Sorry, Proxima, you hugely misrepresented my position with this, and I think it served to "escalate" the debate a little again
:
Three years on, can we please just give this a rest? Nepster put a ton of work into NeoLemmix as well as being one of the best level designers in the community. I wouldn't still be using NL at all without his work on giving us a decent editor. I don't know where he is now or why he hasn't been around (and as far as I know, none of us do), but I miss him, I hope he's okay and I'd love to see him come back. It's a gross insult that you only seem to remember him as the guy who culled stuff.
This had absolutely
nothing to do with me trying to bash Nepster over past arguments; in fact, I've recently been defending the puzzle philosophy behind many of his actions, and indeed praised all the work he put in to convert NeoLemmix to New Formats and introduce the Shimmier. So please don't frame my position as anything else!
In the context of this post, I thought it was clear that
I was actually defending Nepster's position on culls: When something gets too little use - which does not only apply to underused skills, but also to gimmicks, Ghosts, and in Nepster's view also anti-splat pads - it isn't worthy of inclusion. That's all this remark was supposed to express.
I do agree with namida that skills, once introduced, are too essential to cull again. That's why I always objected to the introduction of the Runner, for example - because I predicted too little use for it, as well. Not because I would have considered the skill too complex.
And in fact, IchoTolot himself has now put forward the "frequency of use" argument that he dismissed before. First it sounds great, it's a tank that can float over water and is immune to mind-control units. The speciality is that it needs a connection to a robot control center, if that is cut by low power or by the destruction of the center it deactivates.
Great addition, right? In reality the tank never gets used though.
[. . .]
The slider is our robot tank.
While you might not see a lot of opportunities to use the Slider, several other forum members have already stated they would use it a lot. So I think it's apparent that this worry, on a forum-wide level, is unjustified. Judging by kieran's comments, it seems more like a (vertical) Laser Blaster would be our equivalent of the robot tank, because you actively have to go out of your way to make it work.
The tracer sounds like a nice idea, because it could be combined with every other skill. Then again, this makes it at least as powerful as the Cloner, and as tough to implement as the Magno Booter / gravity reversal, which namida has already ruled out.
- It's too similar compared to the effect of alrerady existent skills, much more and more easily than the other contenders, as stated and showed time and time again.
Stated yes, shown no.
This is not an objective fact, but merely your opinion, as is the opposite stance on our side.
From our point of view, this similarity that you keep criticising about the Slider is precisely what would allow the skill to fit in organically with the rest.You object to too much new stuff being added to NeoLemmix since that would make it harder for newer players to memorise everything. Well, the Slider doesn't require you to learn anything new! You just need to get used to a new skill that has a different take on already existing behaviour (surviving splats, holding on to walls, turning around).
You can't demand a skill should bring something new and different to the table (as you claim the Mortar / Spear Thrower do) and then complain that new players would have too much stuff to learn.
I am aware of the example case of kaywhyn, so I'm not disputing that.
I critisize it and I love thinking! I just hate unnessesary thinking!
Who determines what type of thinking is "unnecessary"? You need to factor in how often lemmings will turn around when using a bunch of other skills as well (Blockers, Walkers, Gliders, Cloners, Climbers...)
The Slider does not contribute any new problem in this regard; it is just a new skill.
There you have it, but we keep on cheering for every new idea that has even the tiniest of usages that is popping up here and amplify the problem. That's also why the final version needs to happen soon!
Actually, we don't - that is precisely what the joke-skill-ideas thread is for: To provide a vent for this "overflow" of silly ideas. None of these get "cheered" for. namida may have selected a few skills from that thread and put them up for debate, but that was him looking for a needle in the haystack. Most of the skills and features proposed in that thread are intentionally so specific that it should be obvious to anyone in our community that these skills would not be worth implementing. And WillLem has taken this even further by proposing a lot of skill ideas that are jokes in the sense that they couldn't actually be implemented from a mechanical perspective in the first place.
The game is getting very close to being completely overloaded and the danger of fearing away new players with all the stuff is growing rapidly.
The option is always there, we've got way more than enough content! The jumper is being introduced and yet another object type is being considered.
As Dullstar pointed out, your position could rather be interpreted as objecting to any new skill at all at this point. If that is your position, it's fine to have, but it seems like the majority is definitely in favour of at least
any new skill being introduced. One new user being overwhelmed by the amount of existing features doesn't override this majority opinion.
Instead, it should make us question though whether the NeoLemmix introduction pack is really the best place to start for new users (again, that's not me throwing shade on the work you put into creating it) . Because the introduction pack tries to present an example level for every feature in existence.
That is good and fine and serves a purpose; but for a new player, it can feel like they have to learn all the new stuff by heart first before attempting "actual" levels. In contrast, in original Lemmings, you got to know the skills and features at a slowly increasing pace, through "learning by doing".
To prevent them from being overwhelmed,
new forum members can easily be pointed to less complex packs first that only use a fraction of the existing features - like Lemmings Migration and NepsterLems.
The problem is that those packs that restrict themselves to classic skills tend to be very difficult puzzle-wise. And that, at least for me, was
a much larger deterrent when starting out than the multitude of features! If you feel you can't solve any of the existing content, you're likely to just stop playing.
Here you deny reality again. NL follows the philosophy that this is possible!
And it (mental pathfinding) absolutely is possible with the Slider. You just need to acccurately factor in the completely predictable behaviour of how often it will turn around. If a player is too lazy to do that, that is their problem.
I'm too lazy to want to predict the exact trajectory of a
Mortar's / Spear Thrower's arc. Which is much harder to predict at the start of the level, actually. Once the lemming is at its destined position, you have the skill shadow, sure. But at the start of the level, no lemming is in his destined position. At this point, how often a lemming will turn around is easier to foresee than the exact trajectory of a curve.
As such, it seems like your preferred skill suggestion is actually in greater violation of NeoLemmix's core philosophy than the Slider. Take a read and maybe don't be so dismissive at other people about mental pathfinding.
And anyway, I actually feel far less strongly than Simon about mental-pathfinding the slider. While it is true that it may take slightly more mental effort to account for the constant turning when planning out a (permanent-skill version of) slider's path, it is at best a weak negative. It's not super-hard to do so.
Oh, don't get me wrong; I like to engage in mental pathfinding myself, so I'm not dismissive about it at all!
I just think it gets out of hand when people object to something that, as you pointed out in this quote,
doesn't actually contradict pathfinding approaches (I agree with you here!
). The Slider just requires them to do a few more calculations in their head, so some people
feel like it's not in accordance with the philosophy.
And then this leads to demands essentially reading "this should not be implemented because it interferes with
my way of mental pathfinding". The player is not entitled to thinking less than the level designer wants them to. If the player determines a level challenges them too much (on a pure puzzle-level, no execution difficulty or unfair surprises), than it's their right to give up. At this point, the level designer has simply beaten them.
Yeah, I've been surprised by the Slider's behaviour a couple of times as well while playing QFK2. But the Slider didn't do anything unfair or unpredictable. Thus, me being surprised by it was down to my mistake - not the fault of the skill. I simply have to learn to factor in its consistent and predictable behaviour when considering my options at the start of the level.But again, I don't have to actually
learn a completely new type of behaviour, like memorising a projectile trajectory, or the size of a crater it causes; I just need to
adapt to existing behaviour being combined by this skill in a slightly new way - but this new way offers up many unique interactions that still are logical and completely predictable.