[DISC][PLAYER] The final new skill

[Proxima]

And the other thing I really like about the Slider is the way its turning is sometimes an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage

The way I see this is that the level can always be designed that not turning is sometimes an advantage and sometimes a disadvantage as well. The direction can always be designed around for.

Of course that's true; but what is uniquely gained with the Slider is that some lemmings will turn around after every fall while others will not, and both groups need a way to get to the exit.

[Proxima]

Similarly to the upward Digger / downward Builder discussion, this is another case where it would feel weird to have one but not the other. Why just distant construction, but not distant destruction? Or the other way round?

It doesn't feel weird to me, because construction and destruction have never actually been symmetrical (and for good reason: terrain and air do not behave the same, and gravity has a fixed direction). Original Lemmings has only the one constructive skill, but three destructive skills with a choice of direction. NeoLemmix adds the fencer, platformer and stacker, so that if you consider "diagonally upwards" and "diagonally downwards" each to be one possible direction (ignoring the possibility of different gradients), then we can now dig in 4 of 5 possible directions, but build in only 3 of 5. If we added both an upward digger and a downward builder, it would be 5 of 5 and 4 of 5 -- except that the laser blaster wouldn't quite be the same as the other digging skills, because the lemming stays put instead of travelling with the tunnel.

All that said -- the current discussion really has made me aware that several of the proposed skills would be interesting, and it's a shame the Fencer was added so that we can't have two slots still open for new skills

[Strato Incendus]

and it's a shame the Fencer was added so that we can't have two slots still open for new skills

What? The Fencer is infinitely more useful than any upward Digger, because regular lemmings can use the tunnel it creates to get up! The upward Digger would mainly be a tool to free a crowd from below (classic L2 Laser-Blaster application), or to create a path from below, but only for Climbers.

And to possibly make dents into a ceiling to stop Shimmiers, as we discussed. This, coincidentally, is something that does not work in L2 (I've tried it!) - because the Shimmier flips aroud the 90° corner and transitions back into a Climber, going up into the ceiling and killing himself. It should still work with non-Climber Shimmiers, of course, because those drop straight down - but those don't seem to be as common as Climber-Shimmiers.

All in all, even though I'm a big fan of upward Diggers, I still wouldn't want to miss the Fencer for them, and I'd take the NeoLemmix Fencer over an upward Digger or Laser Blaster any day!

Of course that's true; but what is uniquely gained with the Slider is that some lemmings will turn around after every fall while others will not, and both groups need a way to get to the exit.

Exactly!

[Proxima]

Heh. I apologise to fans of the Fencer; it just stood out as being the skill that was added later, on its own, and isn't the Shimmier or Jumper. The Jumper I would definitely keep -- I'd even rank it above the Floater, and you know how much I like the original skills. The Shimmier loses a little of its lustre now we have the Jumper, but it's still one of the more interesting skills, and there are things it can do that the Jumper can't and vice versa.

I would rank an upward digger (either the laser-blaster type or the tunneller type) above the Fencer, because the Fencer's shallow tunnel duplicates what a Miner already does, only from the other side; and getting a lemming to the right place to mine down is often an interesting puzzle element to work with. Yes, that objection applies to the Tunneller as well, but I am being consistent there; in my first post in this topic I raised that objection and said that a Tunneller might end up being less attractive because it's too useful and simplifies things too much.

Still... if I had to live in an alternate world where one of the NL skills was never added, I would almost certainly choose the Swimmer, which has significantly less appeal now that we have both the Shimmier and Jumper for getting a single lemming across water.

[mobius]

the skills I could most easily live without are probable swimmer and stacker. (maybe even also walker)

I also like the idea of a spear thrower or some such skill.

[IchoTolot]

    Of course that's true; but what is uniquely gained with the Slider is that some lemmings will turn around after every fall while others will not, and both groups need a way to get to the exit.

Exactly!

---> splitters, or even some other contraption like gliders hit the wall and turn and fallers just fall - we've got way more than enough tools for this.

The main question stays, why add something similar when we can add something that we don't have currently?  

