[DISC][PLAYER] The final new skill

[namida]

As much as I like the idea of the tracer, implementation would get very messy especially with regards to skills like the Jumper, so I'll have to say no to that one.

I'm also at this point, based on poll results (0 yes, 3 neutral including myself, 6 no), going to rule out any possible "kills lemmings other than the user" effect.

[geoo]

That's surprising to hear, I would have guessed that to be very simple to implement. What kind of mess is the code if this is tricky to do?
I mean, if you know the coordinate where to draw the lemming you also know the coordinate where to place the block?

[Dullstar]

It's not on its own and that is what you seem to not get. The main thought must always also contain the consideration if it makes sense in the context of the game, if it adds too much complexity for too little gain, or if it's too similar. Otherwise you just get an ugly mix of ideas and a crappy game.

You just think about the number of levels you can make and not much more. Not seeing that most ideas can either already be replicated or are just very specific, while also not spending much thought about the added complexity that comes with it that everybody has to learn.

This seems more to me like an argument against any further new skills than against the Slider specifically. Every new skill introduces complexity. I fail to see how the Slider doesn't make sense in the context of the game. From what I remember when I first started with NeoLemmix, the new skills were a little overwhelming at first, but I think it was more of an issue with the content that was available at the time. The Introduction Pack we had at the time (different than the one that's being worked on now) didn't really do a good job introducing the skills; the puzzles, while they weren't bad, were, in my opinion, too complicated for someone who literally just learned what the new skills even do, particularly when you're being introduced to 8 new ones in quick succession. This is the real strength of the Fun rank in the original game: the any-way-you-want levels, featuring a variety of different obstacles, give you some time to get a feel for how all the skills work before you have to solve puzzles with them.

None of the serious contenders cannot have their effects replicated with existing skills. Some take more work than others, but every single one is replicatable. The Slider is no different from the others in that regard, because the workaround is ALWAYS going to have limitations.

Laser Blaster: (Bottomless Pit or Water) + Platformer + Digger
Mortar: Jumper + Bomber + maybe a Climber
Spear Thrower: Bomber + (Builder or Platformer) + (Climber or Jumper)
Slider: (Floater + Walker) or (Glider + Terrain/One-Way Fields)
Slider -> Shimmier transition: Specific terrain setup (climber and climberless variants available) + Jumper + Shimmier

[ccexplore]

I'm happy to see that Kieran has chimed into the discussion, if anyone he should be the authority on the usefulness of L2 skills.
It seems like we agree on the rather limited use of the laser blaster and projectile terrain creation skills, though I also personally find the use of projectile terrain destruction skills rather limited as well from my experience.

In fact, I'm pretty sure if we exclude Kieran's levels (just to get a sense of how other people designed their levels), the remaining custom L2 levels in this forum either never used the bazooka/mortar, or maybe at most one or two levels did.  At least that's how I remember it, feel free to correct me though.  In contrast, somehow the projectile construction skills got quite a bit more use over those same levels.  Sure, maybe not the best possible uses all the time, but you need to keep in mind the average level designers as well, and to expect to see some more "ordinary" uses alongside a few "cooler" uses.

But it might not be a good comparison anyway because the knockback effect could well be a reason why the projectile destruction skills are avoided for custom L2 levels.  Then again, for whatever reasons it just never crossed my mind at all to ever try to use it in any of my 6 or 7 or so custom levels, I guess I just happened to have better ideas that make use of other skills in L2.

My (possibly inaccurate) recollection is also that of the various appearances of the projectile construction skills in either geoo's or my levels, only maybe 2-3? actually used it in a splatform capacity (though at least in two cases, the same instance of skill usage also served double/triple other purposes).  However, IIRC it is also true that on a decent number of levels the skill was in effect used in combination with other skills as part of some core trick.  These combinations (with one minor exception) won't be applicable for NeoLemmix due to skills already ruled out.  In the remaining cases, the uses may well be somewhat incidental and generally not part of any trick.  So perhaps the projectile construction skills aren't very "spectacular" to use in most cases, but then again, not every single builder or platformer used in custom levels will all be brilliant uses either; sometimes you just need them to go from point A to point B.  But still, if we're talking about the last skill to ever be added, maybe the projectile construction skills are a little bit too on the boring side to consider?  Then again, I would've said the same for the projectile destruction skills if Kieran didn't come out in favor of them over the other proposed ones.

