[NeoLemmix] Lemmings Open Air [Difficulty: Medium - Hard]

[Gronkling]

I attached my replays for the first rank! Very fun pack so far

Level feedback

Spoiler

• Saved a blocker and an extra lemming, a nice start to the pack solution-wise but really needs work aesthetically, it wasn't a good very first impression
• 
• 
• I only used 3 miners, seems very easy
• Saved 4 skills and 7 extra lemmings, the one way arrows are hard to make out
• This one seems really easy compared to the others
• Nice one, didn't find it too hard compared to other people
• Didn't like this one, I saw the solution right away and took quite a long time just trying to get it to work
• Saved 5 extra lemmings, my solution is a mess but it works
• A nice one, but the aesthetics are rushed feeling
• 
• One of the harder ones for me so far, I enjoyed it though
• 
• Saved 4 skills, decent level
• 
• Very easy, did it on my very first attempt
• Saved 1 skill
• Saved 2 skills
• 
• 
• Not a fan, felt very fiddly
• Saved 3 skills
• Saved 4 skills
• 
• One of my faves yet
• Saved 1 skill (I removed all the rain)
• 
• Backrouty feeling solution but it used all the skills
• Saved 1 skill
• Saved 2 skills

[namida]

Continuing on...

Spoiler

Soft 11 - This is a great level, though the execution was a bit finnicky. Not sure how easily that can really be addressed, though.
Soft 12 - This one was very easy compared to a lot of the others. I will note that it could be a little bit less finnicky by moving the water a bit lower.
Soft 13 - Alright, back to hard again, and a very good level!
Soft 14 - Another really tricky one. Figuring out what the gliders were for was a real facepalm moment for me - I was trying far more complicated things first.
Soft 15 - This might be the hardest one so far, and it's really good too.

Overall, I definitely would not call this pack "medium" difficulty-wise. Even these first-rank levels are very hard.

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot for all your enthusiasm, folks! The first version was downloaded by a whopping 48 people. This far exceeds any hopes and expectations I had for this pack!

Now that count has been reset to 0, because I've uploaded the first minor update, with just two small fixes / changes based on Gronkling's solutions.

Changelog

Soft 04, "This time": The talisman now requires you to only use 3 Miners, not 4. Sorry to everyone who had attained it already, but that was indeed pretty much... everyone. In diagnostics of cognitive performance, we call this a "ceiling effect". If everyone can attain a talisman easily, it doesn't really mean anything. Thanks to Gronkling for finding this new solution! (And also, I didn't want two talismans on the same level, especially not on such a simple one, where the difference between bronze and silver would literally just have been 1 more instance of the same skill.)

Soft 23, "Don't worry, be happy": The fire pit has been made slightly higher. The talisman is still attainable, this solution isn't impacted by this.

Responses to Gronkling (Soft rank)

01: Better than the intended solution; slightly worse than the talisman solution, though, because you needed the Floater.
02: Intended.
03: Intended.
04: Oh wow, this is the first solution I see using only 3 Miners! Maybe I should make that the talisman requirement? Since solving it with 4 of 5 Miners seems to be something literally everyone is capable of.
05: A lot more skill-efficient than intended.
06: Intended.
07: Intended.
08: Intended.
09: You're the first one who used the Stackers on the left with the Climber, which is part of the intended solution. The rest you did completely differently, but that's absolutely fine! It's amazing how many different, yet equally difficult solutions this level seems to have!
10: Intended.
11: Intended.
12: Intended.
13: Intended.
14: Slightly more skill-efficient than intended.
15: Intended.
16: Intended.
17: Valid alternative solution! This one was rife with backroutes initially, so I'm glad to see you had to use all but one skill.
18: Efficient alternative solution.
19: Intended. You just "split up the Platformers" by platforming partly high, partly low across the water. I just sealed up the entire pond at the same altitude.
20: Intended.
21: Intended.
22: More efficient than intended. You didn't need the Blocker to cancel the Digger, because you dug in just the right place to still leave 1 pixel behind that broke the fall. Also, no second worker lemming (Climber) required to platform from the exit to the Miner tunnel from the left. Still, I leave those skills in here, because other people clearly needed them for their solution. It's still the first rank, after all.
23: That's the only minor backroute. One of my testers already platformed over that fire area, but then had to use so many of the other skills elsewhere that I was fine with it as an alternative solution. This one however saves a few too many skills for my liking, so I can no longer allow that shortcut. Thus, as a side effect, one of my tester's earlier solutions broke now. Sorry! I just checked though, the talisman is still attainable.
24: Intended. Funny though that nobody fences from the right after the pioneer lemming is done building. I could enforce this with one-way arrows, but it doesn't really change anything. In fact, one-way arrows sometimes give the solution away more than if they weren't there.
25: Intended. Actually probably even slightly better than intended. I'm pretty sure though that the last Stacker wouldn't even have been necessary. This is because you used two stacks on top of each other to pen in the crowd, instead of using that pole of three red squares. If you do the latter, you need the additional Stacker to prevent any Climbers from getting trapped between the "containment stack" and the "release-the-crowd-again" stack.
26: Yay, climbing through corners! A good trick to know, might be come relevant on later levels. Here this allowed you a slightly more efficient solution.
27: Intended.
28: Intended.
29: And here's another open-ended one with countless equally fascinating solutions. You're the first one I see who solved this level from the right side.
30: Slightly more efficient than intended. You saved 2 Platformers, despite building up all the way to the chain on the left, instead of using another Stoner to turn around there.

