Quote from: namida on December 23, 2015, 06:32:52 PM
There is an option to disable automatic naming. Should you use this option, a Save dialog will pop up every time you save a replay, allowing you to completely choose your own filename.

I know, but usually when playing through a level pack, I want to save just one replay. So it's more convenient to use the automatic names first (and perhaps later rename them). But when I then come to a level with alternative solutions, I cannot change the option at the results screen any more. 

Here is my opinion:

Have at most two options regarding saving replays
Anything more only clutters the option menu and leaves players like me confused. This holds in particular for options that depend on each other, e.g. "Adding Timestamps On/Off" depends on the setting of "Auto-Save Replays". So I should not be able to see this option when the game saves replays automatically.
Anyway even if you add this third option, it still doesn't do what I want it to do and I have to rename my backup replays by hand. Either force your own preference down my throat and have a simple option menu, or make things completely customizable.

Unique replay names are useful
Any saved replay was created due to an explicit command coming from me. So I want to keep it until explicitly stating to delete it. Hence the new replay needs another name. Currently I have to switch tabs to rename replays before I can record an alternative solution. I got used to it, but it's not the ideal solution.

Auto-save replay names
Putting "FAILED" somewhere is better than adding "SOLVED", because failed replays are more likely to be deleted and I don't want have to rename all successful replays just to delete the "SOLVED". Alternatively don't automatically save failed attempts in the first place.

Summary: Don't add another option. Just add the date/time to the automatic/suggested file names.

PS: If you plan in NeoLemmix V2 to save replays from all level packs in one global folder, instead of using seperate folders for each level pack, then a useful structure of replay names will be even more important than it is now.

PPS: I'm not completely happy with Simon's D Lix replay names either: For single-player levels, the user name is useless, but the level pack and rank are important.

Recent game mechanics changes made the attached solution/backroute to "Won't get fooled again" (again) possible.

I agree with every point in ccexplore's first paragraph.

But I see a few problems with the rest:

Quote from: ccexplore on December 22, 2015, 08:16:17 PM
I wonder if mybe a simple heuristic like the level's author != the user's name may work well enough 90% of the time?

What happens if someone fills in their forum name as the level author, but uses the real-life name as the user name?

Quote from: ccexplore on December 22, 2015, 08:16:17 PM
Alternatively, maybe the approach here should be to just keep some number of automatic backup of older versions each time user saves a level?  Of course this can also be a configurable feature in terms of enabling/disabling and how far to keep history.

I usually keep several backups of my levels, which is currently difficult to keep track of. The reason is, that there is no in-game possibility to view the file name or file creation date. So one has to keep track of version numbers using the level's title (especially if versions differ only by minor backroutes-fixes), or always exit the game to move earlier versions to subfolders. Having automatic backups makes this problem only worse.

NaOH's suggestion of a 'write-protect' flag seems a cleaner solution to me.

And here is a new version already.

Goal of this change: Make the level bigger to have more space to play around.

Main change: I just mirrored the level.

Secondary changes (feel free to do whatever you like with these):
- 20 lemmings instead of 10 lemmings, because the number of hatches doubled as well. RR set to 50, because RR 1 is sooo slow.
- Removed some of the steel, that I thought ugly and saw no use for.
- Removed two unlock buttoms and kept only the necessary ones.
- Moved a few parts (e.g. the hatch) one or two pixels to have them properly centered.

General remarks:
- Even though the level is currently symmetric, it does not need to stay this way.
- The level still allows for lots of solutions, inculding one that still uses only one of the bashers and miners. The attached solution uses more skills however.

Quote from: möbius on December 19, 2015, 02:56:44 AM
-first of all I had the new count-down option instead of original home count [I think that name is more descriptive than "relative in count".]
[...]
-I know it's sort of off-topic but I would use this as a great argument to get rid of percentages entirely. I really don't see any benefit to them at all, or why the preference exists other than tradition. When they started Lemmings, the game had a large number of levels where the goal was to save MOST of the lemmings, a general number, so the percentage made more sense there.

I never knew, that there already is a count-down option for saved lemmings. Perhaps this is already sufficient to reduce my confusion about assigning cloners.
@namida: You really need to advertise newly added options to NeoLemmix better!

