[DISC][PLAYER] New skills general discussion

[WillLem]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Solved "Eternal Flame," plus scored 100% on "Morning Rescue"

Still can't figure out "Keep Off The Grass", though; managed to save 8 by using

Spoiler

compression method + RR85

, but there's clearly something that I'm missing with regards to this one...

[Strato Incendus]

Okay, I notice that people are starting to refer to their new-skills levels collections as "packs". Mobius also called my own selection of levels that, even though I didn't intend them to be (in fact, the four Pillar levels would end up in a different pack than the one Marble level I made). WillLem has even made an LP of one of these packs already, and Proxima just provided some background info on some of the levels, like in a creator's-commentary series.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I'm just interpreting this as people getting somewhat emotionally attached to the levels they made with these new skills, before any of them have actually been confirmed yet.

Or... can we take this as silent community consensus that the four skills should all be introduced, and we're only discussing about the physics details now?


@mobius: Your solution to "Microcosm" is an alternative one; I don't think one-way arrows can do much to enforce my intended one, because that intended solution requires two Laserers in opposite directions. Your solution to "Boom! Beer Me" doesn't work on my latest version of the level (V5). Maybe you still played an earlier one? The pioneer lemming slides back into the water and dies if I run your replay.

[Proxima]

I'm just interpreting this as people getting somewhat emotionally attached to the levels they made with these new skills, before any of them have actually been confirmed yet.

Eh, not on my part. While the layouts are from GemLems and have had a lot of care put into them, the new-skills versions are just for playing around and getting to know the new skills better, and there's no question of keeping them or ever putting them in a pack. (And the trivia post mostly consists of comparisons with the GemLems originals, to tease people about that pack....)

"You Scratch My Brick", though, I am happy with, and will probably donate it to the community pack if we do end up keeping all the new skills.

Or... can we take this as silent community consensus that the four skills should all be introduced, and we're only discussing about the physics details now?

I mean, it looks like we've largely had vocal consensus that all four skills should be kept for some time now, with only kaywhyn (as far as I've noticed) being a doubter (and I guess you could say me, but I only doubt the Laserer, and that one seems to be the most likely to be kept...).

However, ultimately it's up to namida, and he knows a lot more than we do about behind-the-scenes difficulties the new skills might cause, so I will accept his decision even if it's not the one I want.

[namida]

Or... can we take this as silent community consensus that the four skills should all be introduced, and we're only discussing about the physics details now?

None of them are decided for sure yet, not even the laserer (yes, I've said it's "very likely" to make the cut; I haven't said it's "certain" to).

[kaywhyn]

I mean, it looks like we've largely had vocal consensus that all four skills should be kept for some time now, with only kaywhyn (as far as I've noticed) being a doubter (and I guess you could say me, but I only doubt the Laserer, and that one seems to be the most likely to be kept...).

Doubter isn't very accurate here to describe my take, especially since you based it off on how I simply only posted once about the new skills. Undecided would had been a better way to describe my stance on the new skills, in particular the spearer and the grenader. I'm still of the belief that if the new skills do make it in, it should be a maximum of two new skills added. This means that I'm happy with 0, 1, or 2 new skills making it in. Definitely no more than 2. I'm quite content with the 19 skills we currently have, including the shimmier and the jumper which are the most recent new additions that are currently in the stable release and which I felt are great additions to NL. If two new skills are to make it in, then my vote goes towards the laserer and the slider, as these seem to be quite simple compared to the other two. It's mostly due to how in my eyes the game is already quite complex, especially since Neolemmix adds far more than the engines that only support the 8 classic skills.

I simply haven't cared too much about playing around with the new skills in the new levels in the experimental as much as some people, let alone thought about the new skills too much. I have played and solved several of the new skills levels, and I was going to give feedback on the skills after I have solved everything from way back in the last week of November, but some I haven't been able to solve. I haven't really came back to those levels since, so I think it's more that I gave up in frustration, especially with the levels that involve the spearer. In my eyes, I still think the skill is fiddly, but here I think it's more due to how I'm just not so good with using the spearer. In the same way that out of the Neolemmix skills, I tend to have an extremely hard time with levels that provide a lot of stackers.

However, ultimately it's up to namida, and he knows a lot more than we do about behind-the-scenes difficulties the new skills might cause, so I will accept his decision even if it's not the one I want.

