[DISC][PLAYER] The final new skill

[IchoTolot]

Can we agree that no skill should result in the deaths of non-zombie lemmings...? It doesn't strike me as much of a "skill" if it's indiscriminatorily lethal - even bombers don't kill other lemmings.

Either everything dies or nothing dies. I will strongly object any special case variant. It just adds more extra rules players have to learn to an already complicated game!

And yes, the possible bomber inconsistency points in the direction that nothing should die.

[DireKrow]

The stoner specifically kills the user and not other nearby lemmings though. The bomber also does this. Sacrificial skills and skills which kill other lemmings are very different things, imo. I'm not completely sold on lemmings killing other lemmings being a good thing. That said...

Making the laser lethal serves as an interesting way to differentiate it from the fencer, however I think it greatly limits its use for freeing crowds from below. That's one of its main use cases, especially in L2, and would be in NL too due to its steeper angle compared to the fencer. Having to design or play around it so you could free the crowd without killing them feels... fiddly and not fun.

[GigaLem]

If everyone is indeed rather willing to accept the Laser Blaster

The L2 upwards laser blaster is weak. Anything interesting with the upwards blaster would get too fiddly.

Instead, combine the Laser Blaster with the desire for the tunneler. Have the Laser Blaster shoot forward at a steep angle:



In front of a wall, it's a tunneler.

It is ranged in that it can shoot over chasms.

It is still mostly vertical in spirit.

-- Simon

Why didn't I think of that? I approve of this approach!

[Dullstar]

First, in regards to the slider: to be honest, I'm starting to warm up to the idea - I do think it has potential, particularly if it's given synergy with the shimmier. I can't deny that I use the shimmier a lot and would almost certainly find a use for it. My only real concern with it is that accepting it would require giving up the laser blaster, mortar, or spear-thrower (or similar skills). Then again, the way I usually design levels, the slider would almost certainly see the most use out of the proposed options - I'm not sure I have a lot of level ideas that need a laser blaster, mortar, or spear-thrower. It would also nicely sidestep the whole "should the skill kill lemmings?" argument, as the answer is almost certainly "no." Honestly, the more I think about it, the more it's becoming my favorite idea. I withdraw all previous opposition to the slider, under the condition that the slider would be able to transition to a shimmier.

Plus, what with the lemming-killing discussion going on, the worst plausible implementation I can think of for the slider (i.e. a floater that requires a wall with no skill synergies) would just result in a skill I wouldn't find very useful, rather than a skill I would hate having to deal with.



I'm okay with sacrificial skills such as the bomber or stoner. I must agree with WillLem and DireKrow that the new skill should not be indiscriminately lethal to other lemmings. No current skill does this, and I think it wouldn't be fun to use, neither as a designer nor as a player, as the lethality, particularly if it can kill multiple lemmings at the same time, is something that must be worked around in ways that I don't imagine would be particularly fun.

As a player, it's difficult to know if you're doing well on lemming count, because it's hard to plan for how many lemmings are going to die from each use of the skill. Many levels would be created with tight death limits that would require a lot of precision to ensure the skill doesn't kill too many lemmings.

As a designer, you'll have to account for the player losing fewer lemmings than you thought were possible, which would introduce backroutes if a clever player manages to find ways to minimize the death count that you hadn't thought of (as they would now be free to lose more lemmings in another part of the level). Because of this, designers would likely have three options, none of which are great: first, they can create a very restrictive design that requires the player to carefully optimize the skill placement such that the minimum number of lemmings die (note that if the skill doesn't go off instantly - as in stackers vs. stoners, not timed vs. instant bombers - this would be very difficult to forecast). Second, they could make sure to always provide a clear shot that avoids killing any lemmings (this is probably the best option), but this defeats the whole purpose of having the skill be lethal in the first place. Third, they could avoid having any other areas in the level where lemmings can die, which limits the number of options the designer has.

If you instead limit the skill to only kill one lemming (not counting sacrificial skills), this would logically require that the skill gets interrupted. Otherwise, why would the first lemming to cross into a laser blaster die, but not the second? Why would a spear thrower impale the first lemming to intercept the spear, but not the second?

I also agree with the consistency argument: currently, zombies are not immune to anything that regular lemmings aren't (well, except other zombies, but that's because they're already zombies), nor are regular lemmings immune to anything that zombies are not. I don't think this should be changed. I think maybe the best option for getting rid of zombies but not other lemmings would be some sort of dezombification object.

Thus, the new skill should kill neither regular lemmings, nor zombies.