[Proxima]

---> splitters

[IchoTolot]

Then take one of the many other things: Instead of everyone that should turn being a slider, they are now a glider that hits a wall and turn before they land. You can always adjust the terrain to achieve this.

We have the tools already.

[Strato Incendus]

The main question stays, why add something similar when we can add something that we don't have currently?

1) I think we're working with different conceptions of what is "similar". The Spear Thrower to me sounds very similar to the Stoner (because of how easily it can break falls by adding just a little piece of terrain, which also frequently results in easy-to-overlook backroutes) and the Platformer (because it creates a horizontal plane lemmings can walk over or shimmy under).

2) Because for some or even many of us, interactions between skills are one of the main driving points of puzzles - and the Slider has a lot of options, "attachment points" were it can easily connect with all the other skills. I'm pretty convinced the Slider would fit in with the already existing skills so naturally as if it had always been there .

In fact, while namida agreed with us that a skill that's only good in the interaction with 1-2 skills isn't worth implementing (main argument used against the Runner back then), I think he stated that a skill that doesn't do much on its own but interacts with nearly all the others could already be considered worthwhile. (This is the main case for the Turbo Lemming, since it would accelerate all skills - but namida has already ruled that specific one out.) The most famous example would probably be the Cloner - just getting another lemming does next to nothing, but copying all the skills plus inverting the direction of performance is what makes it the ultimate "joker" skill.

The Slider, in contrast, already has specific applications by itself. But when you combine it with Jumpers, Climbers, Shimmiers, Bombers, Stoners, and then also destructive skills (because since he's facing the wall while falling, he doesn't need to turn around before bashing / mining / fencing into that wall), the number of potential new interactions seems nigh infinite!

[IchoTolot]

1) I think we're working with different conceptions of what is "similar". The Spear Thrower to me sounds very similar to the Stoner (because of how easily it can break falls by adding just a little piece of terrain, which also frequently results in easy-to-overlook backroutes) and the Platformer (because it creates a horizontal plane lemmings can walk over or shimmy under).

You are totally leaving out the range factor in here and the possibilities with the projectile arc itself. Also it doesn't reuire a sacrifice and cannot be activated mid-air. Again the range is the big selling point for both skills. Of course if you leave it out it gets similar.

2) Because for some or even many of us, interactions between skills are one of the main driving points of puzzles - and the Slider has a lot of options, "attachment points" were it can easily connect with all the other skills. I'm pretty convinced the Slider would fit in with the already existing skills so naturally as if it had always been there .

In fact, while namida agreed with us that a skill that's only good in the interaction with 1-2 skills isn't worth implementing (main argument used against the Runner back then), I think he stated that a skill that doesn't do much on its own but interacts with nearly all the others could already be considered worthwhile. (This is the main case for the Turbo Lemming, since it would accelerate all skills - but namida has already ruled that specific one out.) The most famous example would probably be the Cloner - just getting another lemming does next to nothing, but copying all the skills plus inverting the direction of performance is what makes it the ultimate "joker" skill.

The Slider, in contrast, already has specific applications by itself. But when you combine it with Jumpers, Climbers, Shimmiers, Bombers, Stoners, and then also destructive skills (because since he's facing the wall while falling, he doesn't need to turn around before bashing / mining / fencing into that wall), the number of potential new interactions seems nigh infinite!

The result of these "attachment points", as I showed, can already be simulated by other means! Mostly because again, the slider is very similar to already existing ones and why, with the danger of repeating myself for the Xth time, should we add a skill that (even with the combination with other skills) achieves mostly the same things we can do already?
Why have "nigh infinite" interactions which don't achieve much new, only new things to learn for new players?

[Strato Incendus]

and why, with the danger of repeating myself for the Xth time, should we add a skill that (even with the combination with other skills) achieves mostly the same things we can do already?

The interactions are unique to the Slider. There is no way to transition from Falling into shimmying along a ceiling without doing a workaround requiring several skills, several lemmings, and sacrificing at least one of them. (For example, drop one lemming down a straight wall, stone him, let a second lemming follow, turn him around, which may or may not require another sacrifice in form of a Stoner / Blocker, then the turned-around lemming needs to get under the ceiling, which may require a Platformer or a Jumper, and only then can he start shimmying.