My thoughts exactly.

[WillLem]

Decided to LP my own 8 levels, hopefully this will be useful for showcasing the new skills in action. Also, played through NieSch's 2 levels as a bonus. Enjoy!

Link to video.

[namida]

Keeping in mind that as we discuss other points, this may change, here is my current guess as to what will be the final outcome for each skill. Again - this is NOT a final judgement, just my leanings at this point. Even more so when taking into account that the skills' workings could still be changed.

Slider

The slider is showing a huge amount of variety in its potential uses. Yes, it's another parkour skill, but it doesn't just add a new movement - it offers a lot of interaction with others, and decent amount of interaction with the terrain-affecting skills too. For the most part, its behavior is understandable and very predictable - the only case that really requires trial and error is "what happens if a lemming that's both a climber and a slider, jumps into a wall" (answer: it climbs), and that's a matter of "try it once, now you know".

Slider is medium in terms of maintenance / bug potential. Permanent skills are often high-risk for bugs (in particular, Glider has been by far the nastiest skill for bugs), but as far as they go, Slider is pretty average. More importantly, the bugs tend to be the kind that are very simple to investigate and fix. It's likely to be a case of that, once we've got it right, it shouldn't need any further maintaining - it should continue to work without needing to make further adjustments.

Backroute potential still needs further examination for all skills, but Slider hasn't shown too many problems so far, and I would expect most that arise are fairly manageable due to the effects of the slider being fairly limited without adding other skills into the mix (which in turn allows more opportunities to address backroutes, as those skills could become the target of a fix rather than the slider itself).

Likely outcome: I expect the slider will make the cut.

Grenader

The grenader has a lot of potential in solutions, but is a tricky one to work with. A parabolic arc is always trickier to visualise than a straight line - this is why the projectiles have the skill shadow even in the exp build, at least for the arc. There is the concern of if this could lead to too much complexity. It's also very powerful, as many people have noted. The recent update has very slightly nerfed the power, but only very slightly.

Coding complexity is a big concern here. Projectiles essentially end up being a new object (albeit a bit different from traditional ones) and a new skill in one. The high complexity is somewhat negated by the "two for one" tradeoff, where the majority of effort spent on the Grenader also benefits the Spearer (and vice versa), and that the majority (though not all) of bugs that apply to one also apply to the other. However, these have had by far the most bugs so far.

Backroute-wise, while this still needs to be fully investigated, my impression is that the Grenader is giving rise to more backroute issues than all three other new skills combined. This may be reduced if the skill is weakened, although the parabolic arc (which allows quite a variety of impact locatoins in most setups) + bomber-like destruction effect still means Grenader is always likely to be up there with Walkers, Stoners and Builders for backroute potential, if not higher.

Likely outcome: I suspect the grenader will not be making the cut.

(Interestingly, when I first released the exp, my thought was that Grenader might be the only one to make the cut, so this goes to show that just because I think something at one point, doesn't by any means make it the final decision.)

Spearer

The spearer has the same complexity as the grenader, perhaps a bit more due to the angle-of-impact effect. However, adding a very small piece of terrain is far, far less powerful than removing a large chunk, which in turn likely also reduces the useful ways a spearer can be used in any given situation.

Just like usage, the coding complexity is slightly higher than the grenader. All bugs so far that only applied to one or the other, as far as I recall, applied to the Spearer. It does need to be taken into account that if one projectile makes the cut but the other doesn't, that in a sense doubles the effort needed, on the grounds that "effort that would previously benefit two skills, is now only benefitting one".

The spearer is not likely to be even nearly as backroute-prone as the grenader, though, due to the much lower power. It's still a ranged skill with lots of flexibility around where it hits, but the effect of the impact is far lesser, and needs more effort to make use of.

Likely outcome: I could still see this one going either way, and don't feel I can make a prediction at this point.

Laserer

I've already indicated this, but this one I think is very likely to make it. It's easy to understand, and only involves a straight line. There are some tricky cases around range, especially when turning around mid-laser (or being cloned, which is essentially the same thing), but these are under discussion for changes and at any rate it is not the only skill that can need getting used to. It's showing a lot of interesting potential as well, and doesn't tend to produce particularly finnicky results.