Responses to namida (Soft 11-15)

11: A slight variation on the intended solution: You bashed the Stoner away again after having used the Stacker to prevent the crowd from walking into the water once the Stoner was removed. The intended solution uses the Stacker to build over the Stoner from the right, so that it never actually has to be removed.
12: This is the more efficient version of the intended solution: Stoning on the left instead of the right side of the gap saves two Shimmiers.
13: Intended.
14: Similar to Gronkling's solution, a little more efficient than intended. Don't know what that last Climber was for that went straight to the exit, though .
15: Also pretty much intended. You can platform from either side, but you definitely need the Shimmier to mine, because the Climber is needed to get back up the pillar after collecting the Basher pickups. And enforcing the Shimmier going along the bottom side of the Platformer bridge is what this level is all about.

It's fascinating to see how much the individual perception of difficulty differs.
There seems to be some consensus that Soft 07 is quite hard, and a lot of people don't enjoy Soft 08 (if it comforts you, I tried to enforce that trick on several levels, and this one seems to be the only one where you actually have to do it - but the level doesn't really consist of anything else aside from the main trick, so it's over quickly ).

However, as early as Soft 05, some people already find that challenging, others way too easy. Even about the first two levels you can already argue which one is harder; that seems to depend entirely on how much practice a given player has with the classic skills vs. the NeoLemmix skills, including what tricks you can do by combining them in various ways.

Especially Soft 12 - Soft 14 though seem to vary drastically in how difficult people perceive them to be:

Soft 12: Hard for Gronkling, easy for namida, and ericderkovits even seems to be stuck on this
Soft 13: Hard for namida, easy for nin10doadict (back during early testing)
Soft 14: Seems to have been easier for Gronkling than for namida, although their solutions were pretty similar

[ericderkovits]

Ok I solved the Soft rank (had to resolve Soft 23 with new update as my replay broke). Also I redid my soft 4 replay to get the Talisman(using only 3 miners)

Also I got all 3 Talisman's in this rank.

Anyways I'm surprised I was able to solve these as I'm not very good. I'm really enjoying this pack because the levels are not huge unlike Icho's Reunion and United. Also I like the fact most
levels just use the L1 styles. I know I probably backrouted most as I did in the 1st 11 levels that Strato said were unintended. Also these levels are very difficult for a 1st rank. minus a few that were easy.

Anyways here are my Soft rank replays.


Also I think Willem should Lp this 1st rank. If I can solve these he can, since I'm lousy at solving.

[David]

Very nice pack Strato Incendus. I just solved soft levels 1 to 7 (with talismans). Replays as attachment.

So far, no level has really been a problem for me, but I had to think for a long time for soft 2.

For soft 6, I didn't understand what the shimmier should be used for. I didn't need to use it, anyway, to solve the puzzle !

I really liked soft 7, not easy either !

[Strato Incendus]

Thanks a lot, David! Here are my responses to your replays.

