[DISC][STANDARDS] Overlapping of identical hatches to modify spawn order

[namida]

Okay, let's settle this with a proper discussion.

Should overlapping multiple hatches, such that it simulates a non-standard spawn order, be considered "unfair"?

I say yes - my reasoning, it's hiding details from the player and specifically trying to force DOS physics rather than NL ones. I've also noticed that most arguments in favor of it are "because I'm recreating the DOS / Amiga spawn order", or even worse, "because I want to recreate that spawn order just in this indivdiual level" - which also means they're coming from a "it's what DOS / Amiga does" perspective, something which I've regularly stressed is in no way an authoritative reason for NL (it can be a factor taken into account, but it isn't a gold standard).

For that matter - I would assume anyone who feels the above is acceptable, would also be fine with overlapping hatches for different skills / directions. But I could see a difference in the reverse situation, specifically becuase the game usually draws attention to it somehow (even if not intentionally). In particular when two hatches of different directions are overlapped, one can see at an immediate glance exactly what's going on with them; multiple skills may require waiting and seeing, but it's at least obvious that something is up due to the weird mess rather than a clear skill icon. I previously considered it perfectly acceptable, but after thinking about it in the context of this, now I'm wondering if this should be considered unacceptable too.

I'd also be interested - to those who consider it acceptable, do you consider hidden objects in general acceptable? If not, what makes you feel entrances are different? Would you also feel that eg. stacking pickup skills or traps on top of each other is acceptable?

I do want to make a few things clear:

1. A decision of "it's unfair" will not lead to any feature that outright prevents the overlap. However, it would certianly make it a candidate for flagging in any "unfair content detection" feature, and it would also mean that any pack containing it would be unsuitable for inclusion in the main download of NeoLemmix (as such packs would be even more than usual expected to conform to NL standards - it's one thing for a pack that doesn't to exist, it's another for it to be promoted in such a way).

2. Likewise, a decision of "it's fair" won't lead to a more-explicit level of support for this. NeoLemmix already had such a feature in the past and even ignoring concerns about fairness, the feature was virtually never used. Similarly, don't expect special handling if / when we get CPM indicators for spawn order on hatches - similar to the current case where they're overlapped to affect direction / preset skills, it'll likely just be a single jumble of overlaid icons (but the advantage over the status quo is that it at least draws attention to that something unusual is going on).

3. An "it depends" response is meaningful if it depends on some factor intrinsic to the level's content / gameplay. On the other hand, any such argument purely on the grounds of some outside-NL factor ("this level existed before NL was made so it gets a free pass, but new levels shouldn't do this"), I will not even dignify it with a response - I have explained enough times that I could not care less what other engines do; if a level does not fit with NL, and cannot be adjusted to do so, the correct answer is to replace (or leave out) the level, not to argue for a special case. Basically - an "it depends" reason needs to be a reason that would be apparent to someone who knows the level's solution (including any intentional or accepted alternate solutions, if necessary) and layout, but has never seen or heard of the level (or any pack from which it was taken) outside of NL, in order to be meaningful.


I have chosen not to put a poll up for this one precisely because of the prevalence of the "existing content gets special treatment" attitude on this matter, because a poll would not clearly show who's using that reasoning vs who has actual reasons.

[Dullstar]

I think the fairness is entirely based on how it's used in a given level.

I don't like hidden objects, but I don't consider overlapping hatches to be a type of hidden object. Rather, I consider it an extension of the existing hatch object, if that makes sense: it basically exploits the mechanics of how the hatch objects work to allow things that the object itself doesn't support, but in theory could support.

How do I define if the usage is fair? This is relatively simple: don't trick me into thinking the spawning has already looped if it hasn't. So, for example, I wouldn't consider it an issue to stack the second hatch to create an ABCB ordering, since the duplicate here doesn't trick me into thinking there's a loop when there isn't. I would, however, consider it an issue to stack 20 hatches on top of each other so you can spawn 19 floaters and make lemming 20 splat/glide/whatever, because as soon as lemming 2 comes out, well, that looks like a loop. Alternating floaters/not floaters, however, would be totally fine - it's a simple pattern, and it doesn't trick you into thinking it's looping before it actually does.

In a lot of cases, it's possible to separate these, but aesthetically it's kind of limiting to have to do that. At the very least it forces you into a choice between making the level larger, or more cramped.



As far as what I'd consider a good design:

I have zero issues with the alternating permanent skills usage case as long as it's easy to tell where things loop.

