Lix Multiplayer Sat, Oct 29th

[Simon]

Hi,

Flopsy and I have time to playtest Lix 0.10 (it's now released) on Saturday, October 29th, 2022. We can have a big session or a small one, it's no problem.

I still prefer to start at 16:00 UTC, but Icho prefers to later in general. What time of day suits you all? 16:00, 17:00, or 18:00 UTC seem to be reasonable candidates.

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

Yes I shall be there. I'm probably going to hold back on making new levels this time so we can play old favourites for the sake of focus on 0.10 testing.

It was a nice turnout for the last session as well so hopefully we can have as many again soon.

EDIT: with regards to time, I'd rather start a bit later also because it's a Saturday maybe an hour later than we usually start at 17:00 UTC

[Kingshadow3]

I do plan to participate as well. I'm not picky about when we start. Any of those times suit me.

[Silken Healer]

On average, how long do these Lix multiplayer sessions normally last? This may affect my preferred times.

[Flopsy]

Sessions have lasted about 2-3 hrs on average recently, in the past they used to last about 4+ hours.

[Simon]

I'm good with 17:00 UTC (Flopsy's suggestion).

-- Simon

[Flopsy]

Just a reminder to make sure you update to 0.10.0 Lix if you plan on joining, there is no crossplay between 0.9 Lix and 0.10 Lix

https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=6073.new;topicseen#new

[Silken Healer]

I will be attending. Assuming the session lasts for 2-3 hours, I have no preference for time.

[Flopsy]

A pretty fun session overall, the handicap seemed to prevent myself and Simon from winning most of the time. Also the challenges we faced on some levels were just hilarious.

For example:
Selective Rescue when skills got reduced, we ended up with less worker (floater) Lixes than the usual 3, which made us very sheepish to try sabotaging in fear of losing the ability to finish the splatform.
Also when we had 1/5 skills, the builders/walkers being reduced to 10 and the diggers being reduced to 4 was brutal! This level was a very good example of the handicap working well.

And in Rescue Ranger Double Team, this only got worse!

Then in Playtime (10 of everything skillset), me and Simon were effectively reduced to 4 of everything when we did 1/3 of skills and the level was very hard to solve at this stage so any sabotage and we were effectively done.

Then there was the funny time we had 1 of everything in Group Therapy XD, the level was near impossible on that skillset.

I'm happy with the handicap and it brought a funny twist to the game, it did help the less experienced players to go on to win and because they knew we were handicapped, it ended up being me and Simon being afraid of everyone else for a change!
It gives the more experienced players a much harder challenge and it also gives the less experienced a fighting chance, but it's very dependent on what level is being played, we stuck mostly to familiar levels and we played a lot of levels over and over to try and test the varying levels of handicap.

We didn't even touch the score multiplier sadly, we just stuck to the number of Lix, skillset reduction and spawn delay handicaps.

I highly advise those who didn't enjoy Lix in the past due to the high difficulty curve and more experienced players to come back and give the game a chance because this handicap is a massive game changer!

[Silken Healer]

Thanks for playing everybody.

Tbh, I actually feel like I did worse than normal with the handicap for some reason. Maybe I subconsciously thought I ought to do better with the handicap which ended up making me subconsciously feel pressure like how you always mess up when someone else is watching. More likely, it was just a coincidence.

The handicap definetly made the session more fun overall though due to how it changed the gameply so, for example, made it so if I killed Simon's worker lix in Rescue Ranger before he built the bridge he'd be practically stuffed.

[Simon]

Thanks!

Yes, I too feel like the session was exciting fun both for the experienced and less experienced players.

Some psychological pressure from receiving handicap, I know it from Go. Handicap feels like it nudges to overly safe play, or towards a style that's only possible with the handicap. But it's better to mix some reliance on handicap -- how the opponent now has many weaknesses to attack directly -- into how one would normally play in the same situation without handicap.

Assume that all 5 players chose an appropriate handicap. Then everybody is still supposed to lose 4 out of 5 games, and win only 1 in 5. It's still a game of good decisions, like killing the last (only) worker.

-- Simon