Soft 01-07

01: Intended (Talisman).
02: Oh wow, I didn't know an alternative solution to this one even existed! So you don't actually have to use the Stacker-Stoner trick if you manage to save the Fencer this way for cutting through the stack. That said, you used an advanced Shimmier application here, on the first level where the Shimmier is ever required. So I guess you can imagine this is not the intended solution. It's not a backroute either; it just means "don't think that this level of obscurity is what I actually meant to demand from the player as early as rank 1, level 02" .
03: Intended.
04: Intended (Talisman).
05: Nice job saving everyone on this one! I might make this another talisman in the next update (but I don't upload new updates for talismans alone, only when backroute fixes are required).
06: I could easily prevent bashing against the steel here, but I liked how this alternative approach forced you to place your remaining Bashers a little more thoughtfully than in the intended solution, where you just cut through the staircases again one by one. This is because when you have the Glider shimmy on that carved-out bar, he will bump against the wall and turn around, leaving you the additional Basher you  needed to turn the worker lemming around before building the staircases.
07: Variation of the intended solution; this is the same timing-based approach that ericderkovits used.

I'll respond to ericderkovits's new replays in a second comment later. I just want to say two things already, and those are obviously...

Also I think Willem should Lp this 1st rank.

Thanks a lot for recommending this pack for an LP!

If I can solve these he can, since I'm lousy at solving.

...or you might just be getting better already , now that you spend more time playing yourself instead of watching other people's replays.

[namida]

Response to Strato's comment on Soft 14

14: Similar to Gronkling's solution, a little more efficient than intended. Don't know what that last Climber was for that went straight to the exit, though .

I thought I might need that extra climber, later realised I didn't, but as he did no harm I left him in the replay.

[kaywhyn]

I continue to be amazed at how many people are actually playing through this pack and the huge amount of replays coming in already, considering that it has only been a few days since the pack's release. I'm not sure if the same can be said of other packs that have been released in the past. My congrats to both Gronkling and eric for finishing the Soft rank I'm not surprised about Gronkling, even though I haven't gotten to know him until now, as I just started posting earlier this year even though I've been a registered member since 2017 but in the few years after I have been visiting the site daily and only been silently reading the posts in the background. I have only played his Gronkling6 and Gronkling7 packs for Lemmini, the two packs that make extensive use of Lemmini glitches. While I was able to beat all of the latter, 2 levels remain unsolved for me in the former, one of which is a level that is in the Bonus rank of RotL for Lemmini, the Mystery Machine. Still unbeaten by me after almost 3 years! I have read through the Lemmini glitch topic so many times, and I'm still not sure which one needs to be used to solve it, let alone if it's actually listed. It's very easy to just save 1 lemming, but you need to save both, which I haven't been successful in doing yet. The other unsolved level is Bring it Together, although I haven't spent too much time on it. I might be able to get it given enough time, but that remains to be seen.

On the other hand, it surprises me that eric got through the entire Soft rank. It's even more amazing if he managed to get through it without seeing anyone's replays for a slight hint, which sounds like he was able to do so, albeit with a lot of struggling. To add to Strato, it's definitely nice to finally see him actually playing through packs, as I have said over and over that this is how one gets better at level solving. It also amuses me how he started with difficult packs, eg, Artlems and LOA, rather than the other way around of starting with easier packs. Claims of not being a good solver serve only to lead one to doubt him/herself, as you never know unless you try. It's also one that I refuse to believe, as I'm sure he's better at solving than he claims to be. In the same way that I'm certain I wouldn't be good at level designing, but the thing is I won't know that I truly am good or bad at it unless I try. I have recently played around with the editor for very Old Formats, as well as Datpacker and FlexiTool and was able to figure some stuff out on my own for my very first time using them. Perhaps this will make it easier for me to learn how to use the New Formats editor. That is, when I eventually start using and playing around with it As with anything, the best way to learn is to simply imitate the files when making a pack, so that is where I would start myself.

Anyways I'm surprised I was able to solve these as I'm not very good. I'm really enjoying this pack because the levels are not huge unlike Icho's Reunion and United. Also I like the fact most
levels just use the L1 styles. I know I probably backrouted most as I did in the 1st 11 levels that Strato said were unintended. Also these levels are very difficult for a 1st rank. minus a few that were easy.

