[DISC][PLAYER] The final new skill

[Proxima]

I made my point, though: variety is a good thing. Even if you don't like a particular kind of level, chances are someone else will. A pack containing something for everyone is more likely to attract more people.

This whole conversation is off the topic of "NL's 20th skill", but I feel obliged to point out that this isn't necessarily true. People have such divergent tastes that if you try to cater to everyone, the result could be pleasing no-one. For instance, your Level 3, "A level where the objective is to get all of the lemmings through a teleporter", is setting off warning bells in my mind -- it could be done well, for example if getting to the teleporter is the main puzzle and once you're there, things are set up nicely to let everyone in. But if I have a tightly packed bunch of lemmings and have to space them out so they will all go through a teleporter, and it's unforgiving in that any lemming who walks past the teleporter will die, then you've lowered my expectations of the whole pack. And too many levels like that, or one level that's especially bad, and it doesn't matter how good the rest are, I probably won't experience them because I've already put this down and am playing another pack instead.

* * *

Back on topic. I like the jet dasher very much, although not the name -- maybe Surfboarder? It covers the main use cases of the Spear Thrower and Hookshotter without the Spear Thrower's fiddliness, and has a variety of uses without seeming overpowered. My biggest worry is that in some of the cases where you need the movement rather than the terrain, it will seem like just a reskinned Jumper (although it probably goes further than a Jumper, and, like the Hookshotter, it can go straight forward through complex terrain in a way that the Jumper cannot).

I still like the Slider a bit more -- it is a movement skill, but it's different from any we have, and I'd love to get the chance to play around with it. However, all the remaining candidates are very close to each other in my eyes, so I really wish we weren't limited to only choosing one.

[IchoTolot]

My biggest worry is that in some of the cases where you need the movement rather than the terrain, it will seem like just a reskinned Jumper

That's why it does not gain height (doesn't hit his head) and instead gains more width. It will be more effective in getting away from a crowd, but it can't reach higher levels like a jumper or be assigned to climbers.

[WillLem]

People have such divergent tastes that if you try to cater to everyone, the result could be pleasing no-one.

Or, if it's a high quality pack, it could please everyone. I think I've moved on from thinking "variety packs are necessarily good" to thinking "whatever the content/genre of the pack, it needs to be of high quality".

For instance, your Level 3, "A level where the objective is to get all of the lemmings through a teleporter", is setting off warning bells in my mind -- it could be done well... or one level that's especially bad, and it doesn't matter how good the rest are, I probably won't experience them because I've already put this down and am playing another pack instead.

Exactly: it depends on the quality of the level. I think I realise that now. As much as I go on about liking the idea of SuperLemming levels, hidden objects, etc: if it's done badly or tastelessly I'll be the first person to stop playing it, I assure you! If it's done well though, I'd likely see it as a standout level in a standout pack.

But yeah, back on topic...

* * *

I still like the Slider a bit more

Me too, unless the surfboard is also a destructive item with a countdown timer. That would probably edge it into first place for me!

However, all the remaining candidates are very close to each other in my eyes, so I really wish we weren't limited to only choosing one.

Agreed: maybe if there's equal consensus on the Slider and a ranged contruction/destruction skill (I'm now thinking the Jet Dasher/Surfboarder is clearly the best of these), we could get both...?

[Proxima]

Agreed: maybe if there's equal consensus on the Slider and a ranged contruction/destruction skill (I'm now thinking the Jet Dasher/Surfboarder is clearly the best of these), we could get both...?

Well, the "jetboarder" (let's call it that for now) doesn't do destruction, so it doesn't hit all bases unless that's added as part of it (as you proposed). But that seems very artificial; if one of the main use cases is to create terrain, wouldn't the countdown timer undo that by destroying the terrain you just created? That would lead to fiddly levels where you have to use the terrain while it's still in existence. But maybe I've misunderstood.