For the record, I generally don't use zombies because I find the feature difficult to design for. I don't think having a skill to kill zombies would make this any easier, because I'd still have to account for the player finding ways to avoid killing the zombie and thus having an extra, potentially very powerful skill to use somewhere else.

[IchoTolot]

I only thing I see for the slider side currently is the statement "I have level/combination ideas" that comes up from a few people again and again.

Even if we ignore the fact that in most cases the slider can be substituted by already existent skills it still has massive problems gamedesign wise in the current state of NL:

- If you like it or not, it is yet another movement skill on top of the pile. We already have way more than enough!

- Even worse when it's yet another permanent skill! We are already overloaded with them and currently got 5 --> That would mean a 30% of them would be permanent! Simon explained it quite good:

Permanents introduce state that is hard to see, and come with lots of special interaction rules. Have too many permanents, they'll get in each other's scope, and thus the need for rules grows quadratically.

And permanents have a higher chance to turn out the weakest in hindsight. The floater is the weakest skill in Lemmings 1. Runner and floater are the two weakest skills in Lix. The disarmer is the weakest skill in NL.

- As Simon already explained, it overrides normal rules. "The skill must bring a ton of design goodness to overcome this massive burden" is not given.

- With all the combinations, it is a ton of extra rules the player has to learn which overcomplicate the game even further.


These points stand despite personal preferences and no matter that you already have level ideas for it. Again, I already showed that most of these ideas can be substituted. "I have many ideas in my head" just is not enough to add something as this can be said about almost everything.


Myself, I am willing to support both types of ranged projectile skills and the angled laser blaser Simon has proposed.

[WillLem]

I do not think the Slider should be a permanent skill: it would be far better as a single-use skill that could be used to temporarily cancel a Climber.

That said, I agree with Icho that maybe there are a few too many movement skills and the chance to introduce another constructive/destructive skill is worth considering.

That said, the Slider is probably still top of my list.

Ultimately, whatever skills are proposed, I am strongly against the idea of anything that kills unassigned lemmings. Dullstar's reasoning is pretty much the same as my own on this one.

[namida]

Personally, I'm very convinced that we don't want a skill specifically just to kill zombies. And following on from this, killing as a general side effect, I indeed think this needs to be a general "all lemmings including but not limited to zombies" based on reading discussions so far.

I'm also fairly sure even this latter idea isn't too popular, but I've put up a poll to make sure. If the results fall the way I'm expecting, we can rule out that idea now.

[Proxima]

I voted for the middle option, but I don't think it's a good question. Clearly, it depends on what the skill is. The Mortar (which is still my second favourite of the proposed skills) would be improved by lethality as a balancing measure; the Hookshotter, Spear Thrower and Laser Blaster could have lethality but it's not necessarily an improvement, so it may be better to leave out lethality for simplicity. I certainly don't agree with the ideological principle that having a lethal skill is a bad thing in itself. Many puzzles in the game require losing a few lemmings and require the player to work out where they need to make acceptable sacrifices; that is a deep part of the game and isn't going to go away.

[Strato Incendus]

"I have many ideas in my head" just is not enough to add something as this can be said about almost everything.

Actually, that is a very good argument for a skill. Because what's the point of a skill being introduced if people don't have a sufficient number of level ideas to warrant the inclusion of that skill?

Too limited use has always been Nepster's main argument for culling stuff. So if a skill gives level designers tons of ideas to work with, and already does so long prior to their introduction, that's a very strong mark in their favour! Why should namida put in the effort otherwise if a skill is barely going to be used?

And as kieran has stated about the Laser Blaster, having tons of ideas for one skill is absolutely NOT something you can say about any skill and simply take for granted. He stated he really had to actively go out of his way to make the Laser Blaster worthwhile.

The diagonal Laser Blaster, in comparison, sounds like a nice idea in principle. Though I would have to make up my mind about its potential similarity to the Fencer, which I already criticised when it came to a steep diagonal Tunneler. I would definitely take a diagonal Laser Blaster over a Mortar any day though!

For example, it would certainly be easier to build into a diagonal Laser-Blaster shaft in a ceiling, rather than having to use several vertical Laser Blasters to make enough space first...



Regarding lethality, the fact that we don't have knockback in NeoLemmix and that this behaviour could be replaced with lethality is a fair point I hadn't thought of. Then again, the Mortar's / Bazooker's knockback is one of the main things I hate about it.