=====================

A little sad that geoo's trailer/tracer has to get ruled out, it does sound pretty cool and interesting, and also addresses Ichotolot's concern about complexity (there are very little new things to learn).  Oh well.

[IchoTolot]

Every new skill introduces complexity. I fail to see how the Slider doesn't make sense in the context of the game.

I think you misread me there. I did not say the slider makes no sense in the context of the game, but that the main thought about adding a feature must always also contain the consideration if it makes sense in the context of the game, if it adds too much complexity for too little gain, or if it's too similar.

The slider fails in the last 2 points:

- It adds just very little for too much complexity, esspecially with the extra jumper/climber/shimmier transitions. The other contenders do not have these extra rules!

- It's too similar compared to the effect of alrerady existent skills, much more and more easily than the other contenders, as stated and showed time and time again.

This seems more to me like an argument against any further new skills than against the Slider specifically.

I am also totally fine with that to be honest!


I would have been open with the trailer/tracer suggestion, it definitly sounds interesting.

[namida]

That's surprising to hear, I would have guessed that to be very simple to implement. What kind of mess is the code if this is tricky to do?
I mean, if you know the coordinate where to draw the lemming you also know the coordinate where to place the block?

For starters - what happens with the inbetween pixels? For example - a faller moves down 3 pixels per frame. A jumper could make a total of up to 6 "one pixel horizontal or vertical" movements in a single frame - and possibly more vertical movement at the end under specific conditions when hitting a wall as a climber / close to the top.

But the thing that really set off alarm bells for me here is the fact that the placed terrain could interfere with the lemming's own movement. Of course, ideally, it wouldn't, but special handling would be needed to ensure that - especially in cases where it might affect future frames.

[namida]

I've put another poll up to hopefully eliminate some of the remaining "under consideration" options.

[Simon]

The slider has merit, e.g., in light of the climber-shimmier trinity.

The opportunity cost is merely so high because of the artificial requirement that no other skills be added. With the slider, you'd add a movement skill with zero inter-lemming interaction.

-- Simon

[WillLem]

I'll also go on record as saying that another of his culls that was proposed but didn't happen - the Disarmer - is something I would not have even considered culling. A skill is far too "core" to do that to.

I'd like to add something to that if I may:

The Disarmer is a skill that, whilst it basically only has 1 use, actually has a great deal of puzzle potential:

Use of the Disarmer as a highly valuable pickup skill is perhaps the most obvious: if there's a row of traps that can't be build over or bashed under, you need a Disarmer. Place the pickup somewhere difficult to get to, and it suddenly becomes the key to unlocking the level.

High release rates make the Disarmer skill somewhat compromised in cases where there are rows of traps that need to be disarmed, which can make for interesting crowd-control situations.

Pre-assigned Disarmers can be placed such that the challenge becomes navigating that lemming to the level's trap before the others get there.

It's a great skill. And I'm not just saying that because of the cute little hi-viz vest I gave it. OK, maybe a little...

[namida]

If I were able to go back to before the Disarmer was introduced, I would definitely not introduce it in the first place. I just feel that culling a skill is too big of a cull to be acceptable.

Use of the Disarmer as a highly valuable pickup skill is perhaps the most obvious: if there's a row of traps that can't be build over or bashed under, you need a Disarmer. Place the pickup somewhere difficult to get to, and it suddenly becomes the key to unlocking the level.

In most cases, this can be achieved with an unlock button + locked exit instead.

The other two cases are more interesting, for sure.

[geoo]

For starters - what happens with the inbetween pixels? For example - a faller moves down 3 pixels per frame. A jumper could make a total of up to 6 "one pixel horizontal or vertical" movements in a single frame - and possibly more vertical movement at the end under specific conditions when hitting a wall as a climber / close to the top.