In any case, I think the jetboarder is a very solid option as it stands, and adding more bells and whistles might undermine it. So I'd much rather have destruction as a separate skill -- I'd be extremely happy if the eventual outcome is "Slider, Jetboarder, and slanted Laser Blaster all get added". Of course, namida has said he only wants to add one and that's fair enough, but maybe someone else will come along and continue work on NL after namida is finished

[namida]

Something I've mentioned on Discord, but should mention here too especially in light of some ongoing debates:

I don't expect that a decision between the strong contenders will be made primarily by popular vote. A vote might be used to break ties, and/or to perhaps slightly narrow down the field initially; but primarily, I foresee deciding between them based on giving consideration firstly to what kind of puzzles can be made using them, and secondly based on how effectively they can be substituted with existing features / other suggestions - "effectively" here being primarily concerned with the raw physics, but not completely disregarding the questions of "will levels need to look messy" and/or "does the alternative make the solution less well-hidden".

This could even mean that, if none really manage to hold water, they might all get rejected and we don't get any new skill - or that we might go back to the drawing board and look for new ideas / reconsider earlier-rejected ideas.

[WillLem]

if one of the main use cases is to create terrain, wouldn't the countdown timer undo that by destroying the terrain you just created? That would lead to fiddly levels where you have to use the terrain while it's still in existence.

It would essentially allow the jetboarding lemming to gain a temporary platform which would then explode, leaving a bomber-shaped hole, whilst the lemming would simply fall. Or, they'd have the length of the countdown timer to interact with the wall by climbing/bashing/mining/fencing/building away from it, etc.

It basically provides the option for a non-lethal ranged bomber as well as all of its other potential benefits. Maybe this idea does mean that it'd be trying to do too much, and I can't see anything that adds this type of need-to-perform-actions-quickly being very popular, so maybe it's not the best idea.

I think, again, I'm just looking for opportunities to a) have a ranged construction/destruction skill be one and the same skill, and b) have the option to replace bombers with something non-lethal.

I'd much rather have destruction as a separate skill -- I'd be extremely happy if the eventual outcome is "Slider, Jetboarder, and slanted Laser Blaster all get added"

What was the argument for the slanted-Laser-Blaster idea again? I don't see how it's any different from a Fencer...

[Proxima]

What was the argument for the slanted-Laser-Blaster idea again? I don't see how it's any different from a Fencer...

Firstly, it's steeper. Simon's proposal is 2 pixels up for 1 across (compared to the fencer's 1 up for 2 across), but it could be even steeper than this. That makes it more akin to a reverse digger, paralleling the fencer being a reverse miner. Sometimes you need a way to get lemmings down from high above, or create a tunnel to get the worker lemming up.

Secondly, the laser blaster goes through air as well as terrain. It can reach places that are completely out of reach for a fencer or the proposed tunneller. One example is to make a dent in a wall, like making a bomber crater from a distance; it wouldn't be bomber shaped, but it would make a dent that would serve a similar purpose of allowing a climber to stop halfway up a wall. (It would also synergise well with the slider, which makes it more of a shame we can't have both.) Another example is to make a dent in a ceiling, to stop shimmiers in a desired location.

[Dullstar]

If it were up to me, I'd want all of the strongest contenders to be implemented. I don't think namida wants to do that, however, and it is ultimately up to him. I think the fact that this carries the implication that the new skill will be the last new one ever is maybe causing people to get a little heated about their favorites since there's now somewhat of mentality that it's now or never for everyone's desired new skills. When the Shimmier got implemented in favor of the Jumper, there was still an understanding that this didn't mean there would never be a Jumper in NeoLemmix; just that the Shimmier would come first.



I do think Icho has a point about complexity, even if I disagree that the Slider would contribute to this moreso than any other skill. I don't feel the problem lies with the game itself, but rather how new players are introduced to it. The Introduction Pack helps, but we still need to provide a better transition from the Introduction Pack into other level packs, and to make sure players have room to play around with the new stuff.

I think we could remedy this by taking two major steps (in no particular order): the first would be a community effort at making a sort of playground pack like the original game's Fun levels (though we would, of course, need to be careful to make sure it doesn't become like the Tame levels in OhNo). This wouldn't be intended as a replacement for the Introduction Pack that IchoTolot has put so much effort into (I'd like to add that I believe it is a significant improvement over the old-formats introduction pack, which I get the impression was targeted at experienced vanilla Lemmix users); rather, it would be intended to be used alongside the introduction pack. Players would be able to experiment with the skills and objects in a relatively safe environment that gives them plenty of tools to work with. I seem to recall WillLem mentioned this concept helped him learn the new skills in the New Skills only challenge with the original game.