If you haven't noticed, Strato is a huge fan of creating small landscapes with restrictive skillsets. Even then, don't be fooled, as if done well they can be deceptively difficult levels. As I have pointed out before, these levels give the impression and take on the appearance of being a seemingly easy level, but in actuality is a hard level. The same can be said about very large levels. They often give the impression of appearing to be a difficult level, but in actuality aren't too hard. If anything, I think psychologically they are designed to intimidate more than anything, just from the sheer huge size of the level.

LOA is supposed to be harder on average than the other packs Strato has ever released. If you came into LOA expecting an easy first rank, then you were far off. We did warn that the first rank isn't easy at all. Since that was especially true with you, expect the remaining 3 ranks to be even more so. Sure, I found a lot of levels in LOA that others thought were hard easy, and so I tend to be surprised when reading that from other players, but when I take a step back and realize that we're talking about the average and less experienced players, it makes complete sense that these people would find them hard. Even then, I'm in complete agreement with some of the feedback on some levels that highly experienced people like namida and Gronkling found hard, as I also experienced somewhat of a similar struggle on such levels.

[Gronkling]

I forgot about that pack, I think its probably the best one of my lemmini days if you dont mind glitches and horribly precise assignments, the glitch used in that level is listed on that topic. Also I'm about 2/3s through the 2nd rank now, I'm actually finding it a bit easier than the 1st rank I think, though the 2nd level was one of the hardest yet.

[ericderkovits]

ok, It seems loud is starting off hard. I got level 1 solved but I'm struggling with getting the Talisman.

And yes level 2 is real hard.

I figured since Gronkling said level 2 was very hard in the rank I will give my 2 first loud rank replays (level 1 without the Talisman)

And yes I didn't need any hints for the soft rank. Otherwise why bother doing the levels if you already know the solutions or parts of them.

[kaywhyn]

Yes, I agree with the both of you that Loud 2 is a hard one. I also struggled with it for about a good 10 minutes or so. If I'm not mistaken, this level was originally a late Soft rank level and ended up swapping places with the original Loud 2 level.

I forgot about that pack, I think its probably the best one of my lemmini days if you dont mind glitches and horribly precise assignments, the glitch used in that level is listed on that topic. Also I'm about 2/3s through the 2nd rank now, I'm actually finding it a bit easier than the 1st rank I think, though the 2nd level was one of the hardest yet.

Thanks for letting me know, Gronkling! In particular, I appreciate not giving any of the solution anyway. The only other question I have is is it a very precise assignment? I have tried everything and I can't seem to get any glitch to work other than the stuck climber glitch.

And yes I didn't need any hints for the soft rank. Otherwise why bother doing the levels if you already know the solutions or parts of them.

Well, you can still do the level even if you have seen some of the solution. By my previous post, I meant seeing a replay for a slight hint on the parts you're stuck on and then you stop watching from that point and carry out the rest of the level yourself from there. Good to know that you did the entire Soft rank spoiler free!

[Gronkling]

Finished rank 2! I actually found this one easier than the first rank, though I could see a few of the more obscure tricks catching people out. I also saved skills on more levels here than last time. Still a really fun pack!

Full comments

Spoiler

• This was a weird way to start the rank, feels more like a breather level than something you see first. I saved 7 diggers but I don't think that matters here
• I'd still say this one is the hardest of the second rank for me
• 
• 
• Saved 2 skills
• Rather easy
• Saved 5 skills and an extra lemming
• Saved 2 skills and an extra lemming
• Saved 2 skills and an extra lemming
• Saved 1 skill
• Saved 3 skills
• 
• Saved 1 skill, that trap is nastily hidden, I should give it an idle animation
• Saved 5 skills
• Saved 12 skills and 2 extra lemmings
• Saved 1 skill
• Saved 2 skills
• Saved 2 skills, I like my solution to this one even though it's backroutey and horrid
• 
• Saved 9 skills and 4 extra lemmings, another fun backroutey trick
• Saved 4 skills and 3 extra lemmings, really didn't like this one, both the repetitive trick which I assume is correct and the weird water wall thing
• Never thought of the first trick I used here before, really cool if intended, probably my favourite of this rank
• Saved 1 skill
• fun trick
• Saved 1 skill
• I have to say I really didn't like this one, sorry, really ugly with random objects embedded in terrain and way too much flashing everywhere, with a finnicky solution
• Saved 1 skill, this one was confusingly easy
• Saved 2 skills, another oddly easy one that just feels like a classic-style, "send one ahead to build and stuff" level
• Saved 2 skills
• Saved 16 skills and 1 extra lemming. A messy solution.

