Community pack ratings

[Proxima]

That seems like good reasoning to me. I'm not wild about "Taunting", but it's not bad, and that set does go well together as a series.

[chaos_defrost]

A bit late to the party. I think I like "Daunting > Taunting" for the 4th set. As Cunning suggests that you're going to have to step up your thinking skills to clear the set (which is about right for a Tier 3 level aimed at Lemmings fans), "Daunting" suggests that you're going to have to start to quell those "How on earth?!" initial reactions to a puzzle that seems impossible at first glance but can be reasoned (which is about right for a Tier 4 level).

So: Simple -> Quirky -> Cunning -> Daunting -> Vicious -> Hopeless for me.

Also: Even though it's a somewhat easy level for the last set, definitely suggesting "Just Stop The Bleeding" as Hopeless 1. The metaphorical parallel between the absolute easiest non-tutorial level in the game being ramped up to your introduction to Hell is just too perfect, in my opinion.

The other tiers I like as they are:

Simple: A mix of tutorial levels, very easy Fun-type levels, and later a few basic puzzles. Gets the point across that this isn't a particularly hard set, but is also not super-condescending towards new players who will struggle with even set 1 at times.
Quirky: This set is going to wind up being an eclectic mix of higher-end Tricky X-of a skill levels, slightly more difficult puzzle levels, and a couple levels that require lateral leaps but have a limited enough skillset to where a player will eventually stumble upon the right method in a reasonable time. In other words, it's a mixed bag of moderate difficulty levels.
Cunning: [explained earlier]
Vicious: Pretty self-explanatory. It's very hard. All around. And yet, there's one set even worse...
Hopeless: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." As opposed to avoiding a smug rating for the easiest set, I like a smug rating for the hardest set. It gives an additional push to an expert player to beat us just to show that no, it's not Hopeless after all. But at the same time, it basically is telling everyone who isn't skilled enough to attempt the set "Yea, try a lower tier. You WILL get obliterated by these puzzles." Last, it's very absolute: "Vicious" is a pretty graphic word, but it's possible to think of even more gratuitous synonyms. What on earth can you describe as more imposing than "Hopeless?"

[Proxima]

Ooh. "Daunting" is much better. Nice one.

[RubiX]

Daunting is a good fitting word for sure.  Nice!

[geoo]

I think I'm pretty much going to follow Steve's outline and naming scheme.
The only thing I'm not fully sold on is "Just Stop The Bleeding" as Hopeless 1. I definitely like the idea you're getting at, and everyone instantly falling off a cliff is a nice twist too. But difficulty-wise it'd maybe fit for Vicious, but for Hopeless I think it's just too easy (unless you can significantly ramp up its difficulty via some modifications). I was having Recycling Plant in mind for Hopeless 1. As a level that's hopeless until you get the main idea, I think it's representative of a lot of levels in the category, while the main idea is not that obscure that it'd belong further back in Hopeless.

On a different note, I added Proxima's and mobius' ratings into my spreadsheet so I have them immediately in sight when ordering the levels.

[Proxima]

I also think "Just Stop the Bleeding" is not tricky enough for Hopeless 1 -- although in my ordering I put it as Set 6 Level 1 out of 7 sets, and the last two sets were incomplete, so it may seem I was ranking it as the 34th-hardest level -- my ordering did leave out a few levels I haven't solved yet, Recycling Plant being among them.

This seems an appropriate place to give my rationale for my other choices for Level 1s:

1.1 Any Way You Want (I.S.) -- obvious choice, I don't think there's any dispute here.
2.1 The Adventure Playground (Proxima) -- unique level with all skills unlimited, but quite a bit of tricky terrain to traverse. Placing it in the second set, but as the very first level of that set, seems a good way to accommodate it.
3.1 LIX (Proxima) -- not a very serious level, but as it's based on the name of the game, I thought it would be a fun way to start a set.
4.1 Rhapsody (I.S.) -- Insane Steve's signature piece, so to speak, and a good introduction to his harder levels. Also, placing it at the start of a set makes it more memorable, which gives more impact when the player reaches "Rhapsody in Blue"!
5.1 Dividing Three By Two (Proxima) -- Seems appropriate as this level is based on Taxing 1 of the original game. As it might be a bit unfair of me to give three Level 1 slots to my own levels, an alternative would be "Variety Day" (namida).
7.1 Don't Catch Me if You Can (geoo) -- Very simple but completely impossible until you spot it, which is exactly what you want for the starter level of the last set!

[chaos_defrost]

Yea, even I'll admit putting Just Stop the Bleeding in set 6 is a stretch, but I both have a weird fetish for ironic symbolism and like putting levels slightly easier than the average difficulty of the set near the start of a set so that something like Taxing doesn't happen.