Compare that to Slider --> Shimmier. Just two skills used, only one lemming used, none sacrificed --> way more efficient, and leaves more space on the skill panel for other stuff.

Of course you can "simulate" the effects of any skill by using several other skills to work around it. I also "simulated" Shimmiers in Lemmicks by having Gliders glide along the bottom of a Platform inside an updraft. But that's a heavy workaround to achieve something that another skill - in this case the Shimmier - accomplishes naturally.



But I will happily address your single points again in detail:

1.) A slider + jumper could be subsituted by a glider in a lot of design cases. Updrafts can also help to correct the trajectory.

The big difference here is that a Jumper can hold on to a wall if he's a Climber, whereas a Glider explicitly bounces off a wall (even if he is a Climber, i.e. comparable otherwise). A Jumper can also transition into a Shimmier. Sliding down and jumping alone may have a similar result as gliding, yes - but you stopped at that two-way interaction. The three-way interactions Slider-Jumper-Climber and Slider-Jumper-Shimmier are the ones you left out - and those are things the Glider absolutely can't do: He can neither transition into a Climber nor into a Shimmier.

2.) The turnaround of a slider can be substituted with a walker. In the case of 2 horizontal platforms parallel to each other a glider + cloner does the trick.

Well, duh, the Walker can always turn around lemmings - and precisely for that reason, it's the most boring way to accomplish this! Even assigning a Blocker temporarily and having to free him later (by a different mean than a Walker!) is more creative than simply providing a Walker for that purpose. More than that, leaving "taste" and "originality" aside, the Walker is also so powerful that it can quickly cause backroutes, due to its multiple uses:

A Walker you provide just for the purpose of turning a lemming around may get abused to free a Blocker, or to cancel another skill mid-performance (Bashers / Fencers / Miners). You can't abuse a Slider to do either of those things. And the Slider's turning behaviour can also result in a drawback, like a Climber going over walls that end up killing him. The Walker is just too flexible for this comparison, because you will only assign a Walker when you actually need the lemming to turn around - you won't be faced with the challenge of the lemming turning around by himself.

3.) If you want to simply get down: Floater/glider/updraft + maybe a walker/cloner

Again, the Floater is the least creative way to make a fall survivable. Gliders are more versatile, of course - but I don't see how updrafts come into play here? Or Walkers and Cloners? How do any of the latter help a lemming get down (unless the terrain is set up specifically to do that, of course)?

4.) Interruption of a climber. We have the jumper option now. You can design keeping the arc in mind.

This isn't even one of the main arguments for the Slider, because the idea that assigning a Slider to a Climber who is currently climbing should stop him from doing that wasn't that popular. But even if this were to happen: The Jumper catapults the Climber upwards and in the opposite direction he was looking before. The Slider goes down and keeps looking in the same direction as the Climber. In other words, the two skills would lead the lemming to opposite ends of the level.

If you need to cancel a Climber below the ceiling (which is probably the most common thing, since that's when it's most crucial) and do it with a Jumper, that might just kill the lemming because it
a) takes him beyond the top edge of the level, or
b) takes him to such heights that the ensuing fall will be splat height.

Should it become possible to interrupt a Climber by assigning a Slider while climbing, this would not run the risk of catapulting the Climber beyond the ceiling, and it would also ensure a safe way down instead.

5.) Jumper -> sliider: Jumper + floater should achieve similar things.

Again, only if you stop at that two-way interaction. After Jumper--> Slider, the lemming might well transition into a Shimmier at the end of the drop; or he might slide down up to a certain extent and then jump back off in the other direction.

This is something that even Gliders would have difficulty to pull of, because once a Glider has been assigned, you no longer have control over the points where the lemming hits the wall and turns around. Assigning Jumpers to Sliders, in contrast, allows the lemming to bounce from one wall to another or to a platform at the exact right spot more easily.

In short: It drastically reduces execution difficulty. And isn't that something we all want?