So while I would find only limited use for those skills to begin with, having them without knockback would at least make them tolerable.
Having them with knockback would only make them slightly less annoying than in L2, because at least we'd still have skill shadows (but most likely no skill shadows predicting how the knockback would affect other lemmings; only a skill shadow for the projectile itself...).
Having the knockback replaced with lethality would make me hate the skill even more than in L2. Because knockback at least only kills lemmings sometimes, and accidentally so, by flinging them over a wall or beyond the level edges. Built-in lethality would always kill them when applied anywhere close to a crowd. It would also destroy any possibility of a remotely Laser-Blaster-like application of freeing crowds from below. Thus, a lethal Mortar is a skill I would most likely never use on any level that doesn't involve a massive workaround.

So there you have the opposite case of what you criticse about the Slider: A skill that would add a bunch of completely new stuff - but which would also be so far out there that a lot of people would never put it to use.


Regarding Simon's criticism:

First of all, since you exclude the Climber from your criticism of permanent skills because of its "ingenuity", I want to remind you that the Slider is in many ways a downward Climber, more so than a Floater surrogate. Thus, a lot of the redeeming qualities you assign to the Climber would also apply to the Slider. When you say "there's nothing like the Climber", well, actually, the Slider probably comes closer than any other skill.

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".

The Slider's behaviour is completely predictable when planning a level in advance. It's just that people obviously aren't as used to it yet as they are to the Climber. But just like you need to factor in a Climber going over walls when you plan a level solution, you'll have to do the same for the Slider. This will take some time to adapt, and even our most adept level solvers will have to learn something new.

Thus, criticising a skill for making mental pathfinding more difficult to me sounds an awful lot like "I don't like this skill because it would require me to think too much"... which would be antithetical to the idea of playing a puzzle game in the first place.

"Mental pathfinding" can be broken by many things that are already well-established in NeoLemmix:
- Splitters send lemmings left and right successively, so you have to count in your head how many lemmings will pass through a Splitter so that the one you currently care about will come out facing the right direction. This "counting" isn't that different from what the Slider would require.
- Similarly, teleporters and receivers can be used to turn lemmings as well.
- Gliders can bounce off walls several times during a drop, and it's hard to predict their exact trajectory until you see them fall.

I do not think the Slider should be a permanent skill: it would be far better as a single-use skill that could be used to temporarily cancel a Climber.

This used to be a valid request prior to the introduction of the Jumper, since it wasn't possible to cancel a Climber by assigning a Walker. But now that we have wall jumping as a way to get a Climber off a wall - which is a distinctive advantage over Lemmings 2: The Tribes where Climbers can't actually jump off a wall! - having the Slider as a non-permanent skill just for this purpose seems redundant.

Especially since it would come at the cost of the repeated turning behaviour that makes the L2 Slider so useful and challenging at the same time.

As discussed in the Slider physics thread, when Sliders and Climbers overlap in L2, the Climber takes precedent. So a permanent Slider-Climber jumping towards a wall will always climb, but you can still release him again by assigning a Jumper.

[Dullstar]

Actually, that is a very good argument for a skill. Because what's the point of a skill being introduced if people don't have a sufficient number of level ideas to warrant the inclusion of that skill?

Too limited use has always been Nepster's main argument for culling stuff. So if a skill gives level designers tons of ideas to work with, and already does so long prior to their introduction, that's a very strong mark in their favour! Why should namida put in the effort otherwise if a skill is barely going to be used?

I have to agree with this. What I'm trying to consider here is, "If I get this skill, what am I going to do with it?" If we were, hypothetically, to get all four of the Slider, Laser Blaster, Mortar, and Spear Thrower, because of how I usually design levels, it's almost certain that I would use the Slider the most.

The lethality argument did give me a push to reconsider the existing proposals (and therefore change my mind about the Slider), but even if we decide on a nonlethal skill (which is looking quite likely at this point; it doesn't look very popular based on the poll results so far), it doesn't change the fact that I have the most ideas about how to use the Slider.

[namida]

I voted for the middle option, but I don't think it's a good question. Clearly, it depends on what the skill is. The Mortar (which is still my second favourite of the proposed skills) would be improved by lethality as a balancing measure; the Hookshotter, Spear Thrower and Laser Blaster could have lethality but it's not necessarily an improvement, so it may be better to leave out lethality for simplicity. I certainly don't agree with the ideological principle that having a lethal skill is a bad thing in itself. Many puzzles in the game require losing a few lemmings and require the player to work out where they need to make acceptable sacrifices; that is a deep part of the game and isn't going to go away.

Then the middle option is right for what I'm trying to gauge here. What it comes down to is that I'm seeing a few people say "skills killing lemmings other than the user shouldn't happen, period" - I'm trying to gauge whether this is a common opinion, or just one that a few people are vocal about (but it seems it is quite common). If so, then we can categorically rule out any such effect, for any skill. If not, any specific case would still be considered on its individual merits; it wouldn't become a "we're definitely getting a fatal skill".