The second is to make more easy puzzle packs besides just the introduction pack. There is a lot of truth to this old joke I saw on here a while back:

Code Select Expand

Easier Levels <------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> Harder Levels
                 Fun Tricky Taxing Mayhem                                                                                         Easy Custom Level

I think this might also account for some (probably not all) of the pushback to the NeoLemmix philosophy we've been seeing as of late: if you're not good at solving these "Easy Custom Levels" there really isn't much content out there for you. The execution focus on the original game left some room for relatively straightforward levels that required a little effort to pull off, and I don't think it feels all that good for new players to start up a pack, play through the first few levels, and then hit a wall with the puzzles. The problem isn't that we've removed the execution aspects, but that we haven't really done a great job of easing people into the sorts of harder puzzles that removing the execution focus has allowed us to create.

[Strato Incendus]

My opinion on the whole parkour thing is - levels shouldn't be deriving their difficulty from finnicky execution of such parts. However, I don't see anything wrong with them simply being options to get a lemming places. The challenge simply needs to come from figuring out that route, not from executing it.

I guess this might be somewhere that NL and Lix differ a bit in philosophy - both agree that the puzzle, not the execution, should be the difficulty; but Lix's ideal philosophy (with some non-conforming elements retained due to tradition / existing content) seems to be "the puzzle is manipulating the terrain, the lixes are a tool for doing so", whereas NeoLemmix's is "the puzzle is manipulating the lemmings, altering the terrain is one thing that can be achieved via this". Obviously, both of these are oversimplifications, but I do get the feeling there's a slight divide along these lines.

Thanks for pointing out this minor difference between NeoLemmix and Lix philosophy, namida! I wasn't aware of that!

Indeed, I'm completely on board with your stance as the creator of NeoLemmix: Parkour shouldn't be for execution difficulty (well, nothing in NeoLemmix should be, to be fair), and I haven't been using it this way. It's simply more rewarding somehow - I can't really put my finger on why - to have a pioneer bash out the crowd from the other side than from the same side. Different paths for different lemmings - and the more parkour-y the pioneer's path gets, the easier it is to enforce him taking a different route than the crowd.

Without much use of permanent skills, the only way to achieve this "different paths" scenario is by using different crowds of lemmings. Or teleporters. But they can technically also be considered parkour, because they can put lemmings in a bunch of different places which they could never reach on their own, not even with permanent skills.

It would essentially allow the jetboarding lemming to gain a temporary platform which would then explode, leaving a bomber-shaped hole

Well, you've already seen my Harpooner suggestion which would do the same - constructive skill and destructive skill in one. I have now opened a separate thread for that. It's officially no longer a joke suggestion, after all.

That said, I do prefer the "unaimed-Roper" option of that skill, i.e. a Spear Thrower with a rope attached to it. So if it came to that skill, I'd actually be one the same side as IchoTolot!

Firstly, it's steeper. Simon's proposal is 2 pixels up for 1 across (compared to the fencer's 1 up for 2 across), but it could be even steeper than this. That makes it more akin to a reverse digger, paralleling the fencer being a reverse miner. Sometimes you need a way to get lemmings down from high above, or create a tunnel to get the worker lemming up.

Secondly, the laser blaster goes through air as well as terrain. It can reach places that are completely out of reach for a fencer or the proposed tunneller. One example is to make a dent in a wall, like making a bomber crater from a distance; it wouldn't be bomber shaped, but it would make a dent that would serve a similar purpose of allowing a climber to stop halfway up a wall. (It would also synergise well with the slider, which makes it more of a shame we can't have both.) Another example is to make a dent in a ceiling, to stop shimmiers in a desired location.

Good overview! Making a dent into a vertical wall to stop a Climber would require a steel piece behind the target destination, though, because the Laser Blaster carries on until the beam reaches its maximum length, or until it hits steel. Without a steel piece, the diagonal Laser Blaster will simply create a diagonal tunnel that the Climber can climb into, and then he will walk up that tunnel like any other regular Walker would.



@Dullstar: Perfect observation once again! I can pretty much agree with your entire post as-is.