That said, given that the levels can be played out of order and that Hopeless is meant to be a gigantic kick to the groin all around, I can concur JSTB is too easy for set 6. First levels from me:

Simple: Any Way You Want. This level was DESIGNED to be as easy as a non-tutorial level gets.
Quirky: The Adventure Playground. It actually fits the title of the set perfectly, being (I think) the only level which gives you infinitely many skills, but is still not easy.
Cunning: (at the risk of sounding self-centered) The Razor's Edge. There's not much to try, but the solution requires a bizarre lateral leap, worthy of this set's title. I like LIX in late Quirky, because it is a quirky level after all.
Daunting: Rhapsody. It's my magnum opus (pun intended), son, I'd love this to be the first in a set, and this is about the right difficulty for it.
Vicious: I'll concur with Dividing Three By Two here, for symbolism.
Hopeless: Thinking perhaps either Path of Wickedness or Tinker Tailor Soldier Lix for this one. Don't Catch Me if you Can, honestly feels a bit too hard for the intro level. An earlier Hopeless level, sure, but not quite 1. And I've looked for at while a Recycling Plant without getting it, so I also think it's a bit hard for the first level.

As with Proxima, though, this puts three of my own levels as openers. Granted I wrote Simple 1 for the explicit purpose of being too easy to fail, but...

also, geoo, can you put a complete list of every level submitted to the pack? The list in the OP is a bit outdated. Thanks.

[geoo]

I put a few hours into it today and updated the files and the list.

All levels and level list in an archive:
https://github.com/geoo89/lixlfpack/archive/gh-pages.zip
If you want the levels sorted approximately by difficulty, put this file in your lixlfpack folder: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43603680/_order.X.txt (There are five levels at the end that don't belong there, but I'm not fixing that now.)

Level list only: https://github.com/geoo89/lixlfpack/blob/gh-pages/lixlfpack.xls?raw=true
As html: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43603680/index.html

That's 241+2 levels (Want to remake Stroke at Retirement Age, and probably a time limit level I had in mind). I also want to add 4 or 5 more tutorial-like levels for the first rating that present some tricks for later levels, and to smooth out the difficulty curve at the start. There are a few levels that have been posted that aren't in there yet, I'll post a folder with them probably sometime tomorrow for discussion. So either way we will have a slight surplus of levels. The number of levels per rating will stay at 40 (that's two pages in Lix). I'm rather reluctant to add a new rating, so rather than adding 40 more levels, my intention is to ask you for input on levels that you are not too hot about and think may be worth taking out. I suppose this will also guarantee that the levels included are of really good quality.

You can still rate levels, for that either fill in the column after Proxima's rating with your ratings in the spread sheet, or post a .txt file in the following format: each line contains the ID of a level (see list), followed by a space and your rating.

Furthermore, Lix is going to get a hint system like Cheapo. So a level can have a first hint, second hint, and so on, as many hints as you like. The later hints should give more information than earlier hints, no guidelines apart from that, be creative . I encourage you to submit hints to your levels. For that purpose, either use the columns in the spreadsheet at the very end (there are a few samples in there, for e.g. Cold Iron's Bound), or submit a .txt file in the following format: An entry contains the level ID, and a list of hints, each on a separate line. Leave a blank line between the entries for different levels.


I like the suggestions for the first levels of each rating, I definitely concur with the 4 levels you two got a consensus on. As for Recycling Plant, I think it fits Proxima's description pretty accurately: "Very simple but completely impossible until you spot it, which is exactly what you want for the starter level of the last set!". I have no idea how hard it is to spot though, I didn't try to hide it in particular. I remember Simon seeing the idea pretty quickly in the L2 version of the level (which is arguably harder), so I didn't think it too hard. I initially rated it 3.0, but I removed my rating later. I'm very fond of that level (I think it can be seen in the effort I put into decoration ), it's probably the favourite of my own levels. I guess we shall see whether there are 30-40 harder levels in the pack or not.
I hope Akseli will give this entire pack a go once I put a preliminary level order down.

[Akseli]

I hope Akseli will give this entire pack a go once I put a preliminary level order down.

Definitely I want to.

I've been lurking Lix Community Level Set at times and thinking that I could give my input by testing levels and rating them, if there aren't too many people doing that already. But then I wondered if I want to play this whole levelset when it'll be already completed. Because, I've recently been beta testing and helping with so many levelpacks and projects. I thought that I'd like to play entirely myself even something without seeing it beforehand, and Lix Community Level Set seemed very, very promising.

So, is there still lots of work with the backroutes, the difficulty curve etc.? Or will it be so complete set that I can just lay back and enjoy playing it and then give my thoughts and solutions, for example?