I make a point of including neutral options, where suitable, because there are people who don't know or don't care, or are open to both possibilities. I feel it's important that someone who's in the middle can express this in these polls, rather than having to think "I'm leaning slightly more towards one answer than the other" and vote accordingly, which ultimately creates the appearance of more support / dissent (as applicable) than there really is.

[Proxima]

Too limited use has always been Nepster's main argument for culling stuff. So if a skill gives level designers tons of ideas to work with, and already does so long prior to their introduction, that's a very strong mark in their favour! Why should namida put in the effort otherwise if a skill is barely going to be used?

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.

For one thing, it's not even accurate; there have only been two occasions in NL's history when features have been culled, and Nepster was only in charge of one of them. I know you happened to join the forum at that time and that has coloured your perception; but Nepster promised that once new-formats was out, things would stabilise, there would be no more culls, and that is exactly what has happened.

For another, NL has continued to evolve, and now is even more firm about its philosophy of being a puzzle game that doesn't want to be associated with the execution difficulty of original Lemmings. Even if Nepster hadn't culled radiation and slowfreeze, it seems pretty certain that by now, namida would have done so at some point. (And finally -- the culls were done after a forum discussion, so it's not fair to blame Nepster alone. We, as a community, agreed to remove those features, just as earlier we agreed to remove gimmicks.)

[IchoTolot]

Actually, that is a very good argument for a skill. Because what's the point of a skill being introduced if people don't have a sufficient number of level ideas to warrant the inclusion of that skill?

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 mostly 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.

Too limited use has always been Nepster's main argument for culling stuff. So if a skill gives level designers tons of ideas to work with, and already does so long prior to their introduction, that's a very strong mark in their favour! Why should namida put in the effort otherwise if a skill is barely going to be used?

I have to say it: Nepster was totally right with his culling! And his current abscense is certainly felt! We get more and more careless in terms of adding gimmicky stuff and we get in very dangerous territory with all of the recent and planned additions! Today I think I should have helped and supported him more in his actions, we lost our counterweight to the adding.
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.

Dont believe me? We already have such a case right here: kaywhyn.

I honestly thought I would never get myself into Neolemmix and would just stuck to Lemmini and Superlemmini, but surprisingly it's not as bad as I thought. I think the biggest turnoff for me was the huge amount of features in Neolemmix, which was why it took me at least 5 years after I first used Lemmini.

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!

That's why I argue so hard against a slider that mostly runs on the argument "I have many ideas in my head" and those ideas are for the most part easily replicated with the current methods or very specific. The skill also has a ton of extra rules that come with it.
I rather take a fire and forget skill like the projectile ones or the laser blaster there that may lead to less levels from you, but a more easy to understand skill!

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".

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

I want to remind you that the Slider is in many ways a downward Climber, more so than a Floater surrogate.

Lemmings can fall down naturally, but cannot naturraly go up.

Thus, criticising a skill for making mental pathfinding more difficult to me sounds an awful lot like "I don't like this skill because it would require me to think too much"... which would be antithetical to the idea of playing a puzzle game in the first place.

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

[namida]

Too limited use has always been Nepster's main argument for culling stuff. So if a skill gives level designers tons of ideas to work with, and already does so long prior to their introduction, that's a very strong mark in their favour! Why should namida put in the effort otherwise if a skill is barely going to be used?

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.

For one thing, it's not even accurate; there have only been two occasions in NL's history when features have been culled, and Nepster was only in charge of one of them. I know you happened to join the forum at that time and that has coloured your perception; but Nepster promised that once new-formats was out, things would stabilise, there would be no more culls, and that is exactly what has happened.

For another, NL has continued to evolve, and now is even more firm about its philosophy of being a puzzle game that doesn't want to be associated with the execution difficulty of original Lemmings. Even if Nepster hadn't culled radiation and slowfreeze, it seems pretty certain that by now, namida would have done so at some point. (And finally -- the culls were done after a forum discussion, so it's not fair to blame Nepster alone. We, as a community, agreed to remove those features, just as earlier we agreed to remove gimmicks.)

I can definitely say that I would have culled most of the stuff Nepster did sooner or later, too. The biggest exception, I've already reverted (the antisplat pads). Wrap was culled by me, not by Nepster, and I've always said I'd be willing to look at bringing it back in a less-gimmicky, more-fair form. The only other one that I'm wanting to bring back is the no-effect triggered animations, and even that, I do see where Nepster was coming from. (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 definitely spoke against some of Nepster's culls at the time, but in hindsight, they were the right move, and I almost certianly would have come around to it sooner or later. This in turn would have meant an entire extra round of culls.