[namida]

As a very vague idea that might not lead anywhere - what about some kind of constructive skill where the created terrain is steel; or alternatively, a skill that turns a section of regular terrain into steel.

[Strato Incendus]

I brought this up in the joke ideas thread, a skill called the Blacksmith.

The Blacksmith. This lemming creates a piece of steel, 8 pixels in height. As such, he can be used like a Stacker, but just like with the Stacker-Stoner distinction, there are some subtle differences. For example, the Blacksmith can be used to stop destructive skills from continuing, turning the lemming performing the destructive skill around in the process ("tanking on steel", as it's often done with Miners). The steel piece he creates could also be shaped in an irregular way, much like the Stoner, to prevent Climbers from going over it, thereby increasing the differences to the Stacker.

As I stated there, this would most likely create considerable overlap with Stackers and Stoners.

You could have him build a steel bridge instead, but then you'd have overlap with Builders and Platformers.

The most novelty could probably be achieved by combining this with a downward Builder (even though that skill by itself has already been rejected): Then he'd build a ramp made of steel.

Alternatively, combine it with my Harpooner / Spear-Thrower-Roper skill and make the rope a steel rope! Like a wire, basically. That would add a bunch of novelty... although it would be hard to use the rope for crowd containment then, if you can't actually destroy it anymore to release them later...

[namida]

Yes, any such idea would still need to be sufficiently different from existing constructive skills. It would either need to be able to stand on its own even without the steel factor (and steel just being an additional quirk of it that may give rise to some additional uses), or else something that makes it completely unique (such as the idea of it transforming existing terrain into steel, rather than creating steel) - and I'm not too sure how well that latter idea would fare in a usefulness test, to be honest.

So perhaps this is best left as an idea of "if we're leaning towards a constructive skill, consider whether there's value in the constructed terrain being steel".

[WillLem]

As a very vague idea that might not lead anywhere - what about some kind of constructive skill where the created terrain is steel; or alternatively, a skill that turns a section of regular terrain into steel.

Like some sort of Steel Midas... I like that idea!

[Simon]

I guess this might be somewhere that NL and Lix differ a bit in philosophy - both agree that the puzzle, not the execution, should be the difficulty; but Lix's ideal philosophy (with some non-conforming elements retained due to tradition / existing content) seems to be "the puzzle is manipulating the terrain, the lixes are a tool for doing so", whereas NeoLemmix's is "the puzzle is manipulating the lemmings, altering the terrain is one thing that can be achieved via this". Obviously, both of these are oversimplifications, but I do get the feeling there's a slight divide along these lines.

Strange. I would have expected it exactly the other way around, given Lix's skillset optimization to multiplayer (the cultural baggage of the skill choice necessarily manifests in puzzle design and shapes the community) and NL's focus on big pixels. But I guess the already many movement skills of NL have also contributed their part to the culture.

But really, the fundamental design is the same:

• The puzzle/environment is always manipulating the lemmings, in both games.
  
• The player, through the hands of the lemmings, modifies the puzzle/environment.
  

Since terrain is everywhere, and lemmings are in many places, the most common modifications of a lemming to the environment is to change the terrain, or to affect other lemmings. Further ways (besides these main two ways) also possible, such as disabling traps, swimming through water, ...

In Lix, the game merely happens be even more about the terrain than in NL, this is a side effect of the deliberate lack of gadgets and gadget-bypass skills.

Inter-lemming-action (treating the assignee as part of the environment for the lemming that is really affected) is hard to get right. The blocker is brilliant, the batter is meh in single-player, and exploder flinging is very hard to design with. Even in Lix, I'm sure I could do better with today's understanding.

NL doesn't have direct inter-lemming-action besides the blocker, it's an unexplored niche. Well, it has the zombie.

Thus, it's a consequence of the lack of extraneous stuff, and the difficulty of inter-lix-action, that in Lix, the terrain modifies the lixes so often.

By contrast, a pure movement skill lets a lemming modify nothing but itself. It bypasses the entire point of indirect control that feels inherent to all these games. This is not as elegant as it could be. On top of that, movement skills quickly get a ton of bugs and special cases.