But the thing that really set off alarm bells for me here is the fact that the placed terrain could interfere with the lemming's own movement. Of course, ideally, it wouldn't, but special handling would be needed to ensure that - especially in cases where it might affect future frames.

I specifically mentioned a 4x4 block of terrain, not a single pixel. That's why I was surprised you'd mention the jumper specifically; does it move more than 4 pixels horizontally or vertically in a single frame? For example, a vector of (3,4) or (4,3) pixels would still be fine with the blocks connecting to each other and being walkable. (Of course, it doesn't have to be 4x4: I chose it because 4 pixels high would ensure lemmings following the main lemming would not get stuck in its terrain). Implementation-wise I would have thought you'd just cache the last (say) 3 or 4 positions of the lemming, and then place the block in the location the lemming was 3 or 4 frames ago, which would make sure the lemming wouldn't bump into its own terrain unless it's moving slower than 1 pixel per frame or changing direction.
So the cases you'd have to worry about would be the slow skills, and directional changes (horizontal and vertical). I believe that these can be solved by specifying a position offset for certain action types: E.g. so climbers don't get stuck in the terrain they create, the blocks could be placed, say, 2 pixels below their effective coordinate. (I guess you could also specify different delays per skill, but I think that would be more complicated and more error prone for skill transitions). That would keep the skill conceptually simple and predictable for players and at the same time make it simple to implement.

For the slow skills:
- I guess terrain creators wouldn't be too much of a concern as if you assign it to a builder and it immediately stops, so be it, applying it to terrain creating skills isn't really a use case.
- Terrain destroyers wouldn't really be affected, just possibly leave a little trail in their tunnel (for diggers and miners, depending on your offset of choice, you could allow them to continue working in mid-air by creating terrain under them if you wanted that behaviour).
- The disarmer stays still for a while, so it would create terrain around itself and then move up onto it when transitioning into walker, creating a little bump; I'd argue that's a corollary of the rules and totally fine.
- Climber I just discussed.

For directional changes:
- Walker turning around (against wall, blocker, or walker skill assignment): should play nicely with the parameters above. The walker would walk up onto its terrain block from 4 frames ago 2 frames after turning around, continuing a nice smooth trail.
- Terrain creators or removers turning on a blocker: see above
- Glider bumping into wall: Not sure how the collision works exactly, but with an offset slightly above it should be possible to have the glider glide under its previously created bridge due to the delay.
- Jumper jumping against wall: depending on whether the jumper is in its upward or downward phase, it might end up landing on its trajectory trail or jump under it. That's a corollary of the physics and seems like fine behaviour to me.
- Climber reaching top and falling down: due to the delay/offset it should land on its pile below and walk off it.
- Shimmier jumping up without reaching ceiling: Same as climber. With repeated assignment could be used to reach higher ceilings

I would guess that by choosing a good delay value and specifying appropriate offsets you would get good behavior for all reasonable cases, avoiding the need for special case handling. Finding these offsets might take a bit of experimentation, but wouldn't add to the code complexity.

In fact, I'm pretty sure if we exclude Kieran's levels (just to get a sense of how other people designed their levels), the remaining custom L2 levels in this forum either never used the bazooka/mortar, or maybe at most one or two levels did.  At least that's how I remember it, feel free to correct me though. 

I remember making "Friendly Fire", but that exclusively relied on the knockback effect of the bazooka. I believe you can use the bazooka/mortar also to pop balloons, but that obviously wouldn't be a concern in NL.

This seems more to me like an argument against any further new skills than against the Slider specifically.

I am also totally fine with that to be honest!

Haha, that's what I was talking about in my first post in this thread.

[IchoTolot]

The disarmer is certainly something that I only defended because of the levels already relying on it. Otherwise I would never vote for it as its use is extremely limited.

The Disarmer is a skill that, whilst it basically only has 1 use, actually has a great deal of puzzle potential:...
...It's a great skill. And I'm not just saying that because of the cute little hi-viz vest I gave it. OK, maybe a little...