You are totally leaving out the range factor in here and the possibilities with the projectile arc itself. Also it doesn't reuire a sacrifice and cannot be activated mid-air. Again the range is the big selling point for both skills. Of course if you leave it out it gets similar.

Well, the range aspect is at the same time also what was considered the limiting factor about the Laser Blaster when it comes to design applications - and why it's so often merely used to free the crowd from below at the end.

Because the lemming is so far away from the terrain he is affecting, the changes he can make to that terrain are also usually just minor.

Going with the "weaker version of something already existing" line of argumentation, I might just as well say: Why would you chain several spears to each other to create a bridge when you could simply use a Platformer? Why throw a spear into the path of a falling lemmings to break their fall, when stoning one of those falling lemmings accomplishes the exact same thing?

And again, I can just as easily play the "simulate this with other tools" game by arguing that any range-effect skill can be simulated by using teleporters. Those can take the worker lemming wherever he needs to be, and get him there out of nowhere . That beats the reach of any ranged skill any day!

[IchoTolot]

There is no way to transition from Falling into shimmying along a ceiling without doing a workaround requiring several skills, several lemmings, and sacrificing at least one of them.

But there is still a workaround.

The big difference here is that a Jumper can hold on to a wall if he's a Climber, whereas a Glider explicitly bounces off a wall (even if he is a Climber, i.e. comparable otherwise). A Jumper can also transition into a Shimmier. Sliding down and jumping alone may have a similar result as gliding, yes - but you stopped at that two-way interaction. The three-way interactions Slider-Jumper-Climber and Slider-Jumper-Shimmier are the ones you left out - and those are things the Glider absolutely can't do: He can neither transition into a Climber nor into a Shimmier.

So now we start to throw more and more skills into the mix until at some point it may become unique to the slider. Fine, let the glider land before a wall or just below a ceiling and he can become a climber or a shimmier. Or even just use updrafts at this point.

Well, duh, the Walker can always turn around lemmings - and precisely for that reason, it's the most boring way to accomplish this! Even assigning a Blocker temporarily and having to free him later (by a different mean than a Walker!) is more creative than simply providing a Walker for that purpose. More than that, leaving "taste" and "originality" aside, the Walker is also so powerful that it can quickly cause backroutes, due to its multiple uses:

A Walker you provide just for the purpose of turning a lemming around may get abused to free a Blocker, or to cancel another skill mid-performance (Bashers / Fencers / Miners). You can't abuse a Slider to do either of those things. And the Slider's turning behaviour can also result in a drawback, like a Climber going over walls that end up killing him. The Walker is just too flexible for this comparison, because you will only assign a Walker when you actually need the lemming to turn around - you won't be faced with the challenge of the lemming turning around by himself.

Now we are not searching for ways to do a task anymore, even if we already have X ways of doing the task we need a new fancy one. Even if the new task is just the simple assigning of a new skill.

And you just focus on mostly 1 thing here: The Walker.

Then let's try one of the 1000 other things:

- Splitters
- Cloners
- Glider + wall
- Builder who hits his head
- miner hits steel
- the crowd of N lemmings consists of N-1 climbers and 1 non-climber and a wall is placed in front of them
- a platformer
- a jumper against a wall that is slightly in the air
- a stacker that is only up in time for the stacker himself
- a slight steel slope and a basher
- .......

Again, the Floater is the least creative way to make a fall survivable. Gliders are more versatile, of course - but I don't see how updrafts come into play here? Or Walkers and Cloners? How do any of the latter help a lemming get down (unless the terrain is set up specifically to do that, of course)?

Again, how is assigning a slider more creative than assigning a floater? It still gets the job done.

The latter I include just to determine the facing direction upon landing.

This isn't even one of the main arguments for the Slider, because the idea that assigning a Slider to a Climber who is currently climbing should stop him from doing that wasn't that popular. But even if this were to happen: The Jumper catapults the Climber upwards and in the opposite direction he was looking before. The Slider goes down and keeps looking in the same direction as the Climber. In other words, the two skills would lead the lemming to opposite ends of the level.