Thus, especially with only one skill to add, and considering the existing skill mix (more below) in NL, adding one movement skill, but adding zero environmental-modifying (terrain, lemmings, ...) skills, would feel so strange.

Lemmings is about setting up lemmings to alter terrain from the correct spot as much as it is about altering the terrain itself.

Yes. You can get lemmings into those spots with terrain-changing skills. You can get them into position with movement skills.

I don't see how that is an argument against terrain modifiers. It's an argument for skills to treat different lemmings differently than non-assignees, but most skills satisfy that.

because the worker lemmings creating the path would be Walkers like everyone else. Thus, they couldn't reach any spots that the crowd couldn't reach, which would greatly limit puzzle potential.

Wrong. The terrain-changers all operate at different speeds. You will often separate workers already by this.

And there are 8 7 pure movement: 5 4 permanent (all 5 except disarmer), plus walker, jumper, shimmier. More than enough.

If you want to be diverse, you should really add stuff that isn't about single-lemmings movement, but accomplishes more than that. Doesn't matter what extra it accomplishes. Can be terrain changes, can be direct lemming interaction, ...

If you think the Slider doesn't add a lot of new things: Why would we need any further terrain-modification skills if these already fulfil 95% of required jobs? Simply because "we haven't had one in a while"?

Terrain modifiers add a lot of new things.

The 95% sounds like massive overestimation. Or did the existing terrain modifiers really fulfil 95% of the jobs that came to your mind?

Let's explore the design space deeper.

My propositions of upward Diggers and downward Builders was met by some with the valid question of whether we actually need to be able to modify terrain in every possible way,

Explore the design space deeper than merely changing the angle. You don't even have to be super creative.

Some creativity helps. The angled blaster received positive gut reactions because it adds range to the ever-basic idea of continuous terrain removal. It's not super creative, it's merely the combination of two ideas that were presented us on the silver platter in the very same discussion. But it squarely points us in the right direction of design.

Icho's jet boarder goes in the same direction. This one is even more creative, almost too much, it sounds really wonky on first read. But I enjoyed the reasoning for it, how he tried to address so many different needs and came out with something still tasteful. It even satisfies the niche of the runner, it gets a single lem ahead with speed.

but apparently there were good reasons why movement skills where preferred by the majority.

Majorities and fan bases? This is about design, not popularity:

• People like what they're familiar with, not what is best.
  
• People are notoriously stubborn to change their opinions, even in light of evidence, as if sticking to opinions were a value.
  
• People need courage to explore the design space on their own. It's easy to post an existing design because the poster can be sure that several people will like it. By contrast, the poster of a fresh design must expect, at worst, complete rejection of an idea that they spent time on.
  

Only when a design, really the design alone, convinces the reader by its own strength, then one has an argument.

If however we can agree that pioneer levels will and should always be a major part of Lemmings

This idea that parkour levels are somehow bad in general to me seems to be the latest iteration of "pioneer levels are boring / second-class levels"

I don't see how you conclude that parkour means hero. E.g., you could have three workers, all with different permanents (which happens to be easily possible already in current NL since there are 5 permanents) that all contribute to the route. They might even be tangled by timings, what you seem to dislike (explicitly at least for crowds).

The dislike for parkour must thus have a different reason.

My personal hesitation against pure movement comes from a principle of elegance in game design, it's more elegant (to modify terrain to then modify terrain) than it is (to pure-movement-skill to then modify terrain).

If namida is satisfied with NeoLemmix being less about manipulation via environment and more about parkour, hm. I'll have to sleep over this one some more.

-- Simon

[Simon]

There is more to reply, but I'm out of vigor for today.

Strato is considering creative things, that makes me happy.

Steel creators sound like they're too situational to be useful.

On first glance, the danger with the jetboarder was that it is too weird a skill. But it's at its heart the spear thrower with fixed angle, the simplemost angle really, and movement of the asignee along with the spear. Thus, the jetboarder's complexity is similar to most other recent inventions.

Discoverability in UI is important. Thus it's probably good in skill design, too. If a skill is assignable to a lemming on even ground, and the resulting animation gives a good hint on what the skill might do, that's good. Most of the recent inventions are discoverable like that. The least-discoverable skill in L1 is probably the basher, but even the basher is swinging at the air for a full stroke.

-- Simon