Also in reply to kaywhyn, that level requires some precise assignment (most of my levels do ) but not to a ridiculous level like some of my other stages from that time period.

[kaywhyn]

Congrats on completing the Loud rank, Gronkling!

Finished rank 2! I actually found this one easier than the first rank, though I could see a few of the more obscure tricks catching people out.

Haha great minds think alike. I echoed the exact same thing about the Loud rank feeling much easier than the Soft rank when I pretested LOA.

Also in reply to kaywhyn, that level requires some precise assignment (most of my levels do ) but not to a ridiculous level like some of my other stages from that time period.

Ok, thanks. I'll see if I can put 2 and 2 together and figure it out then.

[Strato Incendus]

Well, you can still do the level even if you have seen some of the solution. By my previous post, I meant seeing a replay for a slight hint on the parts you're stuck on and then you stop watching from that point and carry out the rest of the level yourself from there. Good to know that you did the entire Soft rank spoiler free!

Indeed; that's precisely what I'm doing while playing SEB Lems at the moment. And I did it back in the day with Lemmings Migration as well. I think it's fair to say that the Murder rank of SEB Lems is now to me what Lemmings Migration was back then: I usually can figure out 95% of the solution, but then I always find myself one skill short. And the frustrating part is, it's not like I solve some levels completely and others not at all, it's 95% for the vast majority of levels. That's how you know you've reached your current skill threshold.

Regarding Gronkling's replays, I'll take one thing out of the spoiler and just disguise which level it refers to:

that trap is nastily hidden, I should give it an idle animation

Well, that's one of many reasons why it's a good thing to not only have you back on the forums again, but also as a player of this pack now

Because I have indeed been calling for secondary animations to be added to those traps (link). I think I even made suggestions in that thread what they could look like.

Responses to ericderkovits's remaining Soft replays (12-30)

12: That was a combination of the two intended solutions (either platforming & building from the left or right side).
13: What a weird alternative solution, but you still ended up using all the skills!
14: Yeah, seems like nobody is using the intended trick here... maybe that's why a certain other level is so hard later on. At the same time, that means I should definitely not enforce it as early as Soft 14. There's just an opportunity to learn the trick here - but no obligation to use it yet.
15: You always platformed from the left, but this is just a variation of the intended solution.
16: Intended.
17: Used all skills except for one, fine by me.
18: Used all the skills, valid alternative solution.
19: I think you're the first one who just platformed over everything. Not necessarily wrong, but it turns the level into one giant Platformer fest, which isn't particularly exciting for anyone. This will require a minor fix in terms of lowering the ceiling a little further at one point, so expect this solution to be broken. Since nobody else built over the top so far, nobody else's solution should be affected by this change.
20: Intended.
21: Intended.
22: Exactly as intended! That's why it's good I left the additional skills in, even if some other people found even more efficient ways so that they didn't have to use them.
23: This looks pretty much like Armani's talisman solution.
24: You really do like your timing-based solutions, don't you? This might have been a reason to push me over the edge and actually do place one-way arrows in order to enforce fencing from the right... but then again, you still used all the skills, so why should I argue against a timing-based solution more on this level than on Soft 07?
25: Intended. Just like with Gronkling, though, I'm pretty sure that last Stacker wouldn't have been necessary, since you managed to free the Climber crowd without having anyone trapped between stacks (which is what the additional Stacker is there for, in order to prevent crowd lemmings from getting trapped). Thus, you simply could have allowed the pioneer to drop down on the Platformer bridge he made from the right. This fall is not splat height. But of course, sending him all the way around again looks cool. And since you did, at that point the Stacker was indeed relevant again, otherwise he would have walked into the trap when he climbed back up to the part where you collected the pickup skill.
26: Looks like nobody wants to shimmy over the exit. Building and then fencing right away made your solution slightly more skill-efficient, but it's still basically intended.
27: Intended. This one seems to be pretty rock-solid at enforcing its solution, thanks to extensive testing!
28: Intended. You can either shimmy along the bottom side of the pole (as you did) or shimmy briefly along one link of the chain to land the pioneer on top of the pole so he can walk over it.
29: And yet another fine alternative solution for this one! I believe this is the first one I see where somebody actually saved some skills. That includes the Digger at the end, because much like with the Stacker on Soft 25, that final drop on the right is not splat height, so you wouldn't have had to use the Digger: There's a small protruding part of the building that breaks the fall; you only need to use the Digger there if you want to make the building Climber-friendly, which is indeed part of the intended solution. For that reason, maybe I actually should have made that drop splat height. But there are so many cool different solutions to this one out that I don't really see the point in making further changes to it and potentially breaking some of those solutions as a side effect.
30: Close to intended. There is some degree of liberty here which obstacles you overcome with Bombers vs. Builders/Platformers, and whether you use Bombers or Stoners to turn around lemmings at the right spots.

