[DISC][PLAYER] The final new skill

[Strato Incendus]

@∫tan x dx: I'll quickly comment on each of those:

The Ballooner: I don't see how this skill would do anything that a Glider in an updraft couldn't accomplish as well?

The Archer: Already ruled out because it would require "assign the skill, assign the direction" in order to be as versatile as needed.

The Rock Climber: Since we've already modified the Climber to have many of the behaviours that are unique to the Rock Climber in L2 (transitioning to Shimmier, holding on to walls after jumping etc.), and because Shimmiers can also cover those 45-degree slopes (just looking in the other direction), I think this skill would have even less to offer now than it would have had in direct comparison to the more limited L2 Climber.

The Kayaker: Of course, in general it would be interesting to have a non-permanent version of each permanent skill (as in the gimmick "non-permanent skills" back in NeoLemmix 1.43 / on the Ephemeral rank of Lemmicks), but since we only have one more skill we can add, I think it would be a waste to use this last slot for something so minor.

The Flamer: In the joke-skill-suggestion thread that namida linked to in the opening post, I already suggested something similar that would be a little more versatile than just being resistant to fire objects. This skill was called the Tank (a lemming covered in armour / metal plating) and would also make the assigned lemming immune to triggered traps and zombies. His weak spot would be water, because he would still drown. And I even said it would be debatable whether it should be possible at all to assign a Swimmer to a Tank, or whether those to skills should be just as mutually exclusive as Floater and Glider. Speaking of Gliders, if the logic is that the Tank can't be a Swimmer because he's too heavy, he probably shouldn't be able to use updrafts either. That begs the question whether it should be impossible to assign Gliders and/or Floaters to the Tank, too, and whether his armour would prevent him from splatting by itself already, or whether splatting would be another weakness of this skill. Maybe he would even splat after falling out of an updraft, because the updraft wouldn't reset his fall height as it does for other lemmings. But those are detail issues I think we could postpone discussing until we actually decide whether we want to pick the Tank as the 20th skill.

The Tank. A permanent skill which makes a lemming invulnerable to fire objects and triggered traps. The animation would be a lemming covered in metal plating. As such, this lemming could still drown in water areas. It would be debatable whether he could still be turned into a Swimmer, as "drowning in water" is just a regular behaviour this lemming would keep, like any other lemming - or whether it should be made explicitly impossible by making Swimmer and Tank mutually exclusive, much like Floater and Glider. In contrast to the Disarmer, it's only this individual lemming that gets immune to traps, which seems to have more uses than disabling the trap for good once a single Disarmer touches it.
Also, the Tank could safely walk among Zombies without getting infected - but wouldn't actually end up killing them. He'd simply pass through them.
All in all, this is similar to what Ghosts used to be, except that Tanks can of course still interact with exits and other objects (pickup skills, buttons, splitters, teleporters etc.). Ghosts would also ignore water, which is still lethal and thus the Achilles's heel of the Tank. Finally, Ghosts encountering zombies would end up intimidating those just like regular lemmings, causing the zombies to turn around, whereas the Tank would just ignore them and walk right through them. He could be assigned a Blocker, though, to turn zombies around.

While being able to walk through fire, traps, and zombies bears some resemblance to Ghosts, which namida has already ruled out, he did mention the Tank as worthy of consideration. In contrast to Ghosts, the Tank can still interact with most other objects, such as pickup skills and exit buttons. You could also make him walk over one-use traps to disable them without having to sacrifice a lemming. The Tank would be less "overkill" than the Disarmer when it comes to traps, because only this individual lemming would be safe from them, rather than disabling triggered traps that aren't one-use traps for good. So the crowd would still have to find a different path than e.g. a Tank pioneer.
Also, the Tank wouldn't display all this less-intuitive behaviour about Ghosts, like not being able to be saved (because the Tank wouldn't ignore exits, in contrast to Ghosts), nor would he have this unintuitive "intimidation" behaviour.

Speaking of unintuitive skills :

The Rusher: I'm sorry, but the ways you proposed how this skill would affect the execution of every other skill seem quite random to me. Simply performing skills faster is one thing, and I think all that is currently being proposed under the term "Turbo Lemming" here. But this speed coming at the cost of less efficient skill performance, while nice in theory, affects all the other skills in so vastly different ways that it would become pretty much unpredictable to a new player how any given skill would perform if assigned to a Rusher. Even once he has tried out every single other skill (which there would be 19 of at that time! ) in combination with the Rusher, that's still a lot more combinations than he will be able to memorise quickly. (Human working memory can usually only hold 7 +/- 2 different items.)

[Proxima]

Another old "ideas for skills" topic that could be looked over. (Although I have given it a look myself, and nothing really stood out, it's still good to have it on the list for completeness.)

