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Messages - Shvegait

#31
Lemmings Main / Re: Points system for completing levels
November 01, 2006, 12:53:23 PM
Quote from: covox on November 01, 2006, 03:26:56 AMSgB: I agree with the "less is better" philosophy when calculating score; if there are too many extra tweaks then the end result isn't very meaningful. However, it would appear that the formula you proposed would generate mostly negative scores :P

How's that? Assume you save only 50%, then your base score is 5000. If you take a whopping 10 minutes, your remaining score is 5000 - 10 * 60 = 4400. You'd have to use > 440 skills to get a negative score! Maybe you didn't follow the formula carefully, it seems quite reasonable.
#32
Lemmings Main / Re: Points system for completing levels
October 30, 2006, 02:09:41 PM
Quote from: Nuntar on October 30, 2006, 01:28:52 PMForget unused skills -- the highest number of skills on a standard level is 320 but a user-defined level could have up to 792, so even 10 points per skill would unfairly swamp out the lemmings saved and time bonuses, while any fewer would make the scores from best play on a level with fewer skills available not worth having.

Why are you assuming that the score must be such a simple function? What if you got a bonus for the *percentage* of skills that you have leftover. Then you have no such problems for high numbers of skills, since you can set a hard cap. Make it very low, sure.

The point is, if two people save the same number of lemmings, and have the same time remaining, the person who used fewer skills should get a better score!

--------------------

The problem with any such scoring system is that it only makes sense in the context of a single level. In my mind, the best theoretical scoring system would be where each level had an equal "perfect" score (most saved, minimum time, minimum number of skills used), and you *deduct* points from that score for every imperfection.

Of course, this has several implementation problems. For one, who determines the most possible saved, the minimum time possible, and the minimum number of skills used? Surely you might think you have the best solution without actually having it. Two options:
1) A dynamic retro-active scoring system could solve this issue. If you save more than the max thought to be possible, then the max is set to the new max. Etc. for the other possibilities. [This would work best with an online hall of fame.]
2) Just add a small bonus formula, so you can get higher than the "perfect" score. (I would not really recommend using the negative version of the deduction formula, because for instance in a lose 2 level where lose 2 is thought to be the max possible, saving 100% would result in an explosion (or divide by zero, or something of that nature) of that part of the score.) [This would work best with an isolated single player game.]

Another problem, precedence for scoring would have to be set up properly. What is "more perfect", having more time left over, or using fewer skills? Is saving one second better than saving 10 builders? And even within skills, is saving 2 climbers better than saving 1 builder? For the most clarity, the precedence should be clearly defined, so that for instance, saving 1 second IS better than saving 10 builders, OR that saving 1 builder IS better than saving 2 minutes. And probably each skill should be treated equally for simplicity.

So probably deduct the most points for a lemming lost, less points for a skill used (can certainly use a percentage based system here), and single points for each extra second used (or use a percentage based system, but then you are liable to run into ties when scores differ only by 1 second in long levels).

The system probably sounds a bit complicated, but it has the advantage that the maximum score the player is striving for is clearly defined, and that all levels would carry the same weight. This value could be multiplied by the difficulty rating, so that Fun levels are worth at most 5000, Tricky 10000, Taxing 15000, Mayhem 20000... Or whatever (and if you use the bonus system for exceeding expectations, of course you can go over those maximums slightly). Then when you see that you got 18240 score on a Mayhem level, you know that you can do better... and if you get 14997 on a Taxing level, you probably used the intended solution, just slightly slower. (And very high scores above the "perfect" score would instantly flag a backroute!)
#33
Lemmings Main / Re: Points system for completing levels
October 30, 2006, 02:57:06 AM
I'm going to throw in another variable without answering your question, covox, but what about unused skills? If you plan on doing a scoring system, certainly economy of skills should come into play.
#34
Quote from: EricLang on October 27, 2006, 10:47:27 AM
I cannot find anything wrong with the Tame 3. What is the matter here?

I don't know! It doesn't look like there would be any issues, but every time I try to play it (or its repeat), it freezes before the trapdoor opens.
#35
I'm sorry, I meant Tame 3 and its repeat (Wild 4), Bomberman levels. I've tried them multiple times, it hangs right before the window opens. (Maybe it detects no valid windows, or something, maybe the Z value of the window is less than 16?)

The sound effect + graphical glitch over the exit (there's like some blue lines that flash) + not being able to get back to the game after finishing or quitting the level I have seen before in one of someone else's levels, but I forget the exact cause of it. Maybe someone else remembers the cause?
#36
Ok, I've passed all of Crazy. It took a while (~2 hours), not because any of the levels were difficult, but because so many of the levels are long and involve just straight building. "The Mexican Wave" is the worst offender here: all you do is build, build, build with no thought necessary and it takes 9 minutes.

Even if you'd choose to keep many long builder levels, at least put breaks in between. They're tiring and tedious, so it's better to split them up with some shorter levels interspersed.

I don't want to be all negative feedback here, so I'll mention that I liked Crazy 17 (I forget the title).