If you need to cancel a Climber below the ceiling (which is probably the most common thing, since that's when it's most crucial) and do it with a Jumper, that might just kill the lemming because it
a) takes him beyond the top edge of the level, or
b) takes him to such heights that the ensuing fall will be splat height.

Should it become possible to interrupt a Climber by assigning a Slider while climbing, this would not run the risk of catapulting the Climber beyond the ceiling, and it would also ensure a safe way down instead.

Design the level around the jump and make it save. Done.

For the direction: Jumper hits wall --> turn. Jumper doesn't hit wall --> no turn

Again, only if you stop at that two-way interaction. After Jumper--> Slider, the lemming might well transition into a Shimmier at the end of the drop; or he might slide down up to a certain extent and then jump back off in the other direction.

This is something that even Gliders would have difficulty to pull of, because once a Glider has been assigned, you no longer have control over the points where the lemming hits the wall and turns around. Assigning Jumpers to Sliders, in contrast, allows the lemming to bounce from one wall to another or to a platform at the exact right spot more easily.

In short: It drastically reduces execution difficulty. And isn't that something we all want?

And you again don't see the possibility to adapt the terrain for these kind of things. The designer has total control and can design these things to not be precise. You don't need a new skill for it.


The fact that these points even need to be discussed in this depth shows the similarity of the slider to other skills more and more. More and moe skills need to go into the slider combination chains to make them unique, other old methods are not exciting enough anymore. Even if we assume that some of these interactions are unique, that still only leave us with those few and the risk of them being rather specific is great.
We can do better than that! I don't want to 20th skill to be redundant for the most part!

Because the lemming is so far away from the terrain he is affecting, the changes he can make to that terrain are also usually just minor.

I think you did not thought enough of the possibilities here.

Let me address the points:

Why would you chain several spears to each other to create a bridge when you could simply use a Platformer?

- Make the gap narrow enough that 1 spear does the job.
- Platformers are very slow, a throw is faster.

You could even cover one part of the gap with a platformer and cover the rest with a spear as another platformer would be too slow, turns, closes the hole, .....

Why throw a spear into the path of a falling lemmings to break their fall, when stoning one of those falling lemmings accomplishes the exact same thing?

A spear must be thrown into already present terrain. That means the crowd will either hit a wall and turn or get on a platform and walk along.
Also you need to position the thrower first, getting that done is another challenge.

A stoner mostly just breaks the fall.


I am totally fine if we find a better skill than a thrower/bazooka one. It just has to be unique and providing something we currently don't have. The slider isn't doing that or isn't doing that enough.

[WillLem]

There is no way to transition from Falling into shimmying along a ceiling without doing a workaround requiring several skills, several lemmings, and sacrificing at least one of them.

But there is still a workaround.

This is a tricky one.

On one hand, we could potentially have a way to move a single lemming around an entire level by itself, unaided; I get that there is more than one way to look at this, though.

Because, on the other hand: it does make the movement skills suddenly very powerful, particularly in combination with one another, which could in turn reduce the need for finding said workarounds (which can be a very big part of the game).

Personally, I like the idea of more movement skills: we have more than enough terrain creation/destruction skills. Sure, they might be giving the game increasingly more "parkour potential", and I get why you might be against that idea. But ultimately, maybe the 20th skill should also bring with it a sense of balance.

And - level designers can still choose to limit the number of movement skills available in a given level, so we won't completely lose the need to find inventive workarounds. A lot of the original levels do just that: "sure, we could give you a blocker or some extra builders here, but we're not going to: find a workaround!"

It might be a good idea to draw up a list of the skills in their respective categories and see which list has the least skills on it (I would do that, but I'm not sure I'd be the best person to do this coz I'm not 100% sure which skills fit into which category).

Again, how is assigning a slider more creative than assigning a floater? It still gets the job done.

I think this is the crux of the matter here:

Assigning a Slider is perhaps more "creative" in the sense that more can be done with the Slider state: assigning to Jumper, transitioning to Shimmier, landing facing the wall (I think this seems to be the current assumption, anyway).

