It may encourage newcomers to get used to NeoLemmix more quickly by making it less exclusive, giving them the option to make the gameplay more familiar, and get used to skill shadows at their own pace
If introduced as an option, level creators may need to consider this, and this may affect level design
Keeping it non-optional preserves, maintains and promotes the NeoLemmix philosophy of pure-puzzle gameplay by forcing players to get used to the feature, or go elsewhere if they don't like it
It would give players the option to experience custom content in a similar way to classic content, should they wish to try it out this way
But if an option comes it needs a BIG warning message under it that states custom levels are usually designed with skill shadows active.
there are many reasons to let the shadows turned on since they are extremely useful and help avoiding annoying readjustments. They're one of the few features that are dearly missing in Lix (at least singleplayer).
I would argue that skill shadows making NL way more inclusive as they help and support the player without changing the core gameplay and it is immidiatly clear what they display. They can even support the player with displaying new skills.
We've got skill shadows and we should assume that players know when to use them. I don't want a mere option limit the design possibilities.
As the default setting would be on though, I think this should not be the case.
No skill shadow playing is mostly a side effect of wanting to recreate nostalgia. We've already got that covered with the original games, no need to cover it again and again, especially if NL follows a different philosophy. We don't need countless nostalgia options in the menus.
That sounds creepy, and I'd be pretty unnerved if I were a new user and selecting an option brought up something like that.
To be fair, I only suggested it coz of what Icho said. :forehead: As I've just now mentioned in this post (https://www.lemmingsforums.net/index.php?topic=4823), I'd simply have it as a Hotkey option and not necessarily as a menu option at all.
A hotkey option would be worse imo. You can accidentally press a hotkey, you cannot press a menu option accidentally.
Sure, but you wouldn't remove all HotKey capabilities from the game for this reason.
Also, it could be that there is no default Hotkey assigned for Skill Shadows, so players must go into the F3 menu and customise one themselves. This would ensure that players know which key toggles the Skill Shadows on and off, and eliminates the problem of a player accidentally toggling them off when they don't want to (and then not being able to switch them back on).
It's just because new players may hit it unwillingly by accident and then just struggle through the game with no explanation what happened.
Please can one of the mods move everything from [...] onwards to this topic instead. Thank you!
"it could be that there is no default Hotkey assigned for Skill Shadows, so players must go into the F3 menu and customise one themselves. This would ensure that players know which key toggles the Skill Shadows on and off, and eliminates the problem of a player accidentally toggling them off when they don't want to (and then not being able to switch them back on)."
To be honest, if a user-customised Hotkey was the only way to toggle skill shadows on and off, a lot of players would likely never realise that it was even an option, and so things would largely remain the same. Only those who specifically want to customise their experience in this way would take the time to do so; this is what I'm suggesting.
Seems like a win-win to me.
I still think if this is going to happen a checkbox is the way to go.
But if an option comes it needs a BIG warning message under it that states custom levels are usually designed with skill shadows active. Even the intro pack will assume the player as them always on, I won't make any extra considerations for this. [emphasis added]
It's just because new players may hit it unwillingly by accident and then just struggle through the game with no explanation what happened. A hotkey for selecting a skill/framestep has much lesser impact and often they don't change things permanently until repessed.
Then I would rather take the extra checkbox in the options menu. The hotkey would be the far more dangerous option and can potentionaly harm a new players experience when it gets hit by accident and the player is unsure which button they hit.
Again, I still think the option is not needed, but if it is to be implemented the checkbox is the way to go.
Then it's a very hidden option which is also bad. I still think if this is going to happen a checkbox is the way to go.
I think both of you are overstating how "difficult" levels become without skill shadows. More laborious, yes, but not really more difficult. We were without skill shadows for years and no-one complained or thought of them as a feature we should have;
The player should not have to tweak their options to play certain content, and level designers shouldn't have to account for the player's options when designing the level.
Some players might disable the skill shadows, play some content that doesn't really need them, and then forget about the option's existence by the time they encounter a level that requires it.
I think a hotkey to disable skill shadows is a bad idea; my reasoning is basically identical to Icho's:It's just because new players may hit it unwillingly by accident and then just struggle through the game with no explanation what happened.
If we were to include a menu option, a hotkey like with Clear Physics to temporarily show them would be useful. But, when they are enabled, the hotkey should do nothing, as for players who don't go out of their way to disable skill shadows in the menu, this behavior is never desirable. The opposite, however, is potentially useful and would deserve a default setting (I'm envisioning this as a hotkey to be held down).
When they weren't a feature at all, you really needed to make sure that skill assignments weren't overly precise. Now that they are present, levels can get away with these precise assignments without it being an issue
How many of the cases of precision you speak of were ones that skill shadows can directly help with, though?
with skill shadows, a few frames of framestepping while hovering over the lemming will find the correct placement pretty quickly
---
Level designers should be encouraged to use the skill shadows, too, because the reason they help line up precise assignments can also help identify spots where a precise assignment can cause a different result than the one the designer intended.
---
They can also help line up certain types of interactions when the game mechanics themselves demand some degree of precision to make a certain trick work at all.
As I mentioned, if someone turns off the skill shadows early on, by the time they need them, they may forget the option is there, particularly if it's buried away in the hotkeys menu.
Am I really the only person who thinks that Skill Shadows should work in the same way as CPM, Splat Height Ruler, Projection Shadows, and basically everything else that's hotkeyed in the Player...?
Am I really the only person who thinks that Skill Shadows should work in the same way as CPM, Splat Height Ruler, Projection Shadows, and basically everything else that's hotkeyed in the Player...?
The usage of skill shadows is different from all of these. They are all features I would want to have inactive nearly all the time, so having to press a hotkey when I want them isn't much inconvenience and is better than any alternative. I would hate the inconvenience of having to press a hotkey any time I wanted to see a skill shadow; if they were to be optional, I would want them to be something I turn on or off once per session.
That said, I do agree that the way the poll is set up is rather biased, since it asks only "which would you want most of the time", so those who would like there to be an option (but would still leave skill shadows turned on most of the time) get lumped together with those who don't want an option to exist at all.
The usage of skill shadows is different from all of these. They are all features I would want to have inactive nearly all the time... I would hate the inconvenience of having to press a hotkey any time I wanted to see a skill shadow
How so? That scenario would fall under the 3rd or 5th option, depending on what their preference is for *how* to turn it off.
the user should always have a way to turn it on when in-game
We've definitely had people express interest in this, but it's usually from users who make a few posts and then we stop hearing from them