Likewise, as much as I criticize some of the coding of his editor, it's still a huge improvement over the old one's code, and I'm definitely very glad we have it.

[geoo]

Reading (and misunderstanding) the proposition of the creator gave me a different idea for a very versatile skill that could in particular increase the value of any existing movement skills:
The trailer/tracer: Once assigned, for a fixed amount of time (e.g. 2 seconds) it would, each frame, place a small block of terrain (say 4x4 pixels) at its current position (above its feet). In other words, it would trace out the trajectory of the lemming with a terrain trail for 2 seconds.
Examples:
- with a walking lemming, it would simply elevate the floor by 4 pixels
- with a jumper, it would create a bridge between the jump starting point and its destination
- with a hang glider, it would make a slope that lemmings can walk up or down
- with a faller or floater, it would create a wall that can be climbed
- with a shimmier, it would create a platform below the ceiling (not sure how useful that is...)
- walking over a shallow digger hole that's currently being dug, it could plug up the digger's hole.
- with a swimmer it could close up a water gap

I guess it would make the stoner somewhat redundant, though it would bring a lot of new things to the table to be a valuable addition regardless. (Also see discussion below.)
Furthermore a weaker skill is not entirely useless, sometimes the levels designer might want to give the player a weaker skill to prevent alternative solutions.

The slider overrides normal rules at some future time: The next/every time the lem would fall, the lem slides instead. This breaks mental pathfinding. The skill must bring a ton of design goodness to overcome this massive burden.

I consider this a boon rather than a burden for the slider. Having the slider turn always around was core to many puzzles in QFK, and I found it to be quite refreshing.
That said, it is true that the glider can provide this feature with appropriate terrain design (i.e. a wall that the glider bumps into and turns around), and in that sense makes the slider a weaker addition to NL than it is in L2. It still has the link-up with the shimmier going for it which you can't replicate with any other skill, but maybe that's not enough.

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.

Simon's proposition of the angled laser blaster seems definitely better than either of those. Fast upward gain seems to be something new, and at the same time with a sufficient blasting range it could emulate the ability to make dents in remote walls or ceilings of projectile destructive skills without having the liability of their rather awkward projectile arc.
I guess like projectiles it could be nerfed by making the laser beam lethal; at the same time it poses the risk of making certain things possible but fiddly, e.g. timing the blast into terrain populated by lemmings in such a way that no-one gets hurt, something that a level designer cannot rely on for backroute prevention, but at the same time won't want the player to require doing.

With regards to this making the fencer redundant: As before, I don't think that should be an argument against a skill if it brings enough new things to the table. It might just mean that the fencer shouldn't have been in the game in the first place; in many instances a basher does the job just as well too.

Permanents introduce state that is hard to see, and come with lots of special interaction rules. Have too many permanents, they'll get in each other's scope, and thus the need for rules grows quadratically.

And permanents have a higher chance to turn out the weakest in hindsight. The floater is the weakest skill in Lemmings 1. Runner and floater are the two weakest skills in Lix. The disarmer is the weakest skill in NL.

Just because some engines made bad choices in which permanent skills they chose doesn't mean that permanents generally make bad choices. The climber is one of the best skills. I rather think that their limitation is that they basically have to be movement skills, so you cannot have too many very unique ones of those. So if you do have many of them it's very likely that some of them suck or are redundant. But that just means that they need to be chosen wisely. One unique thing they bring to the table is that they allow you do to multiple things with a single assignment, which I think is always a good feature to have in a level. The floater is weak because you need to put a lot of effort to make use of it more than once. The runner is weak because it doesn't do anything (in L2 it would hop over small gaps, setting it apart from the rest of the crowd at least). The disarmer and swimmer are weak because their use cases are so very specific. I'm pretty sure if there'd been a lengthy discussion like now, the runner wouldn't be in Lix and the swimmer wouldn't be in NL.

The climber, glider, slider and L2 runner all bring good features to the table with a lemming having that skill easily employing its feature multiple times in a level. On their own they are great, but with the jumper in the game the L2 runner becomes less unique, and similarly with the glider in the game the slider becomes less unique. It always depends on the context. Now if a new skill is more versatile but makes another one redundant, that's more a point saying the old one shouldn't have been there in the first place rather than a point against the new skill. But with things being the way they are and skill cullings being quite unlikely, in practice it might make the new skill a less attractive addition even if it is a good one.