With the spawn ordering, I'd say it should only be done if it's absolutely necessary, because it's cleaner not to do it, but I wouldn't exactly call it a big no-no, either. If you're going to do it, make sure the level needs it - make it a level that's like, "nice use of the ABCB ordering" or whatever as opposed to "why didn't you just use the regular ABC ordering with [minor level tweaks here]?" I give a little bit of special treatment to older content here: sometimes, breaking old content is for the best (it's really much cleaner knowing that steel is always indestructible and not-steel is never secretly steel, for example), but here, I don't really think the overlapping hatches is that much of a problem, and because the hatch ordering really was different once, it's not like the creators of those levels went out of their way to use an unusual spawn order.

Overall, I'd say favor the typical spawn order where possible, but if overlapping hatches are necessary for the level and it's not done to trick the player, I think overlapping hatches is a perfectly acceptable tool to make use of.



TL;DR

- Favor the default spawn order.
- If you go out of your way to change the spawn order, have a good reason to do so.
- Older stuff was made with a different default spawn order, so it doesn't need to justify needing the old default and shouldn't be branded as unfair for it.

- Alternating lems with different skills is fine.

- Basically, just don't try to trick the player with the spawn order and it's fine.

[Strato Incendus]

So, just that I understand this correctly: Overlapping hatches with different pre-assigned skills, and/or overlapping hatches alternating whether lemmings come out facing to the left or the right in an ABAB manner, those would not be considered unfair? But ABCB would?

How would you modify the editor to distinguish between those cases, rather than just flagging any overlapping hatches as unfair?

[Proxima]

I don't have a problem with it and I think, from the aesthetic point of view, when you want ABCB (or any non-standard spawn order, such as AAB) the best option of all is spaced-out hatches that drop the lemmings in the same place; but when there isn't space to do this (or when doing this would create backroutes, e.g. if the level provides gliders or stoners), then stacking the hatches is preferable to slightly moving one to create a visible but very weird-looking double hatch (as in WillLem's suggestion for Havoc 12, over in the Redux thread).

Firstly, as has been said, hatch order is always hidden information and the player is encouraged to let the level play a little to see what the order is. We could change this with order indicators: "A", "B", etc above or below the hatch at the same time the facing-direction arrow is displayed. I wouldn't say that such indicators are a top priority or something we need, but they seem to be a good idea. If this is done, then stacked hatches would be visible to the player and the hidden information problem would go away.

As Strato said, stacking hatches is already quite common for other reasons -- to alternate facing directions or to spawn lemmings with different permanent skills. I find this more problematic than the ordering case, because there is more information for the player to remember during play, and the game does allow the player to check this information, but in a confusing and possibly misleading way. (If you see five different permanent skill icons over the hatch, how do you know which skills will apply to the first lemming, which to the second and so on? You pretty much have to let the level play out a little and then commit the information to memory.) I don't, at the moment, have a good answer to the question of how better to display this information, but again -- this is something that it would be good to do at some point, and if it's ever done, then the problem of stacking hatches to get a non-standard ordering will be solved as a side effect.

For the record: I don't consider stacking pick-up skills to be acceptable, simply because there are no downsides to the alternative of placing a single pick-up skill that gives any desired number of the skill in question; whereas when you want stacked hatches, there are potentially downsides to any possible "compromise" (as we saw with Havoc 12). Similarly, for traps, if you want a passage to kill more than one of a compressed group, you can nearly always do this with side-by-side traps.

[IchoTolot]

I stack hatches sometimes to make lemmings go into both directions, but wiith the standard spawn oder. This is indicated through the arrows that get placed under a hatch at the start.

I don't really have a big problem with hatch stacking though. I think marking this as unfair is a bit too strict, even if it can catch you by suprise sometimes. It may be not the clearest, but I rather play 100 modified spawn order levels than 1 hidden trap level.

[Nessy]

Personally, I don't think it's strictly "unfair", but I can completely understand why someone would think that it is.

This could probably be a bad idea but something I just thought of (something that Proxima even mentioned briefly). Maybe a good middle ground is to use some type of indicator to let people know what the hatch order is, similar to the arrow indicators that show which direction the lemmings will go in when they spawn from the hatch. For example, in the NLEditor when you post more than one hatch like let's say two, then you have the indicators of "1/2" and "2/2" above the hatches. I wonder how realistic it would be to have something like that or similar to that directly in the NeoLemmix engine, so that in a situations like the ABCB order even if (using the NLEditor example) the "2/4" and "4/4" indicators overlap at least the player would know that something is up.

I could be totally wrong but thought it was worth posting anyway.

EDIT: I just noticed that the original post on here brought this up and mentioned that "it'll likely just be a single jumble of overlaid icons", so I think this probably wouldn't even be viable even if it does tell the player something is going on.

[ericderkovits]

In the editor why not just add a note field (optional like the author field) where one could indicate that there is a overlapping hatch order (in the preview screen). And of course one could add other notes. Maybe just have a one line field so it wont take about much space on the preview screen.