And this is exactly I was thinking about when I meant we are clapping for every idea now regardless of its actual usefulness and just keep on considering and adding more without thinking about complexity at all.
We are currently having the same thing with the slider now!

Let me give another comparison as the slider reminds me of a unit from the allied faction in Command&Conquer Red Alet 2: The robot tank.

First it sounds great, it's a tank that can float over water and is immune to mind-control units. The speciality is that it needs a connection to a robot control center, if that is cut by low power or by the destruction of the center it deactivates.

Great addition, right? In reality the tank never gets used though. It's main weapon is comparable to the standard battle tank and it's just on par with it, while the robot tank is way more frail. So for land battles it's not good enough as it also lacks range.
Over water you are better off with ships or air units. For mind control you better outrange them or attack them from the sky.
Oh and also the control center weakness is easily exploitable.

Even in the mission they specifically designed for them you are better of doing the job with your commando unit.

The slider is our robot tank.

       

This seems more to me like an argument against any further new skills than against the Slider specifically.

I am also totally fine with that to be honest!

Haha, that's what I was talking about in my first post in this thread.

The option is always there, we've got way more than enough content! The jumper is being introduced and yet another object type is being considered.

[ccexplore]

Second, this idea of "mental pathfinding" will again mainly affect people who like to plan the entire level in advance before even allowing the hatch to open. Let's say I do have empathy for people adhering to this philosophy... but not a lot of patience, in the sense that I often don't see how the rules of the game should bow to this "demand".

To be clear, while it may well be possible in some levels to really plan everything completely before starting, in practice for most levels, most people perform a much more balanced mix of pre-planning and testing out moves to see where they work out as planned vs behaved in ways you failed to account for.  You're also likely to do more adhoc testing when planning leaves you stuck at finding the solution, as will often happen on hard levels.

DireKrow playthroughs and reviews provide excellent, detailed examples of how I see most people tackle levels with a mix of both planning and testing.  Take a read and maybe don't be so dismissive at other people about mental pathfinding.

And anyway, I actually feel far less strongly than Simon about mental-pathfinding the slider.  While it is true that it may take slightly more mental effort to account for the constant turning when planning out a (permanent-skill version of) slider's path, it is at best a weak negative.  It's not super-hard to do so.  That said, I think this same aspect is likely more problematic for level designers actually.  They'll have to be ever conscious that the slider (when implemented as a permanent skill) may not be able to take the same path as the crowd.  Perhaps slightly less of a problem when the slider is being used primarily as a worker in the level.

[Strato Incendus]

Sorry, Proxima, you hugely misrepresented my position with this, and I think it served to "escalate" the debate a little again :

Three years on, can we please just give this a rest? Nepster put a ton of work into NeoLemmix as well as being one of the best level designers in the community. I wouldn't still be using NL at all without his work on giving us a decent editor. I don't know where he is now or why he hasn't been around (and as far as I know, none of us do), but I miss him, I hope he's okay and I'd love to see him come back. It's a gross insult that you only seem to remember him as the guy who culled stuff.

This had absolutely nothing to do with me trying to bash Nepster over past arguments; in fact, I've recently been defending the puzzle philosophy behind many of his actions, and indeed praised all the work he put in to convert NeoLemmix to New Formats and introduce the Shimmier. So please don't frame my position as anything else!

In the context of this post, I thought it was clear that I was actually defending Nepster's position on culls: When something gets too little use - which does not only apply to underused skills, but also to gimmicks, Ghosts, and in Nepster's view also anti-splat pads - it isn't worthy of inclusion. That's all this remark was supposed to express.

I do agree with namida that skills, once introduced, are too essential to cull again. That's why I always objected to the introduction of the Runner, for example - because I predicted too little use for it, as well. Not because I would have considered the skill too complex.

And in fact, IchoTolot himself has now put forward the "frequency of use" argument that he dismissed before.

First it sounds great, it's a tank that can float over water and is immune to mind-control units. The speciality is that it needs a connection to a robot control center, if that is cut by low power or by the destruction of the center it deactivates.

