level creators. I prefer a free market of ideas, and that requires a certain number of options for creators to use.

Therefore, I also speak out in favour of keeping radiation and slowfreeze. Even though I may not use them excessively, they're vital for some of my levels, and a future creator might put them to excellent use. Adding stuff first and then throwing it out again light-handedly actively discourages new creators from trying new ideas, because they never know whether a feature their current levels rely on will still be present in the next version of the game.

This is a primary example for me:

Very good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.

Such measures flat-out destroy some existing levels, not only in my pack, but also e.g. the Sonic the Hedgehog levels in one of the packs IchoTolot featured on his channel where normal terrain was made steel.

Converting all radiation and slowfreeze objects to fire automatically is even worse. These objects are not just "traps", they can actually be used to create a path to the exit! If you automatically convert these, not only do you destroy levels, you even rob the creator of any option to intervene in the destruction of their level. That's really the definition of enforcing a philosophy to me.

Being the natural rebel that I am, if the majority decides to cut these features, while that's a fine democratic decision, I will simply continue to use the old editor / player if necessary.

[Ryemanni]

In general, I don't get this constant search for things to remove from NeoLemmix.

That's kinda what I was thinking when I asked why can't a rarely used gimmick stay in the game.

I still don't have any strong feelings about these features though, so I will happy with whatever the outcome is.

[IchoTolot]

Very good question. The new-formats editor certainly doesn't support any manual steel areas any more and if you try to load a level having them, they are automatically deleted during the loading process. Whether the new-formats NeoLemmix player does, I don't know at the moment. But if it still does support them, then this is something else that definitely should be removed.

Such measures flat-out destroy some existing levels, not only in my pack, but also e.g. the Sonic the Hedgehog levels in one of the packs IchoTolot featured on his channel where normal terrain was made steel.

That measure described here does not destroy anything from any existing pack. The Sonic levels you refer to were converted by me from SuperLemmini as I did not want to play them without framestepping in that engine -- so I made a personal quick conversion. While converting I noticed the steel areas were messed up and were not where they are supposed to be. I left them, but made a warning sign. The pack isn't even official and can't be downloaded anywhwere.
Manual steel areas are 100% superfluous as we've got autosteel now for all steel pieces. The areas are a leftover now, ready to be thrown out. The only possible use currently is to make normal terrain pieces to steel pieces just to fool the player and this needs to be 100% avoided. This descision to cull the option was made ~ a year ago.
If every level (and this option is standard for a very very long time now) has autosteel on, no problem will occur as steel pieces will stay steel pieces and terrain will stay terrain.

I am not the type in favor of removing things, too. I hate when everyone gets into a culling frenzy, but there are a few things that are just annoying and superfluous. I enjoy the disarmer here, but I am not a big fan of radiation/sloefreeze, that's why I stay neutral there and just hint at the content breaking side to be considered in the final decision. If one of them will be removed it should be slowfreeze as it's way less common.

[Proxima]

In general, I don't get this constant search for things to remove from NeoLemmix. The same concern that has been uttered here for disarmers I have voiced in an earlier discussion: There are existant packs featuring these objects, gimmicks, and skills. New players will come to the game and get to know these older, oftentimes quite famous packs, e.g. by playing the NeoLemmix introductory pack, and they will want to use them, too. One of my levels for example could have made excellent use of the Frenzy gimmick. It's quite unfair to new creators in my view to treat them like "we were able to toy with this, but you don't get to, just because you happened to find our community too late".

Firstly, it's far from constant; you just happened to join the forum in the middle of the big move from old to new-formats NeoLemmix. This is the best time for us to decide about what features to carry across and which to drop, and it's highly unlikely that anything we keep now will be culled later.

If we do decide to cull any features, then the NL intro pack will of course be updated, probably simply by deleting the levels introducing those features. In general, the NL website does offer downloads of obsolete versions, but those are mainly kept for historical interest and for the convenience of the developers; once new-formats is out, everyone will be encouraged to update their packs to be compatible with it, simply because new players will expect that the latest stable version can play all the packs, and we want to make it as simple as possible for them to get started.