[ccexplore]

The Rusher: I'm sorry, but the ways you proposed how this skill would affect the execution of every other skill seem quite random to me.

Not to mention that it'd make the programming much more work compared to probably even all the other proposals namida already rejected, to say nothing of the likely higher number of bugs to work through due to how many other existing skills would receive changes in their programming.  So although I'm not namida, I'm pretty sure this is a no-go even just from an implementation standpoint.

[Strato Incendus]

Does this put the Tank on the table, though? Since two members now suggested something along those lines, and namida actively called it a proposal that could serve as a legitimate basis for a skill.

I'm not asking this because the Tank happens to be my invention - as I said before, I would be perfectly fine with "just" another L2 skill - I simply want to know whether it should be added to the list of options we're considering right now.

[Proxima]

It's not my call, but I would say yes, everything that's not explicitly ruled out is still on the table.

I'm hesitant about any "immunity to fire" skill simply because it's what Simon has termed a "key skill" -- not in the sense of "important", but as in "red key to open red door, blue key to open blue door". The Tank's immunity to traps and zombies makes it a little bit more than an anti-fire skill, but since I don't use zombies anyway, and the only difference between traps and fire is that we already have ways to get a lemming to the other side of a trap (disarmer or compression method)... not enough to win a vote in my book.

[namida]

While nothing so far has particularly jumped out at me in terms of the idea alone (I haven't looked too closely at popularity yet), Proxima is correct: If I haven't specifically said it's ruled out, it isn't ruled out at least for now.

But I'm going to drop one more "general" rather than specific rule-out: Anything that has widespread effects on other skills used by the lemming (but "has one or two edge cases" or "has a special interaction with one or two other skills" is okay; think along the lines of the Climber->Jumper / Jumper->Climber special cases, things like that are fine).

This would include things like the Rusher or any other "Superlemming by another name" skill.

EDIT: I'm also going to rule out Rock Climber on the grounds of being too similar to the normal climber. I know this would be covered under "all other L2 skills" anyway, but I feel (accurately or not?) that it's been at least referenced enough times here that I should specifically name it as rejected.

[Proxima]

For clarity: does "widespread" mean "diverse", like the way the proposed Rusher has a different interaction with every skill, or are you also ruling out skills that have the same effect on every other skill, like the proposed Turbo Lemming? If the latter, can I ask what's the reasoning behind this? (While it's not my leading candidate by a long shot, I think it has at least enough merit not to be ruled out yet -- but I don't know how complicated it would be to code, which seems like it might be the determining factor.)

[namida]

For clarity: does "widespread" mean "diverse", like the way the proposed Rusher has a different interaction with every skill, or are you also ruling out skills that have the same effect on every other skill, like the proposed Turbo Lemming? If the latter, can I ask what's the reasoning behind this? (While it's not my leading candidate by a long shot, I think it has at least enough merit not to be ruled out yet -- but I don't know how complicated it would be to code, which seems like it might be the determining factor.)

It doesn't make much difference whether it's the same effect on every skill or not, as it still needs to be implemented and tested for every skill. So - yes, this includes "same effect on every skill" situations.

[GigaLem]

With all these choices, Should this be put up to a vote? like once a good selection is decided for a poll?

[WillLem]

But I'm going to drop one more "general" rather than specific rule-out: Anything that has widespread effects on other skills used by the lemming... This would include things like the Rusher or any other "Superlemming by another name" skill.

Have I read this correctly... does this mean Turbo Lemming is a definite no?

[namida]

With all these choices, Should this be put up to a vote? like once a good selection is decided for a poll?

That'll come in due time. There's no rush here - this kind of physics update will only come in odd-numbered versions, and I've already stated that the 20th skill won't be coming in V12.9.X, therefore, the soonest it'll happen is V12.11.X which won't be until near the end of the year.

But I'm going to drop one more "general" rather than specific rule-out: Anything that has widespread effects on other skills used by the lemming... This would include things like the Rusher or any other "Superlemming by another name" skill.

Have I read this correctly... does this mean Turbo Lemming is a definite no?

Yes, Turbo Lemming is out of the question sorry - as stated, this is more due to implementation complexity than anything else.

[Strato Incendus]

I must say I'm growing more and more fond of the Slider idea...

The thing is, back in L2, I usually hated this skill, because more often than not, it ended up backfiring, by turning a lemming into a state where he couldn't be saved anymore, because he would always turn around at the wrong places and thereby lock himself out of a level. There is one Egyptian level in particular where IchoTolot explicitly mentioned this in his Let's Play (saying "so we just don't make him a Slider").

While drawbacks make a skill interesting, of course, this is also something that might make people hesitant to actually assign a Slider to a lemming - if it is a permanent skill like in L2, at least. In that case, people would probably go with a Floater or Glider first before trying a Slider, if either of the former are available in a given level.