Great addition, right? In reality the tank never gets used though.

[. . .]

The slider is our robot tank.

While you might not see a lot of opportunities to use the Slider, several other forum members have already stated they would use it a lot. So I think it's apparent that this worry, on a forum-wide level, is unjustified. Judging by kieran's comments, it seems more like a (vertical) Laser Blaster would be our equivalent of the robot tank, because you actively have to go out of your way to make it work.



The tracer sounds like a nice idea, because it could be combined with every other skill. Then again, this makes it at least as powerful as the Cloner, and as tough to implement as the Magno Booter / gravity reversal, which namida has already ruled out.

- It's too similar compared to the effect of alrerady existent skills, much more and more easily than the other contenders, as stated and showed time and time again.

Stated yes, shown no. This is not an objective fact, but merely your opinion, as is the opposite stance on our side.

From our point of view, this similarity that you keep criticising about the Slider is precisely what would allow the skill to fit in organically with the rest.

You object to too much new stuff being added to NeoLemmix since that would make it harder for newer players to memorise everything. Well, the Slider doesn't require you to learn anything new! You just need to get used to a new skill that has a different take on already existing behaviour (surviving splats, holding on to walls, turning around).

You can't demand a skill should bring something new and different to the table (as you claim the Mortar / Spear Thrower do) and then complain that new players would have too much stuff to learn.

I am aware of the example case of kaywhyn, so I'm not disputing that.

I critisize it and I love thinking! I just hate unnessesary thinking!

Who determines what type of thinking is "unnecessary"? You need to factor in how often lemmings will turn around when using a bunch of other skills as well (Blockers, Walkers, Gliders, Cloners, Climbers...)

The Slider does not contribute any new problem in this regard; it is just a new skill.

There you have it, but we keep on cheering for every new idea that has even the tiniest of usages that is popping up here and amplify the problem. That's also why the final version needs to happen soon!

Actually, we don't - that is precisely what the joke-skill-ideas thread is for: To provide a vent for this "overflow" of silly ideas. None of these get "cheered" for. namida may have selected a few skills from that thread and put them up for debate, but that was him looking for a needle in the haystack. Most of the skills and features proposed in that thread are intentionally so specific that it should be obvious to anyone in our community that these skills would not be worth implementing. And WillLem has taken this even further by proposing a lot of skill ideas that are jokes in the sense that they couldn't actually be implemented from a mechanical perspective in the first place.

The game is getting very close to being completely overloaded and the danger of fearing away new players with all the stuff is growing rapidly.

The option is always there, we've got way more than enough content! The jumper is being introduced and yet another object type is being considered.

As Dullstar pointed out, your position could rather be interpreted as objecting to any new skill at all at this point. If that is your position, it's fine to have, but it seems like the majority is definitely in favour of at least any new skill being introduced. One new user being overwhelmed by the amount of existing features doesn't override this majority opinion.

Instead, it should make us question though whether the NeoLemmix introduction pack is really the best place to start for new users (again, that's not me throwing shade on the work you put into creating it) . Because the introduction pack tries to present an example level for every feature in existence.

That is good and fine and serves a purpose; but for a new player, it can feel like they have to learn all the new stuff by heart first before attempting "actual" levels. In contrast, in original Lemmings, you got to know the skills and features at a slowly increasing pace, through "learning by doing".

To prevent them from being overwhelmed, new forum members can easily be pointed to less complex packs first that only use a fraction of the existing features - like Lemmings Migration and NepsterLems.

The problem is that those packs that restrict themselves to classic skills tend to be very difficult puzzle-wise. And that, at least for me, was a much larger deterrent when starting out than the multitude of features! If you feel you can't solve any of the existing content, you're likely to just stop playing.

Here you deny reality again. NL follows the philosophy that this is possible!

And it (mental pathfinding) absolutely is possible with the Slider. You just need to acccurately factor in the completely predictable behaviour of how often it will turn around. If a player is too lazy to do that, that is their problem.