My responses to Gronkling's Loud replays are coming later in a separate comment!

[Strato Incendus]

Finished rank 2! I actually found this one easier than the first rank, though I could see a few of the more obscure tricks catching people out.

Haha great minds think alike. I echoed the exact same thing about the Loud rank feeling much easier than the Soft rank when I pretested LOA.

Seems like this is a regular thing with my packs, then, because many also reported the Professional rank of Lemmings World Tour to be easier than the first two ranks.

I assume this is because, once I start making the intended solutions more complex, I also start adding in more degrees of freedom. Which in the worst case leads to more backroutes, in the best case at least leads to more alternative solutions (i.e. where most or all of the skills are used, but not necessarily in the intended way).

This will become apparent in my responses to your Loud replays in a minute.

Responses to ericderkovits

Both of your solutions to Loud 01 and 02 are intended! Congratulations, especially for beating Loud 02!

The Stoner-Platformer trick in the Miner tunnel is indeed the thing that also could have been used on Soft 14, but wasn't required there yet.

And don't worry about the talisman on Loud 01; that one just exists because Armani is a genius. I didn't come up with that solution myself, but when I saw it, I was so blown away that I just had to create some kind of reward for it.

Responses to Gronkling (Loud rank)

01: Intended.
02: Intended. You actually had the Climber walk up into the Bomber's crater before bashing; the strictly-intended version is to bash while the Climber is still standing on the previous pole, showing that you can actually bash across tiny gaps. But of course, it's not required. Lots of different tricks here! Mainly turning around one Climber in the other's Basher tunnel, and of course stoning + platforming to connect the bottom with the upper Miner shaft in the absence of Builders. As I told ericderkovits, this is also possible, though not required, on Soft 14.
03: Intended.
04: Intended.
05: Intended. The Climber is a red herring skill. (And the Bomber technically as well, though it should be immediately obvious that it can't be used; it's just there to fill out the classic 8-slot skill panel.)
06: Intended.
07: The intended solution is hard to completely enforce here, but this is close enough for me.
08: A little more skill-efficient than intended. If I'm not mistaken, you might even have spared an additional Basher if you had dug with the Shimmier-to-be a little further to the left.

09: Believe it or not, you're actually the first one to make use of the fact that the pioneer is a Climber. For some reason, everyone else wasted an additional Builder building up into the niche of that rock before turning around to yet again build over to the ramp that leads up to the exit.
The intended solution sends the Climber down a Digger shaft on the very left side. Some others used the Miner to get straight down into the water. It wasn't worth sealing up the entire right chunk with steel at the bottom, though. This is still just the second rank, so a little more leeway in this regard is fine.
Unless you think the level feels less "rewarding" this way? I'm just asking for your honest opinion here, did this feel like a backroute to you?