However, thinking of the Slider more as a downward Climber than a surrogate Floater instead, this would open up many new interesting interactions, especially with the Jumper, now that jumping-off a wall seems to be just as agreed-upon as jumping towards a wall.

- You could have drops which are deadly, but because there are no Floaters, Gliders, or Stoners, and the wall on the side the lemming is coming from doesn't have a straight edge, you actually need to jump across a gap to the other side in order to give the lemming a wall to hold on to so that he can slide down safely.
- You could have straight walls where a lemming can slide down and then, before he actually reaches the ground, jumps off into some tunnel in a wall on the other side.

Both of these seem particularly fitting now that WillLem has created the Lara Croft sprites precisely according to my instructions!

The Slider being a permanent skill would still be an interesting option, of course, enforcing turning-around consistently. Just like being a Climber can be a drawback if it causes a lemming to go over a wall and die in a place where every other normal lemming would simply turn around on said wall, being a Slider and looking in the wrong direction compared to everybody can still result in interesting puzzles.

It just seems like L2 in particular had a hard time creating such good puzzles, so that the Slider often ended up in a state where it was so risky to use that the better advice was simply to not use it at all.

But as said before, the Slider would not be the only skill whose potential was extremely wasted by L2. Even the Laser Blaster, as limited as it might seem in its application, still has a wider range of use (like the aforementioned "dent the ceiling to cut off the Shimmier" example) than L2 manages to explore successfully.

[geoo]

Just wanted to chip in as I've played Quest from Kieran in Lemmings 2 which heavily featured the slider in one or two tribes as well as the bazooka/mortar/laser blaster (and which I recommend everyone to play btw, it's an excellent pack):

The slider was crucial to many puzzles. In particular, the fact that the slider is a permanent skill and that it turns around at the bottom of a cliff would separate it from lemmings walking the same way, which could be key to solutions or foil various other solution attempts. Unlike the floater, it can't get down a thin platform high above the floor, but on the other hand can be used to get down to a lower platform if two platforms are on top of each other and their edges are aligned, and in conjunction with the shimmier it can climb on the underside of platforms (I believe it also slides down walls if a shimmier bumps into a wall). I don't know how the jumper interacts with the climber in NeoLemmix (climber sticks when jumping into a wall? climber can jump off a wall?) but if these behaviours are implemented, the slider could be consistent with those (i.e. starting to slide when jumping into a wall/slider can jump off walls).

Both mortar/bazooka and laser blaster on first glance seem more useful than the slider, but after playing QFK the slider is definitely more memorable to me, somehow.

On a more general note, "20 is a nice round number" is a horrible reason to have exactly 20 skills. I would argue if the discussion doesn't bring up any fully convincing skill sticking with 19 is preferable; similarly if multiple very strong candidates come up (they might even interact or complement each other in some way) then adding more than 1 is preferable.

[namida]

I don't know how the jumper interacts with the climber in NeoLemmix (climber sticks when jumping into a wall? climber can jump off a wall?) but if these behaviours are implemented, the slider could be consistent with those (i.e. starting to slide when jumping into a wall/slider can jump off walls).

The Jumper is still a WIP skill that isn't released (even in experimental builds) yet. But, it's looking like both those behaviours will be allowed.

On a more general note, "20 is a nice round number" is a horrible reason to have exactly 20 skills. I would argue if the discussion doesn't bring up any fully convincing skill sticking with 19 is preferable; similarly if multiple very strong candidates come up (they might even interact or complement each other in some way) then adding more than 1 is preferable.

Basically - I'm wanting to wrap up new features in the near(ish) future. Some people said they'd like to bring it to 20 skills as a nice round number - I'll note not only is 20 a nice number itself, but it's also exactly double the maximum amount of skills allowed in a single level. To me, it's not the end of the world if we do stay at 19 skills, but I'm willing to do one more - and while not all the ideas so far have been particularly great, some definitely have a lot of potential so I don't think it's likely the end decision will be "no 20th skill". But; I don't want to keep ending skills endlessly - sure, L2 proves not every idea you can think of is a good one, but given enough time there's likely far more than 20 good ideas. The line has to be drawn somewhere; this is where I'm (somewhat arbitrarily) choosing to draw it.



At this point, I'm putting the Slider into skills I'm specifically considering. This is not specifically "permanent skill Slider" or "one-off Slider", just "some kind of Slider".

[Strato Incendus]

I think the issue of permanent vs. non-permanent can be discussed separately again if we decide that the Slider, in one form or another, is indeed going to be the 20th and final skill.

That said, most talk in this thread indeed seems to be about the Slider.

Are there still any strong competitors? New suggestions?

Or could namida already set up a poll?