OK, let me try to be clearer:

Why should cloner skills be included in the lemming count?
Because currently the preview screen does give the player a wrong impression! Let us consider two examples:
1) The example you mentioned: 50 lemmings out of the hatch, 5 cloners and a save requirement of 45 lemmings. Given the current info on the preview screen I expect that only 5 lemmings may die. But in fact even 10 lemmings may die, so once the level starts I need to adjust my count due to the existence of cloners - precisely the thing you wanted to avoid.
All this stays true, if the same solution would work with 55 lemmings in the hatch and no cloner (i.e. the case, where one does not need the cloners in the solution). And it stays true as well, if all five cloned lemmings are among the 10 lemmings that need to die. 
2) Consider the attached level: 5 lemmings coming out of the hatch, 5 cloners available and a save requirement of 10 lemmings. Then on the preview screen I have three options, what is displayed:
- Percentage ADJ: I have 5 lemmings and need 100% --> Misleading information.
- Percentage ON: I have 5 lemmings and need 200% --> How can I save more lemmings than I start with? Confusing.
- Percentage OFF: I have 5 lemmings and need to save 10 lemmings --> How can I save more lemmings than I start with? Confusing.
The point is: I do not start with 5 lemmings, but with 10 lemmings. Out of these 10 lemmings I can create 5 lemmings using the cloner skills whenever I want. But this does not change the fact, that I have 10 lemmings available. Again the current info on the preview screen does not allow me to compute the number of lemmings that may be killed, and is therefore misleading.
Summary: For the player to get the correct expectations, one needs to add the lemmings in the hatch, the preplaced lemmings and the cloner skills to get the correct number of available lemmings to display on the preview screen.

This is kind of the same argument as for the zombies you mentioned, but in the other direction: zombies/ghosts are currently counted as lemmings, though they are not available to the player - cloners are not counted, though they create lemmings that are available. Neither thing is good.

What do I mean by "forcing to use cloners"?
Consider now my replay: Using only one cloner, I created a save path from the hatch to the exit. So the level looks pretty much solved. However due to the save requirement of 10 lemmings, this is not the case! This level forces me to use the other 4 cloners as well.
Sure, if the save requirement would only be 6 lemmings, then I might omit assigning the other 4 cloners. But level designers usually expect one to use all cloners (because they use them in their own solution), so this happens only rarely.

If the level requires that I use a cloner already in the middle of the level, then everything is fine, regardless whether the cloned lemming dies or not. In this case none of the suggestions makes any difference, because the cloner skill is no longer available at the end of the level.

What is the idea behind my most recent suggestion?
Well, it should probably revised to
  If the last lemming exits, the save requirement is not yet reached and there are still cloners available, then one of them should be assigned on the last frame.
The point is: Under these circumstances, the player very likely does not want to end the level (because it is not yet solved), but wants to try to save some more of the cloned lemmings. So the aim of my suggestion is to avoid going to the result screen (with the failure), but to continue the game to give the player a second chance to save the (not yet created) cloned lemmings as well. The intention is basically the same as with Simon's " level must not terminate" suggestion.
As an example, let us again consider the attached replay. After the first cloned lemming and the first 4 lemmings from the hatch have reached the exit, there is only one lemming left, but still 4 cloner skills. As 5 more lemmings need to be saved, it is very likely a stupid mistake from the player (me) not to have the other cloner skills assigned earlier. So I should have assigned the cloner already at sometimes earlier and the game only tries to correct my mistake at the lastest possible moment.
This does not "take away control from the player", because it only changes things at the very last possible moment, but rather gives the player more control, because the player is given another chance to save lemmings. It does "make the game easier" only in the respect, that it catches one possible and obvious mistake a player may make, but doesn't do anything the player cannot do himself.
Finally, you question the benefits: If the newly created cloned lemming arrives at the exit without any further guidance (which is not automatic as you already noted), then this helps the player solving the level. If the cloned lemming cannot be saved, then this at least alerts the player that he needs to save a few more lemmings and therefore can either go backwards in time or start the replay from the very beginning. In any way, this is a better outcome than going to the results screen.

Quote from: möbius on December 18, 2015, 12:38:43 AM
I still however, do not see how this as much of a problem.
I mean, come on, The player must look at the skill bar and they would see the cloners, unless their blind... Plus, I don't use percentages; however this is a good argument for getting rid of percentages altogether. Why complicate matters?

But anyways, is this really that much of a problem? I'm not really sure what the discussion is about hoever; Are we talking about a complicated problem of using cloners that then died or something else? Or simply not seeing that you have the cloner skill available to you? If it's the latter I find the argument silly. If you need, I can explain why...

The problem is, that cloners are the only skill you are forced to use up. Depending on the playstyle, one might think of doing this (if one counts the lemmings saved, which depends on using cloners) or not (if one counts the lemmings killed, which does not depend on using cloners).
If I am the only one, who constantly forgets using cloners to just create more lemmings, then nothing needs to be changed (except my solutions ).