As far as coding goes, Laserer is showing itself to be possibly the most bug-resistant of the skills - I didn't expect it to be so solid, but here we are. I have little if any concerns about the maintainability of it.

Backroute potential still needs further examination for all skills, but I'm not seeing too much in the way of issues with the laserer, and the range reduction has likely reduced the risk of this.

Likely outcome: I am near-certain that the laserer will make the cut.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks for the update, namida! I understand your points against the Grenader. I'm just wondering: What makes this skill so much more backroute-prone in NeoLemmix that doesn't apply to the Mortar / Bazooker in Lemmings 2: The Tribes?

If it's just the smaller crater, I'd reiterate that I'd rather have a Grenader with a smaller, Bomber-sized crater than not having it at all.

[Proxima]

Thanks for the update, namida! I understand your points against the Grenader. I'm just wondering: What makes this skill so much more backroute-prone in NeoLemmix that doesn't apply to the Mortar / Bazooker in Lemmings 2: The Tribes?

Maybe it does apply to the L2 skills? Not many people here have ever even tried making custom L2 levels.

That said, one obvious difference -- and it has been mentioned before -- is that the L2 skills have knockback, making them harder to use at close range. Since the Grenader and Spearer are most interesting when used at long range, limiting their short-range capabilities seems like a sensible way to make them less backroute prone. It's just hard to think of a suitable way to do this in NL, since we are certainly not going to introduce knockback.

We've already considered and rejected the other obvious possibility, that a grenader's explosion should be lethal. (And since that would prevent the grenader being used as a blocker-release tool, I would now be against that even if it were still up for discussion.)

I had a brief thought, inspired by the grenade from Worms, that the grenader's projectile could bounce back (or fall straight down) if it hits a wall too soon. But that introduces a weird special case, and would be prone to abuse, and even if it caused fewer backroutes, they would be more pernicious ones because they'd be harder for the designer to spot. (In short, this idea is a complete non-starter.)

Other than that, I can't think of anything. I think we have to accept that if we keep the Grenader, it can be used close up as well as at range. That does make me like it a bit less, but I think it's still very much worth keeping.

[namida]

Thanks for the update, namida! I understand your points against the Grenader. I'm just wondering: What makes this skill so much more backroute-prone in NeoLemmix that doesn't apply to the Mortar / Bazooker in Lemmings 2: The Tribes?

Maybe it does apply to the L2 skills? Not many people here have ever even tried making custom L2 levels.

I can't say for sure how things are in L2, but my guess is that Proxima is most likely correct.

[WillLem]

One point in favour of the Grenader is that it's the only one of the "NeoLemmix skills" that can create downwards destruction.

However, one distinction between this skill and the Bomber is that it can only create a constantly-downwards path when used at range. Using the Grenader to make a path up close always results in an upwards incline for the path itself. This is of course due to the trajectory of the skill, and is worth keeping in mind when assessing its backroute potential: it is useful up close, but not quite as useful as you might think.

[namida]

One point in favour of the Grenader is that it's the only one of the "NeoLemmix skills" that can create downwards destruction.

NeoLemmix has three other skills that can do this - bomber, miner and digger. The fact that they are not unique to NeoLemmix does not make them the slightest bit less relevant in determining "does another skill already cover this?"; they would only be irrelevant if NeoLemmix did not have them at all. (And, if you want to only count skills that are unique to NeoLemmix, the Grenader is similar enough to some L2 skills that it should not count as "unique to NeoLemmix" either. Indeed, the only skills that really can be considered outright unique to NeoLemmix are the Disarmer and the Cloner.)

[WillLem]

NeoLemmix has three other skills that can do this - bomber, miner and digger. The fact that they are not unique to NeoLemmix does not make them the slightest bit less relevant in determining "does another skill already cover this?"

It does for challenge purposes, which is one of the main attractions of NeoLemmix as a platform and therefore worth considering.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm simply using the phrase "NeoLemmix skills" as a shortcut to refer to everything beyond the classic 8. I am well aware that many of these are not, in fact, unique to NeoLemmix, so perhaps I should have been more clear.

[namida]

Sure, but "disallow the original 8" is an arbitrary restriction of one challenge (and a fairly niche one at that), and the fact that such a challenge exists should not in any way be taken into account for deciding which new skills make the cut.

[Gronkling]

The grenader makes that challenge much more boring anyway IMO