10: Valid alternative solution; you didn't need the Bomber but that's okay.
11: Also close enough, just a few skills spared and still sufficiently difficult, I assume.
12: Well, I understand your emoji here means you really enjoyed this one. Some found this level inappropriately easy, but I for one know this is exactly the type of deceptively difficult / seemingly easy puzzle I would have struggled with immensely when starting out.
13: Intended. Yes, that trap sadly looks exactly like the hole in the tree. I even made it overwrite so that it's displayed on top of the tree, so it's not actually hidden behind terrain. So that's indeed something only secondary animations, like red squirrel eyes peeking out of the hole, could fix.
14: You didn't use any Walkers, Stackers, or Diggers? Great, that will become another talisman! You're the first one to solve this level with such efficiency!
15: Clear backroute. This one is a gift that keeps on giving. I've already made a bunch of skills pickups; now the Stoner is one as well. I think that one was the major problem (or at least I hope so!).
16: Pretty much intended.
17: More skill-efficient indeed, but this one is hard enough even if you use them. So no changes required here.
18: That was a very clever way of penning in the crowd! This is what I meant back then when I said that Shimmiers (and Jumpers) would be just as powerful as Walkers in many regards, simply because of their ability to easily cancel skills. Such cleverness should be rewarded, though; I wouldn't call this a backroute simply because you saved two skills. Because you did so by displaying clear knowledge of advanced and creative Shimmier applications, which is precisely what this pack is (among others) all about!
19: Intended. A little difficult to pull off timing-wise, but not as precise as I thought at first, fortunately.
20: Backroute. Welcome to the first clearly unfixable level of the pack. The reason I didn't cut and replace it though is because during testing, I found out that, even though this level is so vulnerable to backroutes, even those backroutes are actually not that easy to find. In fact, one of my testers got completely stumped by this.
21: Backroute. No, the Stoner staircase is not required. The intended solution is far more stupid than that. This seems to become another thing, though: People find ways to backroute my levels with Stoner staircases and then accuse me of having made a Stoner staircase my supposed intended solution. Fortunately, a little bit of steel fixes this one!
22: Intended.
23: Almost intended. I had no idea it was possible to do it in this order! That allowed you to not have to use the Blocker at all, instead of having to free it.
24: Almost intended. I had the Basher connecting the two crowds simultaneously cut through the pioneer's Builder staircase behind him, as I've learned it from a level in PimoLems. However, simply connecting the two crowds with the tunnel a couple of pixels below where the Builder even starts building works just as well! And feels slightly less obscure, so it eases my conscience. Originally, the Climber was supposed to be another semi-red-herring here as well: Tempting you to isolate the pioneer by making him a Climber, who would then go up into the fire trap. But it allowed alternative solutions too liberally, which is why there is that protruding piece of terrain now to prevent the pioneer from simply climbing out of the crowd. Thus, I'm glad to see this level's solution finally enforced!
25: Intended. The Climber is optional, allowing the player the slight leeway of stacking first before turning around. Being a Climber would then allow him to climb over his own stack (but of course, that comes with the trade-off that if he turns around again, he'll climb back over the stack and drown).
26: You did quite a few things differently than intended here - the intended solution is basically one big exercise in making a Miner go through all kinds of objects (bouncing off Blockers, going through the teleporter, then bouncing off the force field and finally off the splitter, which you have to switch once first). That's why the objects are embedded in terrain, and displayed on top of it so as to not be invisible. At the end of the day, you still needed all the skills, and the Miner had to go through at least for some of the distance, so this is a valid alternative solution!
27: Yes, this is more of a breather; keeping the crowd contained isn't actually as hard as I initially thought. And the pillars aren't splat height either. The solution is close enough to intended, though.
28: Close to intended, saved a few skills, that's fine. Regarding the order by difficulty, I just wanted the winter level to come right after the "November" level.
29: I've come to accept that it's very hard to enforce the intended solution here... maybe if I make the Shimmier a pickup skill as well. But it will break some of the cool alternative solutions I've seen for this one. This particular one seemed a little bit too straightforward for my taste. Again, my question to you: Did this feel like a backroute while playing?
30: The main challenge here is the iffy terrain shape. The intended solution is pretty cool, but once again quite hard to enforce completely.

I've already implemented most of the fixes in my level files and I will upload another update tomorrow.

However, for Loud 09 and 29, the decision of whether I will make changes to enforce the intended solution more compared to the alternative ones is still pending.
Thus, I'm making this partly dependent on Gronkling's feedback to the questions I asked about those two levels.

During testing, I was somewhat lenient with these two levels and allowed the alternative solutions, because I liked those, too.
But the more people are playing now, if there are levels where I never actually see the intended solution at all, I'm inclined to make those levels a little more strict.

And I think it's early enough since the first release of the pack that such comparatively major changes to individual levels would still be somewhat fair.
I generally try to avoid moving levels around between or within ranks after release, because it messes up everyone else's replay files (since usually, only the level creator has them sorted by level name, because that's what the editor does).