If there are two ways to get the same job done, but one of them offers even just one more possibility, which are you going to favour?

I say this as a big fan of the Floater skill, by the way; I've customised mine to have red and white umbrellas :

Why would you chain several spears to each other to create a bridge when you could simply use a Platformer?

- Make the gap narrow enough that 1 spear does the job.
- Platformers are very slow, a throw is faster.

This is a very good case for the Spear-thrower: where the Bomber is an instant destructive skill, it would be good to have an instantly constructive skill that's a) non-sacrificial, and b) big enough to instantly close a large(ish) gap. I can definitely see the potential in this idea.

I am totally fine if we find a better skill than a thrower/bazooka one. It just has to be unique and providing something we currently don't have. The slider isn't doing that or isn't doing that enough.

There might be a need to agree to disagree on this second point: I'm on the side of thinking that the Slider has way more potential than most of the other ideas currently on the table.

However, I do agree that the 20th skill should bring something totally new to the table in and of itself, and perhaps the Slider doesn't do that, specifically.

So... what haven't we thought of yet?

[namida]

Regarding the workarounds for proposed behaviours, one thing I have to say is that the more complex they get, the more they scream "backroute potential!" to me...

[Strato Incendus]

Regarding the workarounds for proposed behaviours, one thing I have to say is that the more complex they get, the more they scream "backroute potential!" to me...

Exactly! The more skills I have to provide to enable a workaround - especially when it comes to skills as powerful and backroute-prone as Walkers and Stoners, which is the case in all of my examples for substituting the Slider - the more likely this is to invite backroutes indeed.

Back to IchoTolot:

And you again don't see the possibility to adapt the terrain for these kind of things. The designer has total control and can design these things to not be precise. You don't need a new skill for it.

Of course the designer can adapt everything. But let me phrase this the other way round: The absence of the Slider forces the designer to adapt the terrain in a way he/she might not want to. If a certain skill behaviour is not possible in the first place and you keep adapting the terrain to make up for that, then at what point would we just say this is a completely different solution than intended?

- Make the gap narrow enough that 1 spear does the job.
- Platformers are very slow, a throw is faster.

It's interseting that WillLem called those two things a good case for the Spear Thrower, because both sound like horribly precise execution difficulty to me. The spear would probably be just one pixel in diameter and a couple of pixels in length. Meaning, if you want to make a gap narrow enough for just a spear to be thrown through it, it would have to be a 1-pixel gap (well, if that doesn't sound like fun). But I think you are referring to the gap the spear is supposed to lead across here. So let's say that's 12 or 16 pixels. How deep does the spear stick in the terrain it lands in? If this is just one pixel too far, there will be a gap remaining on the side from which the spear was thrown.

But I know by now that WillLem likes a good bit of execution difficulty. In turn, the points he brought up right under that quote actually refer to something different, that is non-lethality:

This is a very good case for the Spear-thrower: where the Bomber is an instant destructive skill, it would be good to have an instantly constructive skill that's a) non-sacrificial, and b) big enough to instantly close a large(ish) gap. I can definitely see the potential in this idea.

A while ago, WillLem suggested non-lethal versions of both the Bomber (the Lightsaberer) and the Stoner (don't remember the name of that one). This would essentially be the latter, but wider than the Stoner, more comparable to the Lix cuber, which creates an entire block, rather than just a narrow piece of terrain in the shape of a Lix. The added difference would be that it can work at a distance, as you said.



Still, the question remains: How do you get a spear to span across two chunks of terrain of equal height (like a Platformer bridge)? The spear would have to be thrown over the lemming's shoulder, i.e. from a higher altitude than the lemming's feet. Does that mean it always requires an additional Builder or Jumper to get on top of a "bridge" created by the Spear Thrower in the first place?

That would mean that the core application of the Spear Thrower would only be good in conjunction with another skill, whereas the Slider in its core application is of similar power as the Floater, and then some.

What I actually find a much more interesting case in favour of the Spear Thrower is this:

A spear must be thrown into already present terrain. That means the crowd will either hit a wall and turn or get on a platform and walk along.
Also you need to position the thrower first, getting that done is another challenge.