I'm too lazy to want to predict the exact trajectory of a Mortar's / Spear Thrower's arc. Which is much harder to predict at the start of the level, actually. Once the lemming is at its destined position, you have the skill shadow, sure. But at the start of the level, no lemming is in his destined position. At this point, how often a lemming will turn around is easier to foresee than the exact trajectory of a curve.

As such, it seems like your preferred skill suggestion is actually in greater violation of NeoLemmix's core philosophy than the Slider.

Take a read and maybe don't be so dismissive at other people about mental pathfinding.

And anyway, I actually feel far less strongly than Simon about mental-pathfinding the slider.  While it is true that it may take slightly more mental effort to account for the constant turning when planning out a (permanent-skill version of) slider's path, it is at best a weak negative.  It's not super-hard to do so.

Oh, don't get me wrong; I like to engage in mental pathfinding myself, so I'm not dismissive about it at all!

I just think it gets out of hand when people object to something that, as you pointed out in this quote, doesn't actually contradict pathfinding approaches (I agree with you here! ). The Slider just requires them to do a few more calculations in their head, so some people feel like it's not in accordance with the philosophy.

And then this leads to demands essentially reading "this should not be implemented because it interferes with my way of mental pathfinding". The player is not entitled to thinking less than the level designer wants them to. If the player determines a level challenges them too much (on a pure puzzle-level, no execution difficulty or unfair surprises), than it's their right to give up. At this point, the level designer has simply beaten them.

Yeah, I've been surprised by the Slider's behaviour a couple of times as well while playing QFK2. But the Slider didn't do anything unfair or unpredictable. Thus, me being surprised by it was down to my mistake - not the fault of the skill. I simply have to learn to factor in its consistent and predictable behaviour when considering my options at the start of the level.

But again, I don't have to actually learn a completely new type of behaviour, like memorising a projectile trajectory, or the size of a crater it causes; I just need to adapt to existing behaviour being combined by this skill in a slightly new way - but this new way offers up many unique interactions that still are logical and completely predictable.

[IchoTolot]

And in fact, IchoTolot himself has now put forward the "frequency of use" argument that he dismissed before.

Your frequency of use argument completely disregards the other tools already available for it.

While you might not see a lot of opportunities to use the Slider, several other forum members have already stated they would use it a lot. So I think it's apparent that this worry, on a forum-wide level, is unjustified.
Stated, not shown. This is not an objective fact, but merely your opinion, as is the opposite stance on our side.

And exactly these use cases can already be emulated efficiently. You keep on saying the same things and denying or skipping over the counter evidence. I explained it in detail in earlier posts and countless other people also sated that with especially the glider and the floater we can achive the similar things.  Some of the things like the slider shimmier transsition dion't even require an extra skill to emulate in some situations and just a small platform to land and turn on.

From our point of view, this similarity that you keep criticising about the Slider is precisely what would allow the skill to fit in organically with the rest.

So now it bringing very little new to the table is an advantage? You keep on twisting the arguments to be in your favor regardless the direction they are pointing at.

To prevent them from being overwhelmed, new forum members can easily be pointed to less complex packs first that only use a fraction of the existing features - like Lemmings Migration and NepsterLems.

Are you really sure you recommended the right packs there?

You object to too much new stuff being added to NeoLemmix since that would make it harder for newer players to memorise everything....

..As Dullstar pointed out, your position could rather be interpreted as objecting to any new skill at all at this point. If that is your position, it's fine to have, but it seems like the majority is definitely in favour of at least any new skill being introduced. One new user being overwhelmed by the amount of existing features doesn't override this majority opinion.

Excuse me? Do you even read my messages anymore? I am open to the adjusted laster blaster, both projectile skills, even for the tracer geoo suggested and the only thing I am currently strictly against is the slider. Go ahead and make more skill suggestions! I am open and willing to listen!

Now just because I am more hesitant to add new stuff I am again the big bad guy who just says no despite only strictly being against 1 thing currently. I am against your favorite option and therefore I should be marked as the enemy.

At this point I don't see much sense in this discussion anymore. You certainly won't be convinced by arguments anymore and the only thing that counts is that the slider gets implemented.