[Strato Incendus]

in the preview screen). And of course one could add other notes. Maybe just have a one line field so it wont take about much space on the preview screen.

Haha . Kind of like "Trigger warning: Unfair content ahead."

Or, in the case of a hidden trap: "Unfair-content warning: Trigger ahead."

[Simon]

Consider a level with 2 unstacked hatches. When player pauses at start, player can't tell whether two hatches spawn ABAB... or BABA... To be sure of the spawn order, you must first count the visible n hatches, then wait until n lemmings have spawned.

Hatch stacking merely adds more possibilities to the already-unclear spawn order. One problem is that, theoretically, it won't be clear until the final lemming has spawned. In a level with 10 lemmings, the spawn order might be ABABABABAA.

I'm neutral on whether hatch stacking is unfair. I avoid it since Nepster considered it really terrible. I agree with Proxima, AAB should be implemented with the A hatches close together and unstacked.

If hatch stacking is deemed unfair and gets visible marks, then consider to address the unclear spawn order even with unstacked hatches. Maybe such extra marking is the best anyway, and obviates the need to decide about hatch stacking fairness. The downside is the massive bloat on the hatches; they already show direction and permanent abilities.

-- Simon

[WillLem]

Should overlapping multiple hatches, such that it simulates a non-standard spawn order, be considered "unfair"?

No

most arguments in favor of it are "because I'm recreating... DOS / Amiga"

I am very much in favour of new engines interpreting old levels differently - that's why I love making remix levels! However, I can also see why some players wish for the game to conform to a set of rules/principles/mechanics/whatever that they prefer and feel more comfortable with. Whenever I use the "Amiga did it" argument, it's not because I value the Amiga version as some sort of irrefutable gold standard, but more that it has been considered a good idea previously, so why not now? There is a subtle difference, and it always comes down to discussion of what we think today. I can side with either argument, and whilst I may have voiced the "legacy content" argument quite a lot, it's by no means my only viewpoint.

Ultimately, I'd say that when it comes to gameplay, go with the new engine - any mechanics or whatever can and should be dictated by the platform. If those mechanics can be tweaked and updated to suit the preferences and requirements of an active community, so much the better!

Meanwhile, overlapping/hidden objects (with or without the presence of a helper graphic/CPM) are absolutely fine as long as the level itself is playable. If I'm constantly getting confused by it, I'll probably just skip it anyway, but if it's generally easy to figure out what's going on (like it was with my Wraparound levels*), then sure - bring it on.

(*Incidentally, the reason I chose to remove these levels from Lemminas is because my makeshift "wrap" was problematic and only worked at certain trigger points around the edge of the level. The level idea itself was totally fair, but the implementation was far from ideal.)

As I've said before many times, I believe these elements can be used tastefully within the context of an otherwise more standard set of levels in order to switch things up a bit and keep it interesting. It can be fun from both a design perspective and when playing the game, and it's got nothing to do with the fact that "original Lemmings did it"; in fact, the irony is that NeoLemmix offers up so much more possibility for these types of levels to be created!

Although NeoLemmix philosophy currently aims to move things in a different direction (having experimented with and ultimately rejected "unfair" elements previously), I still think that the best way to handle such elements is not to outright ban them, or "frown upon" them, or otherwise shun them, but to encourage better use of these ideas: if someone has designed a level with unfair elements but it's a good, playable and enjoyable level - great! A level should always be judged on its overall merit, not instantly dismissed for having "unfair" elements. New creators will always want to do this kind of thing anyway, so surely it's better to guide them towards better use of these ideas rather than alienate them by telling them they shouldn't do it and nobody will want to play their packs if they do. I still think a community-made NeoLemmix Guide To Level Creation topic is long, long, long overdue!

I would, however, consider it an issue to stack 20 hatches on top of each other so you can spawn 19 floaters and make lemming 20 splat/glide/whatever

That's not a bad idea!

then stacking the hatches is preferable to slightly moving one to create a visible but very weird-looking double hatch (as in WillLem's suggestion for Havoc 12, over in the Redux thread).

Stacking hatches is the best idea, I only suggested slightly offsetting them because it's less messy than placing them so they appear to be randomly plopped on the map (even if the latter method preserves lemming placement). It's not a method I would ever use personally, and in fact I'm more than happy to withdraw the suggestion or at least be disassociated from it.

hatch order is always hidden information and the player is encouraged to let the level play a little to see what the order is. ... We could change this with order indicators: "A", "B", etc... I wouldn't say that such indicators are a top priority or something we need, but they seem to be a good idea

I've highlighted a particular part of this comment because I think it touches on an important point that I've previously brought attention to: how much do we want Lemmings to become a "picture puzzle"? The more information a player is given before they actually have to play the darn level, the more like a picture puzzle it is. Lemmings is a video game. Press play: see what happens!