There is one big exception: 1.43 is available in the downloads of obsolete versions, precisely because it's the last version before gimmicks were removed. So that's deliberately been kept available, so that anyone who really wants can make a gimmicks pack. Namida even made a set of compatibility icons so that pack topics can warn in case an obsolete version is required to play them.

Similarly, if you want to make an old-formats pack after new-formats is rolled out, there's nothing stopping you. It's just that a lot of players will want to save on their hard drive space by keeping only the latest version.

[Strato Incendus]

Since Nepster mentioned my level "Only over their dead bodies", it actually makes use of both radiation AND slowfreeze. The second zombie gets stoned to create a terrain above the water from which a platform can be built. In the current version of the level, the terrain next to the exit reaches so far beneath the bombing hole that the level can be solved by only using the radiation part; this will be fixed in the next iteration so that both the radiation and the slowfreeze will have to be used to solve the level.

Also, there's the level "Danger of breakthrough" where you have to navigate a lemming with walkers until it gets stoned by the slowfreeze, to both create a blocker at the right spot and to bridge across a pont of water.

These are only two very simple examples, I do believe there's still a lot of unexplored potential for both of these "skills". So why throw them out before they have been fully explored?

I actually believe one thing that might bar us from exploring these features creatively is getting stuck in one specific level building philosophy. In order to put radiation and slowfreeze to clever use, we probably will have to think out of the box.

"Only over their dead bodies" was one attempt of mine to encourage this line of thinking. I would in fact still consider this level a puzzle: The zombies, radiation and slowfreeze are all visible right from the start, there's no executin difficulty regarding these objects, the zombies will always explode / stone at the same point because the position of skill assignment is always fixed at the point where the radiation / slowfreeze object is placed.

PS: Regarding 1.43: I tried to use an older version recently, and for some reason it didn't open properly. Are there any additional files I need to make the 1.43 editor / player work?

[Nepster]

Thanks for your reply, Strato. First of all: Disarmers (and zombie-disarmers) will stay now, so no need to worry about them.

Proxima makes some very good points. This is the second time in the history of NeoLemmix that level features are actually removed from the game, and not likely to happen again in the next few years.

"The opportune moment" would work with an updraft instead of an anti-splat pad, however "Break my fall" wouldn't, and other levels featuring splat pads, like "Who put that thing there?" or "It's not always what it seems" wouldn't either. So splat pads should definitely stay, and if there are splat pads, I don't see why there shouldn't be an anti-splat pad as a logical counterpart.

Splat pads will certainly stay. That was never a question. And sorry, but I don't see at all, why "Break my fall" wouldn't work with an updraft instead of the anti-splat pad?

Such measures flat-out destroy some existing levels, not only in my pack,...

Every change in the game physics does that. I know it hurts if some of one's levels no longer work. I have some levels that only work in Lemmix and some physics change regarding the digger made them trivial in NeoLemmix. I had some Lix levels that had to go, because Simon removed time limits.
Nevertheless in all cases I managed to replace the levels by even better ones. You can do the same!
Summing up: The question is not "Is there a level it destroys", but "Are there enough good levels to make it worthwhile keeping it with all the additional complexity it adds to the game."

One of my levels for example could have made excellent use of the Frenzy gimmick. It's quite unfair to new creators in my view to treat them like "we were able to toy with this, but you don't get to, just because you happened to find our community too late".

I don't see this is as "we don't let you toy with it", but as: "We already tested these features, found no good use of them, so you don't have to do the same mistake trying to use them". Your Frenzy gimmick is actually a very good example: It annoyed people so much, that a glitch was found to slow down the game despite the gimmick, and other people repeatedly assigned one skill and then restarted the replay before assigning the next skill. So culling the Frenzy gimmick avoided some rants about your levels.

Adding stuff first and then throwing it out again light-handedly actively discourages new creators from trying new ideas, because they never know whether a feature their current levels rely on will still be present in the next version of the game.

That is why we are now much more restrictive with adding new features, so that we don't have to throw them out again. Yes, we made mistakes in the past, but that doesn't mean that we have to keep all the bad stuff we did years ago. And yes, it was also a mistake not to throw out steel areas long ago.