Quote from: möbius on December 18, 2015, 12:38:43 AM
In any case, unless I'm missing something isn't there an inerrant problem here with enforcing that skill counts be injected into the scoring like this?

If you are talking about adding remaining cloner skills to the final saved score, then: Oops , you are totally correct. If a level has one lemming coming out of the hatch, 9 cloner skills and a save requirement of 5 lemmings, then the player should certainly not be able to solve the level just by nuking straight away.

Quote from: möbius on December 18, 2015, 12:38:43 AM
On the restarting/automatically replaying; I strongly want there to be at least some option here.

Yes, I agree with that. I thought about enabling the hotkey for replaying the level ("R" or "F1" or whatever) not only during the actual level, but as well on the results screen.

Quote from: möbius on December 18, 2015, 12:38:43 AM
For one thing, if I want to replay, this usually happens when I realize the level is cooked long before or shortly before it ends so I just press R, and skip the whole end screen process [which is very nice]. While if I let the level end and go to the end screen, I usually don't want to replay it.

Sorry, different experience here: I frequently arrive at the results screen, because I (mistakenly) think I solved the level for one reason or another. And whether I want to replay the level and/or my solution, very strongly correlates with the results screen giving a success or a failure message.

And here just one more random thought:
What do you think of automatically assigning all remaining cloner skills one frame before the final lemming exits the level?

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 09:18:39 PM
No, it is terrible. I have compared it to making all exits invisible during play, showing them only during preview.

...and people came and even created levels with hidden/invisible exits .

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 09:18:39 PM
The idea hinges on the current problem that (leaving results screen by any means kills your replay). Fixing that is more important than special-casing the termination of LemGame.

Totally agree with this.
And thanks for the clarifications. I still see problems with them, but perhaps it is best to hear first namida's thoughts on adding "go directly from results screen to replaying the level".

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
After thinking some more: My combined idea of 1) add cloners, 2) don't score cloners, is idiotic. We'd end up with a level void of lemmings, but displaying lems left equal to cloner skill count left. This idea implies they should be scored automatically. Or not be counted with the out count. Whargh.

Or perhaps this discrepancy can be explained by a message in the results screen like "Perhaps assign all cloners next time? Hit hotkey XYZ to replay your solution."

Quote from: namida on December 16, 2015, 01:05:04 AM
The current discussion in relation to displaying total lemmings in some form has been requested strongly enough, and (once a method is decided on) probably simple enough, that it can go in a minor update.

This is a relatively big change for players, so better make it together with the other changes in V2. As möbius says, the current system can be improved, but isn't terrible.

Quote from: möbius on December 16, 2015, 01:26:34 AM
As I've said before: I think adding too many things to the counters in the menu bar like these suggestions makes it very confusing.

First of all, the two numbers "required - saved" and "out + hatch + cloners" would replace the current "IN" and "OUT" count. So there would still be two numbers displayed, just with a different meaning. But I agree that these numbers should have an intuitive meaning to the player and not be too artificial.

Quote from: möbius on December 16, 2015, 01:26:34 AM
2) [...] I don't understand your example; if you didn't need the cloners, why did the level fail [as a result of not assigning them?]

Assume you have a level with 7 lemmings coming out of the hatch and having 3 cloner skills. Then after assigning the cloner skills you have 10 lemmings, so a save requirement of 9 lemmings makes sense (and is possible within NeoLemmix). Now assume I have a "solution" saving all lemmings that come out of the hatch, but does not need any cloners. Then only 7 lemmings hop into the exit, while 9 are required ==> I fail the level even though I saved 100% of the lemmings coming out of the hatch.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
I believe they should also be counted with the "number of lemmings:" on the preview.
Downside: If it shows 3 lems out, and you find only 2 on the map, how fast do you realize that he missing lem out comes from the skill? Is this situation likely to run into, after saving most of the horde?

Good points. I would probably need some time to realize that the cloner is the reason, but at least I would be alerted that I missed something.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
The UI problem is that you cannot edit the current solution after the level has ended automatically. ...

Regardless of how we solve the cloner issue, adding the possibility to directly replay the current solution from the result screen would be a valuable feature (especially on failed attempts).

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
The player should always be able to easily score Cloners near the exit, even if the game has ended.