I do hope that there are fewer builder-intensive levels in Wild, Wicked, and Havoc, although Wild 1, Wicked 1, and Havoc 1 are all builder levels, which didn't restore my hopes  :tongue: The point isn't that builders are inherently bad, there are plenty of good builder-intensive levels. It's that they are often used in excess to make up for a level with no puzzle. For example, "The Swamp" has no puzzle element, it's just long. You don't usually see levels that involve no building and have no puzzle element. They exist, but they don't pretend to be difficult and/or are over in a minute, so you forget about them.

EDIT:
Finished with Wild. The levels here (esp. 1-8, the repeats) were a bit better than the Crazy ones, though still a number of puzzle-less long building ones. From this rating I liked Wild 3 "5 Ways To Get Through", just because  :tongue:

Also, a couple of bug notes. Tame 4 and its repeat Wild 4 are bugged (game hangs). Wild 14 is also bugged (sound + visual glitch, exiting level hangs the game). These bugs are usually caused by objects out of bounds or invalid objects.
#37
Lemmings Main / Re: The Lemmings Remake Topic
October 25, 2006, 11:24:09 AM
I think for 1) Eric means the messages you get when you finish a level (and also the message when you beat the game).

3) I think 120 for regular mode (this could be put into DOS Lemmings easily) then +60 glitch levels (Lemmix-only extension) would not be a problem (total 180). 60 glitch sounds a little high, but keep in mind there would be some glitch training levels included.
#38
I forgot about these levels. I just started, but only got through Tame and the first few Crazy so far, and of course those were all easy. Your version of Tame is almost as bad as Tame in ONML  :tongue: But of course I can't comment really until I get to the harder levels, which might be a while, I'm busy this week.
#39
Quote from: timfoxxy_236 on October 18, 2006, 11:13:10 PM
Ok the one thing I want to know is, will this all be done with lemmix or lemedit? if it is lemmix, im out.

It won't matter what editor is used. The only thing that matters is the file format, and for that we are using .lvl and the compressed version .dat. Both LemEdit (and Lemmings, and ONML, and CustLemm, ... ) and Lemmix use the same file formats so you can use whichever editor you want. A level edited in LemEdit is openable in Lemmix and vice-versa. There are no conflicts here...

An analogy: do you care what text editor someone uses? or what image editor (using a standard format like .jpg)? No, because you can open them in any text editor/viewer or any image editor/viewer without problems.
#40
Quote from: geoo89 on October 17, 2006, 06:27:04 PM
EDIT: I think I didn't mention it yet, or maybe I did, anyways, for the level entry, maybe an option could be added to select between Lemmings and ONML/Christmas for a level. That way, if we decided to make two remakes because of the high amount of levels, it would be easier to sort them out into two categories. Although, hmm, just thinking of it, that work could also be done easily with a script as the *.lvl files are submitted. That's fine.

Simple query on the Graphics Set #  :tongue:
But I will note to add one on that.


On a side note, this week is kind of busy for me as far as school goes, but after Thursday I'll be home for fall break, with plenty of time to work on this. Setting up the database is easy, I have the tables all basically prepared, and the queries are rather basic. PHP makes certain things easy (like session ids for user tracking), I just have to look up how to do it. It won't be hard once I get a little bit of time.
#41
Lemmings Main / Re: Chat Room for the Lemmings Forum
October 16, 2006, 02:58:34 AM
Huh? You know, if there ISN'T a scheduled time, whenever you go there, you will probably be the only one there, and that is depressing. I think there definitely needs to be a scheduled time for this to work, given activity levels (from past experiences with people making chat rooms like this). People aren't just gonna sit around at their computer in an IRC channel all day, well, most people :winktounge:
#42
Hey, great points. Yeah, there will definitely be an account system. I wasn't going to get into all the details unless people are interested. It will probably be set up where you register, similar to on the forums, but then you need to be approved by an admin before getting access.

Adding and voting will be separate. That would be a good query to add, see all levels you haven't voted for yet.

Separating pack name and level # and using them in conjunction to find a picture on the server if available is a great idea.  :smiley: (Of course if the level didn't come from a pack, you can leave these fields blank.)

How much you like the level overall, hmm... This seems redundant with the Yes/No vote. It makes sense to use one system, either Yes/No or a rating system, but not both. I feel that there might be a bit of tension if we open it up to a rating system, as more subjectivity is involved (I mean, it's easy to have a reason for Yes vs. No or No vs. Yes, but for a "4" vs. a "5"?). Keep in mind that you can like a level but still vote No on it, if you don't think it would fit well in the remake, or for other reasons (one example, the level is redundant, meaning it is solved in a way similar to another level, but the other one is maybe better. This is of course mostly for the higher difficulty levels, as many easy levels can be solved in multiple ways, but I think you see what I mean). We have the comment section to discuss the levels, and I think on the borderline cases we will be able to come to a consensus through discussion. We can also use other factors if need be, such as how many levels an author would have if a level were accepted (for example, if an author only has one level nominated, all things being equal theirs should get priority over an author who has ten levels nominated, for variety), graphics set balance, etc.