Also, there's the level "Danger of breakthrough" where you have to navigate a lemming with walkers until it gets stoned by the slowfreeze, to both create a blocker at the right spot and to bridge across a pont of water.

Good example of a level which needs frame-precise positioning of timed stoners, which we would like to discourage.

These are only two very simple examples, I do believe there's still a lot of unexplored potential for both of these "skills". So why throw them out before they have been fully explored?

What do you define as "fully explored"? Aren't over two years enough? Should we throw them out after they have been fully explored?

I actually believe one thing that might bar us from exploring these features creatively is getting stuck in one specific level building philosophy.

Ok, here is a sad truth: NeoLemmix doesn't try to please everyone and be able to create every level with every imaginable type of challenge. It simply cannot do that. Instead it focuses on the puzzling aspect with the deliberate choice to get stuck in one specific philosophy.
If someone wants something else from a lemmings clone, then we encourage them to try out Lemmix, (Super)Lemmini or other clones. It's actually a pity that Tsyu isn't more active on SuperLemmini, because it has a somewhat different philosophy and would make a rather good addition to NeoLemmix and Lix.

PS: Regarding 1.43: I tried to use an older version recently, and for some reason it didn't open properly. Are there any additional files I need to make the 1.43 editor / player work?

It should work without any additional files. But it won't be able to open any of the levels or packs created with newer NeoLemmix versions. Having said that, I will have to check whether the current style files can be loaded with V1.43.

[nin10doadict]

If slowfreeze has to go, I won't argue it too much. I was having trouble coming up with good ways to use it anyway; "Do you feel a draft?" was all I could really come up with. Sure, there could be some more good ways to use it, but that's just the thing: If it's that hard to figure out a way to make a good level that features slowfreeze, then does slowfreeze have a right to exist at all?
I really feel that radiation should stick around though. There are more levels that use it and it's easier to figure out ways to make levels with it. Making levels that aren't just obnoxious timing exercises is another thing, but I think it's been proved that that is doable.
I suppose that "Janky devices" could function with water/fire down there below the updraft instead of an anti-splat pad. You get a glider anyway so having the scout avoid the hazard isn't hard. Maybe anti-splat pads should go too? With proper placement of other objects and terrain then updrafts may be able to accomplish everything the anti-splat pad can.
"Fake" and "Invis" are just for artistic purposes and aren't even used that often. I specifically try to avoid them anyway because it just feels troll-ish.

[mobius]

here's some thought out reasoning why I dislike the radiation and slow freeze; Again this is just my personal opinion, I can some people finding them cool, but I don't.

They seem like essentially instant pick-up skills. They make a lemming do a skill at a specific point. (something which the now-removed gimmick "instant pick up skill" did). I was't ever totally against timed bombers, but for some reason I find this incarnation here to be worse than regular old fashioned timed bombers. Since the object sets in one spot the lemming's always going to explode in a predefined spot or distance from it. It seems kind of pointless to me. Wouldn't puzzles be harder if you're forced to determine where to assign the bomber/stoner yourself?
Also I find the naming to be very confusing; radiation and slow freeze doesn't make me think of bombers and stoners. It took me a while to figure these objects out.

But I really don't care if they're removed or not; It wouldn't bother me to have them there; I may never use them, but if other people get good use out of them that's fine.

I don't really have an opinion on the splat pads.

[namida]

It is possible to make a level that uses the radiation / slowfreeze in ways beyond "the lemming will explode at a predefined spot", by interaction with other skills. The obvious example would be with walkers, cloners or blockers, but I can also think of one level in my packs that uses a radiation object with the intent that the lemming will explode inside a digger pit. There's another one where there are insufficient bombers (or potential substitutes) to execute the obvious route, but by taking a detour and using radiation, you can get that extra bomber you need - and making the path back from there also itself makes use of radiation, mostly controlled by walkers with some blockers available for it.

At the same time, I do get how they add execution difficulty which NeoLemmix generally tries to avoid. A shadow of some kind could work for simple cases, but not so much so when dealing with complicated arrangements of walkers and/or cloners.