Yes, forcing level creators to allow saving cloned lemmings near the exit would be a solution, but I hesitate to put such a restriction on all level designers.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
Maybe the level must not terminate until all cloner skills have been applied, or the level has already been won without them. Then the time limit shouldn't terminate the level either,

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense. What should the last lemming do when arriving at the exit? Walking by, standing around, or...? If you ignore time limits until all cloners are used, then players may cheat the time limit by deliberately not assigning cloners and it doesn't help to save the last cloned lemming anyway.

Quote from: Simon on December 16, 2015, 02:06:03 AM
I want to meet Nepster in real life someday. :-]

Yes, we should organize a meeting someday, probably in Göttingen to include IchoTolot. So let me first check a few things tomorrow. I'll write a PM.

Edit Simon: This topic belongs to a series of related ones:

• Save requirement: show during play
• Required-saved, out+hatch: display during game
• Add cloners to initial count of lems (this one)

---

Two questions, because I just played a cloner level:

1) If we display "required - saved / out + hatch" how do we count cloner skills? My intuition says: "required - saved / out + hatch + cloners".

2) Assume that at the end of the level when all lemmings are either saved or dead, a player has a few cloner skills left. Should these be automatically added to the saved count?
Pro: If I don't need cloners, I tend to forget to assign them while playing. More than once this resulted in me failing a level only due to this. I found this quite annoying.
Contra: Currently one may create levls, where the main problem is turning around cloned lemmings.

Quote from: möbius on December 15, 2015, 01:06:17 AM
I realize apparently no one else considers this a problem but I do: I wish for a volume control of some kind because I think the default volume of both sound and music is way too high.

You are certainly not the only one who consideres this a problem. But it is already on the list of changes for NeoLemmix V2.

PS: Perhaps the current discussion should be moved to a thread in the NeoLemmix V2 subboard, because it mainly belongs there?

Change "Timer Mode" to "On" in the options menu of NeoLemmix and timer will count up. This might override time limits though (not sure here).

Not sure I totally agree with Simon's list. The most important stats are in my opinion:

• allowed kills left: Yes, useful and important for many levels.
• required - saved: In levels with many lemmings and low save requirements, this would be helpful. Seeing "2 more required" seems more helpful than "78 allowed kills left".
• hatch: There are a few levels, where the nth last lemming (for very small n) needs a skill assignment very soon after appearing or a release rate change is required then. Then this value helps a lot here.
• required or allowed kills initially (or something mathematically equivalent): Assume you realize in the middle of the level, that your solution does not quite work. Then having these two values available helps in determining fixes. But as the above would already display them at the beginning on the level, perhaps only display them ALTernatively after pressing some key.

Further comments and comparisons with Simon's list:

• required - saved: This is mathematically equivalent to Simon's out+hatch if allowed kills left is displayed, but seems easier to work with. I actually don't know what useful information out+hatch gives, but even if so, then adding the two values is easier than substracting them. Note as well, that at the start of the level required-saved plus allowed kills left gives initial.
• required: This is a fixed value that doesn't change. So it is of little value as a constant reminder. Of course, one may display both required and saved instead just their difference.
• died: Why would I want to know this? It just allows to compute certain more important values, so better display these.

So my proposal is to display just two values: required - saved / out + hatch
This pair makes sense as an answer to "How many of the still available lemmings do I need to save?" and allows an intuitive approach to allowed kills left. If there is still space left, one might display "hatch / initial" as well.

PS: Is it actually useful to display "TIME ----" all the time, even when the level has no time limit at all? Perhaps for levels without time limit, additional info can be displayed instead of "TIME ----".

I'm interested in participating, too. But this approach differs greatly from my usual way to create levels, so I am not sure whether I will be able to contribute something useful to the level. Let's see, what the future brings.

Quote from: GigaLem on December 10, 2015, 07:01:03 AM
Christmas Lix level pack?

Well, a level pack consisting of one single level (having mutiple authors) made around Christmas (though likely not entirely Christmas-themed) for a Lemmings engine yet to be determined (but maybe Lix).
See here or follow the link ccexplore posted above for previous examples of such projects.

Two only tangentially related questions:
1) What is the cheatcode for GigaLems? I remember some good levels in there, but don't want to play through the whole pack again.
2) Where can I find Resident GigaLems? This thread ends with an announcement "All levels are created", and this thread ends with an extension of the test period, which is long over by now. But neither seems to contain a link to the actual level pack.

And one suggestion for the actual voting: Would it be possible to link to pictures of the various levels, similar to what was done in the "Best level in Orig/OhNo/... lemmings" vote-offs?

PS: namida's list of my levels seems to be essentially complete, though I wouldn't term the levels namida linked to as released. These were added as examples how the one-way-arrows can be used currently, and not to be played and solved.