My final comment on this (for today!) is the issue of how messy the levels can potentially look with helper icons and information everywhere. Whilst generally being in the "it doesn't matter, it isn't unfair, let the player play the level and see what happens" camp, there are ways to make the "picture puzzle method" tidier, less visually intrusive, and clearer to the player. It seems that most people are ultimately concerned with the possible "bloating" of the helper stuff, so maybe we ought to look at how this can be minimised, or presented more cleanly.

[Strato Incendus]

I would, however, consider it an issue to stack 20 hatches on top of each other so you can spawn 19 floaters and make lemming 20 splat/glide/whatever

That's not a bad idea!

The reason Dullstar brought that up I think is because it has already been used on a level .

CasuaLemmings

I think the level is called "To those who wait"; the first 19 lemmings are regular ones, the very last one that comes out then suddenly has a green shirt and is a Disarmer.

Maybe we can prevent such cases of hatch stacking though by making it easier to modify the limited-number hatches.

Currently, when you have e.g. 80 lemmings, distributed unevenly among one regular hatch and one hatch limited to 10 lemmings, the regular and the limited hatch will spawn lemmings in an alternating fashion until the 10-lemmings hatch is empty.

If all you want to achieve is "I want the 70 lemmings from hatch A to come out first, and then at the end the 10 lemmings from hatch B" (maybe because they have some pre-assigned skill you don't want the player to have right away, or because they are Zombies and the player should have time to prepare for their "attack", etc. ), then it would probably be best to have a box you can tick that chooses between "alternating hatches" and "successive hatches".

This would be a box you can tick separately for each individual hatch.

All hatches set to "alternating" would then spawn lemmings in an A, B, C, D... fashion, in the order they were drawn.

All hatches set to "successive" would by definition only start spawning lemmings once all hatches set to alternating are empty. They would then spawn lemmings in the order they were drawn, i.e. first all lemmings from hatch A spawn, then all lemmings from hatch B, and so on.

[Proxima]

Maybe we can prevent such cases of hatch stacking though by making it easier to modify the limited-number hatches.

That would prevent the author needing to stack 20 hatches to get this result, but they would still need to stack two, and they would be doing so for the explicit purpose of deceiving the player. I'm on board with many use cases of stacked hatches being legitimate, but not this.

On the other hand, I can see legitimate puzzle potential in wanting 70 lemmings from hatch A to be released, followed by 10 from hatch B, if A and B are visibly separated -- so there could be discussion about such a feature, but this isn't the place for it.

[Strato Incendus]

That would prevent the author needing to stack 20 hatches to get this result, but they would still need to stack two, and they would be doing so for the explicit purpose of deceiving the player.

Not necessarily, because limited-number hatches always display the number of lemmings remaining in that hatch.

The confusion rather appears in cases when you stack one limited-number hatch on top or below a regular hatch, because regular hatches don't have numbers above them. Then it would be hard to tell whether it's a single limited-numer hatch or whether there are several hatches.

However, this is a general problem. One could certainly make the case that each and every hatch should always display the number of remaining lemmings inside, for consistency and visual clarity.

I would oppose this from a purely aesthetic standpoint, or I would at least like this to be an optional piece of information that the player can disable if they prefer a more classic Lemmings look.
But game-mechanically, it would certainly be the most straightforward approach to have all hatches with lemming-count numbers - and other types of hatch labels, such as pre-assigned skills and/or zombies, can't be disabled either.

Of course, with perfectly overlapping hatches, also these labels overlap (Climber on top of Floater on top of Zombie etc.). But this is another general problem.

If I stack several limited-number hatches on top of each other, it would definitely be convenient to have the counts not overlap in cases where e.g. each of the hatches stacked this way contains 10 lemmings.

If there are several stacked hatches with different numbers of lemmings inside of them, such a distinction would even be vital.

[Proxima]

One could certainly make the case that each and every hatch should always display the number of remaining lemmings inside, for consistency and visual clarity.

Then you'd lose that clarity when hatches are stacked, so that proposal sounds like a stealthy way of ensuring that stacked hatches become forbidden.

Also, "one could make the case" is weasel words. If you think a case could be made, then do so; otherwise you've added nothing to the debate.

[Strato Incendus]

No, because I'm the guy who when in doubt puts visual aesthetics over game-mechanical fairness, so me personally, I'm certainly not the one who would make the case that all the hatches have to be labelled and suggest that this should be implemented.

But I can see how somebody who values game fairness over visuals would be in favour of such a general, compulsory number label for all hatches.