The authors dropdown is a nice idea. I actually considered it for consistency, but wasn't sure about how to handle multiple authors. But as you said those are rare cases and can be handled individually.

Glitch: Yes, No, Maybe - sounds good.

QuoteI'd btw like to make a special graphics (Pushover) level for whatever difficulty rating as I really like the graphics and they'd be not too hard to apply for lemmings.

Something to bring up here. We need a convention for determining which level will use which special graphics set. Makes sense to do #0 for the first difficulty, #1 for the second, etc. #4 for the first glitch set, #5 for the second glitch set. I think we decided on one special graphics level per rating, so this should work. Anyway, this is a detail that can of course be easily changed as needed.

QuoteI've btw looked through a good load of levels already and not even having checked all levels, I'm already at about 60 levels which I find quite good for the remake. Maybe I should increase my criterions, but there are just so many good levels out here...

Wow, nice. The more, the merrier.  :smiley: Don't worry about refining your criteria at this point, that will happen when we really need to narrow down the levels and will be heavily based on the context of the levels in relation to other levels, rather than maybe how one level stands on its own. The first stage is just to build up the pool of levels that we can pick from.

Knowing that you are working through this already, I'll try to get this up as soon as I can. It won't have any frills, and will still take a little to get up and running, but I'll be working on it.
#43
The wiki is a nice idea, however it's a bit unorganized to use.

I'm working on a little database to manage nomination. Basically how it works is to nominate a level you would post the level in .lvl format. You don't need to post the name, number of lemmings, etc. as this can be easily parsed from the .lvl file (also minimizes errors). Although it doesn't have the ease of use of .dat files (being able to just rename them to try out the levels), it makes more sense from the point of view that one level = one level file... since DATs can have many levels in them...

When posting a level, you will have to provide some data though, such as the author's name, and the source (meaning where you originally got it from, if it's a DAT pack. e.g. "Garjen00.DAT Level 1"). If you don't know how the author wants to be credited, just use their handle; it can be changed later. But keep it consistent how any one author is credited. For multiple authors, list them all.

You can also, if you wish, post a picture of the level (.PNG). Or maybe just a link to the picture. Since the level pics are hosted on the same server that the database would be, it would make sense just to link them than to re-upload them. Or maybe use the URL when the picture exists on the server, and upload the file when it doesn't.

Each level will have an associated number of nominations and vetos (or thumbs up, thumbs down, yes or no). Posting a level means you automatically give it a thumbs up. (Else, why are you posting it?) You can also, of course, view other posted levels and give them a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

You can also vote on each level for the difficulty rating. We can use STT's idea of 1 to 8, where each rating spans 2 difficulty points (for non-glitch levels). The average difficulty rating is used.

For glitched levels, there would be a flag you can check for specifying "glitch" so that it keeps the levels separate. Of course this can be hard to determine in some cases, but use your judgment.

Oh, and most importantly, each level will have an associated space for making comments. Please justify your choices, especially vetoes.

Most of the data can be edited after being input. So you could update the .lvl if a backroute was removed, then update the picture, change your vote, change your vote on the difficulty, etc.

Finally, there would be a bunch of queries you can perform, such as sort by # nominations, sort by # of comments, sort by difficulty rating, sort by author, simple data compilation (# levels per author, # levels in each graphics set, # levels in each difficulty rating if the numbers are used as appropriate), etc.


Would people use such a system? It won't be very difficult to set up, but I don't want to force this method on anyone. I think we need a little more organization than we currently have, though.
#44
Lemmings Main / Re: Chat Room for the Lemmings Forum
October 13, 2006, 02:11:10 AM
I would've suggested #lemmingswelt, but realized we're not on that forum anymore  :XD:

How about #lemming singular? or #lemmingz  :cool:
Or #lemchat, or #lems, or #lemons...

Or #justdig or #ohno or #armageddon (probably taken though) or #greenhair...

Or...
#45
Yeah, now we're talkin  :wink:

Oh, and you raise a good idea with the Level List style reviewing. As a starting point for the old favorites, we already have reviews for so many levels in the old Custlemm Level List thread (in the archive). Since these packs were chosen mostly based on community interest, it should be a good place to start, though of course there are many levels worthy of consideration that were not reviewed during that time (also including selected levels from authors with many packs). But it could be a good place for people to look for nominations at this early stage. Just a reminder that Mindless is preserving those posts!


There's one other thing I thought I'd bring up before we get too far in. What will be the rules for nominating and incorporating levels from authors who do not or no longer frequent the forum? Transplanting them directly should be no problem, as of course credit would be attributed and that's it. However, it is a tricky situation if some of these levels are high-quality minus some backroutes. I don't think it would be right to modify these levels. Of course they could be left as they are if the backroutes are not blatant, or they could just be rejected if so. I don't expect this to be a huge issue, but it is something to consider...