A stoner mostly just breaks the fall.

This "existing terrain" part is an interesting limitation compared to the oftentimes broken Stoner.

However, I'm generally a bit surprised about your several remarks here that almost seem to imply you like the Spear Thrower for... execution difficulty?

- Make the gap narrow enough that 1 spear does the job.
- Platformers are very slow, a throw is faster.

[. . .]

Also you need to position the thrower first, getting that done is another challenge.

Those things (speed-based solutions and proper positioning) are precisely my main objection against all the projectile skills from Lemmings 2: The Tribes! The Thrower, the Spear Thrower, the Bazooker, the Mortar, and of course the Archer (Sports 10, remember ), even thought that latter one has fortunately already been ruled out.

The Laser Blaser at least creates a constant beam that is much easier to navigate and predict than a loose projectile.

Of course, as you said, we will have skill shadows for this in the end. But if the presence of skill shadows were an excuse for deliberately increasing execution difficulty, the NeoLemmix community wouldn't be so adamant about continuing to criticise execution difficulty in general.

Personally, I like the idea of more movement skills: we have more than enough terrain creation/destruction skills. Sure, they might be giving the game increasingly more "parkour potential", and I get why you might be against that idea. But ultimately, maybe the 20th skill should also bring with it a sense of balance.

And - level designers can still choose to limit the number of movement skills available in a given level, so we won't completely lose the need to find inventive workarounds. A lot of the original levels do just that: "sure, we could give you a blocker or some extra builders here, but we're not going to: find a workaround!"

An interesting new perspective! I admit that for the longest time, I was so keen on getting the balance between constructive and destructive skills right that I had completely forgotten about the fact that "movement skills" might establish themselves as a separate third category. While there is a certain overlap between movement skills and athletic skills (and a standard permanent Slider would also fall into that category), the Jumper, Shimmier, Walker, and technically also the Cloner show that movement skills don't need to be restricted to permanent applications.

Assigning a Slider is perhaps more "creative" in the sense that more can be done with the Slider state: assigning to Jumper, transitioning to Shimmier, landing facing the wall (I think this seems to be the current assumption, anyway).

If there are two ways to get the same job done, but one of them offers even just one more possibility, which are you going to favour?

This is precisely why in the "suggest your own 10-skill panel" thread ("Defining the new classic 10 skills" was kind of re-purposed to that recently), I dropped the Floater in favour of the Glider - because the Glider can accomplish the same thing as a Floater (when it comes to saving a lemming from a single lethal drop) if you just assign it late enough.

A Glider can only "backfire" due to its diagonal trajectory once it has already been assigned, by taking a lemming too far and leaving the player no option to delay the opening of the parachute - but then again, the same can be said for the Floater: If you need to survive a straight drop first, and at the next drop, there is a gap or water there so that you would need a Glider instead, the Floater can blow up in the player's face just as much as the Glider can.

In general, I'd even argue that the better a skill gets one specific job done - and only that job - the less puzzle potential it has. Namely, the Floater, the Disarmer, and possibly the Swimmer. But the Swimmer still has the most puzzle potential of these three, and even that skill has been called obsolete by Proxima!

So instead of providing these powerful skills to the player that get the job done too easily - like e.g. also the Walker gets the job of turning a lemming around done too easily - the designer can give the player something less powerful and, as WillLem said, tell them to "find a workaround!"

Basically, the only difference is:
- IchoTolot suggests to use workarounds with other skills to replace the Slider
- I suggest using the Slider to create workarounds that can replace Floaters and Gliders

But since I think we established that the number of different things you can do with the Floater is more limited, my argument is that the Floater is the one more worthy of being "replaced" by other skills.

(And no, of course this does not mean "cull the Floater from the game", but simply "maybe level designers should use it less frequently". I apply the same logic to using Stackers more frequently than Blockers, at least when it comes to crowd control. Blockers can have very advanced uses, but that's usually in levels where the crowd can't be contained at all, and the Blocker has to be freed again in the end.)