[RubiX]

    yay to continued work on this project

[geoo]

I just realized that there were 13 levels that I forgot to include (will update files within the next hour), so we're at a total for 254+2 now, which makes things a bit tricky, as while scrapping around 5 existing levels wouldn't have been too hard, scrapping about 20 might be a bit harsh considering that pretty much all of the levels are of decent quality. I have to come up with a solution, so I'm going to ask for your input. I see three possible solutions here:
1. Go ahead and scrap 20 existing levels to get down to 240.
2. Have 7 ratings instead, meaning we have to come up with a new rating name (before or after cunning maybe? maybe stunning? ) for a whopping total of 280 levels. Getting 20 more levels shouldn't be an issue, considering I want to add some more easy first-stage levels and there are also minimac's levels none of which are included yet.
3. Go for 7 ratings (again, have to come up with a new name), but have Hopeless only contain 20 levels, so it really lives up to its name containing the 20 most difficult levels.

To me all options have advantages and disadvantages, so I don't quite know what to do (and I've grown quite fond of our naming scheme for the 6 stages).

So, is there still lots of work with the backroutes, the difficulty curve etc.? Or will it be so complete set that I can just lay back and enjoy playing it and then give my thoughts and solutions, for example?

I'd let you wait to try it until it is pretty much complete.
As of now, most levels have been thoroughly backroute tested, however the difficulty curve is something I still have to work on.
For this purpose my plan is to try to set up a preliminary version for the previous testers to have a look at (especially with regards to the difficulty curve), and once I incorporated the suggestions release a second (near final) version for you to play. Near final meaning I'll take you commentary into account and maybe do changes accordingly, e.g. with respect to the difficulty curve or backroutes.

[Proxima]

I'm all in favour of including more levels, especially as I still have some more that I want to make, and now that my course has finished, I should finally have enough free time to do that. 

In the column with "backroutes", "which version" etc., what do the dots mean?

Halfway Down the Stairs has to be scrapped unless the climber/bomber bug gets fixed. I hope it does, because I think it's one of my best levels.

Finale still needs fixing -- as do Seven Pillars of Lixdom/It's all about survival, which aren't on your list.

[chaos_defrost]

Talking a bit in chat about first levels, and I'm on board with Recycling Plant as Hopeless 1 now. Mainly because it's such a beautiful level, and I like the idea of the first levels all looking good. Meaning I'd need to add some more refined terrain to Rhapsody[--].

...and Any Way You Want. I half-jokingly said there should be 3 screens of completely pointless decorative terrain on both sides to make it pretty (and then totally jokingly suggested Proxima be the one to do it because of how amazing Goblin City et.al. turned out), and then not at all jokingly suggested a 20 of all skill level where the exit is moved to one (or both) ends of the decorative terrain for Quirky.

Anyone on board? I'm not the I.M. Pei of level design (Exhibit A: The Hole in the Head Gang). So, yea.

Speaking of which, if this were done, the decorative terrain for Just Stop the Bleeding would be given the Hole in the Head Gang treatment for shock and comedic value. I'd be on board to be the ultimate corrupter myself.

[Akseli]

So, is there still lots of work with the backroutes, the difficulty curve etc.? Or will it be so complete set that I can just lay back and enjoy playing it and then give my thoughts and solutions, for example?

I'd let you wait to try it until it is pretty much complete.
As of now, most levels have been thoroughly backroute tested, however the difficulty curve is something I still have to work on.
For this purpose my plan is to try to set up a preliminary version for the previous testers to have a look at (especially with regards to the difficulty curve), and once I incorporated the suggestions release a second (near final) version for you to play. Near final meaning I'll take you commentary into account and maybe do changes accordingly, e.g. with respect to the difficulty curve or backroutes.

Oh, wow, that's so kind, thanks! I hope I didn't seem too selfish with my wish.

I'm definitely looking forward to play this Lix pack. I think I haven't mentioned yet anywhere, but yeap I have been playing Lix a bit at times during the last year and getting used to it. I'm still far from a good player, practising myself still to use better skills like Cuber and Batter. I've played Clam's and Rubix's sets to Arcane and Perplexing ratings, having many troubles there. So, maybe it's useful, that when I'll play the Lix Community Level Set, I see it through eyes of a more casual player perhaps than you, because I don't know the coolest Lix tricks yet. But of course you don't need to wait for my input for the near final release (if I'm too slow or something ) if you don't find it necessary.

Btw, should I remake my contest level, "Feel the Pressure", or has someone done it already? I recall that someone recommended remaking contest levels for this Lix pack. Or do you have better/too similar levels there already?

[Proxima]

Btw, should I remake my contest level, "Feel the Pressure", or has someone done it already? I recall that someone recommended remaking contest levels for this Lix pack. Or do you have better/too similar levels there already?

You certainly can if you wish. I've remade my "Brute Fours" in Lix, and geoo is doing "Stroke at Retirement Age".