[DISC][PLAYER] Direction faced by Climbers and Sliders after skill remover

[namida]

Okay so, the build with the "towards the wall" fall behavior has been out for a while.

How do people feel about the two after seeing both in practice?

[IchoTolot]

I still think it feels a bit more natural when the skill remover simply removes the skill and does not provide an additional mechanic, so "towards the wall" felt better for me.

[namida]

Okay - we've had time with experimentals featuring both variations, we've had probably all the discussion we're going to have.

I think it's pretty unanimous that both skills should have the same behavior; it's just a debate over which behavior that should be. So let's have one more poll with just those two options. If it's clearly in favor of one option, we'll go with that; if it's a close call, I'll make the final decision.

[IchoTolot]

I already stated my opinion here, although it is not a hard stance.
I just simply would say a skill remover should only remove the skill and do not add any additional things like a turnaround. And we would have no point for a turn as no head is being hit here.
I can see the other way working out as well.

[Simon]

slider turns around when reaching his goal (a floor at the bottom of the wall).

Edit Simon 2023-07-09: My first paragraph in this post doesn't hold water; see namida's/my replies below. -- This turning (slider reaches the floor) isn't strictly necessary design-wise. It's mostly a shortcut because the subsequent walker would stand in front of the wall and turn anyway.

Certainly, there are corner cases where the shortcut makes a difference:

####.... <- Slider slides down this wall facing leftwards
####....
........ <-- 1-pixel-high walkway: Should slider turn here or not?
######## <-- floor that ends the slide if the wall's corner hasn't yet

Here, I don't feel that either design (walk into the 1-pixel-high walkway, or walk away from the wall) is overly compelling. As a new player, I'd have to test how the game behaves in this corner case.

Contrast this with the climber's turning at the ceiling. The climber's ceiling-turning isn't a mere design shortcut; it's necessary in the design to avoid re-climbing the wall over and over.



Voted now for non-turning, but it's a weak opinion. Now the poll is 3:3.

-- Simon

[namida]

^ Another, perhaps more common, case to consider is if that slider is also a climber.

[Simon]

Ah, right. That makes it necessary design-wise that the slider turns when he reaches the floor.

-- Simon

[namida]

...now of course, on further thought - while important for the general case, it's not so important specifically for this case. The skill remover would remove the Climber skill too. Of course, a new climber could be assigned, but if immediately climbing the wall is not desired, this assignment could simply be delayed until after he turns around.

[WillLem]

Whilst it is important to think of different in-level possibilities/cases, it shouldn't be the only thing to base the decision on. It's important to think about it from a conceptual/aesthetic point of view as well - i.e. which simply seems most natural, or likely, based on the action itself, and the effect of the skill remover on that action.

[Simon]

If I disregard level design possibilities, I'll recommend against introducing the remover in the first place. Don't open the unnecessary can of worms. People already don't agree on the design of the remover and now you don't have to force one way or the other. Everything will continue to look natural during play.

Okay, I half-miss the point here. You can certainly be interested in the level design possibilities that the remover creates (regardless of whether it turns or not) and uninterested in the difference (in level design possibilities) between the two remover designs.

-- Simon

[namida]

As this is one relatively minor detail in what appears to be a worthwhile and otherwise straightforward object, I don't think we need to cancel the idea over this. At worst, I flip a coin to decide.

[namida]

Poll results are fairly close. A slight lead for preferring towards the wall.

I guess the last thing to ask about is actual practical experience. To those who have played around with both setups in experimental - which one felt more natural? And which one seemed to have more puzzle potential (or less backroute potential)?

I'll make a final call this weekend most likely.

[IchoTolot]

I think for this behavior "level possibilities/cases" can mostly be left out as it is only a turn and we got tons of way to achieve that already.

So I would go purely by "does this behavior make sense for players" and "does it make sense in terms of engine logic".

From my logic and expectation, even after trying out the exp versions, a "skill remover" removes the skill - and therefore the ability even if it is currently active - and should not do any more extra stuff like a turnaround.

Sliders and climbers are facing the wall and therefore should still face the wall after the ability got removed. Also, for simplicity sake here a turnaround like after the climber hitting its head is not needed as he would not climb it again at the bottom.

For the lovers of  "level possibilities/cases" I would still got this:
Maybe there is a hole at the bottom after the climb now and he gets to walk into a new tunnel.
It would also prevent sliders from sliding into a hole as the lemming is now falling on the outside again.

[Dullstar]

Putting a bit more thought into this and reading through the older replies:

I still agree that turning should in no way be part of the interaction; it just doesn't make sense why this would be a special case where deassigners climb.

Climbers and Sliders have a mechanically similar counterpart which isn't a permanent skill: the Shimmier. It wouldn't get cancelled by this object since it's not permanent, which is technically consistent, but it does make me wonder if perhaps it *should* cancel because the skills are so closely related in function. But then why stop at cancelling Shimmiers -- why not cancel *any* skill, *including* the removal of permanents? Or, on the other hand, there's Simon's earlier suggestion of having the skill remover only remove the skill but not cancel it: so a climber would *finish* climbing the wall, but it wouldn't be able to climb again unless another climber was assigned. But -- this would cause a unique situation in which the climbing/sliding/floating/gliding/whatever state is decoupled from the status of actually having the skill. On the other hand, it's at least a simple rule.

The problem with potential turning is that it's a complicated rule: Usually, the deassigner won't turn lemmings, but in certain cases (which you need to memorize), the desassigner will cause a turn. Non-turning is a simple rule, but there's one "oh, I didn't think it would work that way but I guess that makes sense" exception you have to memorize with the shimmier ("it should cancel a shimmier too, right?" seems like a reasonable misconception even if logically, it's not a permanent so it doesn't get cancelled). If you cancel shimmiers too, then that's a different actual exception that you have to memorize. Non-cancelling (the permanent skill will finish its activity but can't be used again) or all-cancelling (including non-permanents) seems like the simplest rule.

I can't remember if it was an option in the experimental or not, and I could see the UI for it being a problem, but assuming you could find a reasonable way (maybe if you hover your mouse over it?), there's also the option of allowing arbitrary combinations of cancelled skills, which I actually think would be more interesting for puzzles than a simple deeassigner that deassigns everything (whether it affects non-permanents or not): you could imagine a puzzle where you're given multi-athletes and you have to navigate them through a maze of deassigners that requires retaining at least a few of the skills to navigate, so you have to figure out which ones you can afford to pass through.

[WillLem]

From my logic and expectation, even after trying out the exp versions, a "skill remover" removes the skill - and therefore the ability even if it is currently active - and should not do any more extra stuff like a turnaround

I still agree that turning should in no way be part of the interaction; it just doesn't make sense why this would be a special case where deassigners climb.

+1 for this.

("it should cancel a shimmier too, right?" seems like a reasonable misconception even if logically, it's not a permanent so it doesn't get cancelled). If you cancel shimmiers too, then that's a different actual exception that you have to memorize. Non-cancelling (the permanent skill will finish its activity but can't be used again) or all-cancelling (including non-permanents) seems like the simplest rule

+1 for this. If it's skill-interrupting, then it should interrupt all skills. If it only de-assigns permanents, then perhaps it shouldn't cancel the action currently being performed. Then, there's no reason to expect any other skill to be interrupted by a de-assigner.

Also, if the de-assigner doesn't cancel the action, then the turn-around question is answered anyway.