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Messages - Proxima

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1
NeoLemmix Styles / Re: Style updates topic
« on: March 26, 2024, 11:25:24 PM »
Persia: Replaced locked exit with David's version.

2
SuperLemmix / Re: [SUG] Object culls
« on: March 23, 2024, 02:34:24 PM »
If player criticism had always been heard this readily, perhaps Radiation and Slowfreeze would never have been culled from NeoLemmix in the first place

You seem to forget that these culls were decided on by forum discussion. Sure, Nepster as (then) project leader was the one who actually made the decision, but that was after opening the decisions to public criticism -- which is why the disarmer was kept, for example. For slowfreeze, there were a couple of dissenting voices, but not enough to outweigh the arguments in favour of culling and the number of people who contributed to the discussion and supported it.

And believe me, those of us who supported the cull haven't disappeared; we just don't keep posting about it now that it's long since decided. But now that NL has moved into new-formats with its much better quality-of-life features, I've completed several packs and look forward to playing more when I have time. And every time I select a pack with the intention of playing all the way through it, I'm glad that I won't have to suffer through radiation and slowfreeze levels.

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As for backgrounds, I hope these remain available as they are

I think there is a confusion here. WillLem is talking about the "background" object type, not backgrounds!

3
Challenges / Re: Maximum Lemmings Saved Records
« on: March 19, 2024, 01:50:18 PM »
Sadly, our overall number of lemmings saved has just gone down.

In July 2022, I asked Gronkling and ApG77 whether they could confirm tseug's claim of 100% on Genesis Tricky 12. Both looked into it and believed it to be impossible. Today I also asked Paiy, with the same result.

Since I have never seen proof of tseug's result and the leading Genesis experts believe it to be impossible, I have now removed it from the official results.

4
When talking about contemporary level design, don't forget to mention one of the biggest differences between modern and old engines: the glitches are fixed! Indeed, this was the big difference between the LPII engine (which became NeoLemmix) and old Lemmix; all the convenience features (except untimed bombers) came later.

In the Cheapo/CustLemm days, it was just taken for granted that glitches were part of the game, and glitch solutions were considered legitimate backroutes and had to be proofed against. (Cheapo, incidentally, had perfect steel long before NL, and I don't think it had sliding, but it had many glitches of its own.) It was especially frustrating because those who investigated glitches (mostly ccexplore but also Clam, geoo, tseug and others) kept them semi-secret, usually announcing challenge results using the glitches instead of explaining them.

It's weird now to look back and think how different the culture was in those days, and to remember that back then, we had no idea about how much things would change :P

5
In Development / Re: Lemmings Heritage Demo WIP
« on: March 13, 2024, 10:17:29 PM »
If you are interested in browsing previously used rank names, this topic (sticky in Level Design) has a list. As the list will show (and as kaywhyn mentioned) there have already been several cases of accidental repeats, and no-one minds! It is true, though, that if you want to stick with the traditional "adjectives increasing in intensity", most of that space has been ploughed already.

6
New Objects / Re: [DISC][PLAYER] Visual designs of new objects
« on: March 13, 2024, 12:07:02 AM »
I suggested the arrow version on the basis that it might be better than the lemmings walking in and out of frame (because with the latter, you just see blue and grey alternating, so it's not really clear which is "before" and which "after").

But I still favour a single-lemming static image over either. A neutral lemming for the neutraliser, a normal lemming for the deneutraliser.

The only thing that's been said against that suggestion is that the deneutraliser could be mistaken for a "walker assigner". I don't think we have to take that objection very seriously, because that doesn't make sense as a gadget in any case.

7
Lix Levels / Re: Eye of the Needle
« on: March 09, 2024, 01:29:48 AM »
Okay. Since you've viewed the replays and are happy, I'm happy to call this closed.

8
Lix Levels / Re: Eye of the Needle
« on: March 08, 2024, 05:52:01 AM »
Sorry to have taken so long to follow this up. Here's a replay showing how 8/10 can be saved with a variation of the intended solution.

The variation in question:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If the terrain fix works, then we can leave it, but this solution is here if we need to refer to it later 8-)

EDIT: Had a look at Forestidia's solution (first post of this topic). This might be preventable by making the first wall thicker; I'll have to look into this another time.

9
To create a new file of nxmi type, the simplest way is to copy an existing one, then copy your desired contents into it.

10
Contests / Should we change the contest voting system?
« on: February 28, 2024, 07:10:11 PM »
Back in 2019, there was an overhaul to contest voting, because the old system often led to a huge number of voting rounds, which is a lot of work for the organiser and puts a heavy burden on voters if they want to commit to taking part in the whole thing, which can lead to excluding those who don't.

The current voting system, while definitely better, is still flawed. We now have only one vote for each rule; that's great. But if the numbers fall out unluckily, we can end up with a situation like that in Contest #29, where a mixed group of six levels needs five or even six voting rounds to establish a winner.

So what's the solution? Well, first we need to decide what the goals of the voting system are. At the moment, they seem to be:
* To establish an overall winner -- obviously the most important goal.
* To establish a winner for each rule, since this carries a certain amount of prestige in itself, especially for rules like "Make a Tame level" where entries have no chance of winning overall.
* To establish overall 2nd and 3rd place -- is this still felt to be important? There are no prizes for these places, but do those who regularly take part in contests care about them?
* To separate out the top three and then rank them, so that the overall winner is not decided until the last voting round.

If all of these are still felt to be necessary, my suggestion would be:

* As in the current system, each rule has one vote only, no tiebreakers.
* The first round of the mixed group aims to establish a top 3. If this isn't possible because of ties, a tiebreaker is held.

For example, with the votes from contest #29 (6 for A, 2 for B, 3 each for C, D, E, F), A would be into the final, B would be out, and a tiebreaker would be held to find the top two of C, D, E, F.

Ideally, this system limits the mixed group to three rounds plus one possible tiebreaker. Unfortunately, because of the requirement that an exact number of entries qualify for the top three, it's still possible for the tiebreaker to need a tiebreaker (e.g. C, D, E, F get 7, 4, 4, 3 votes respectively). I would suggest that in that case, we could just be okay with not having a third place (or having a tied third place), so that the mixed group cannot have more than four votes.

11
More pointedly; why is there such a difference between dangerous fall distance bewtween walker/climbers etc?

Because climbers stop when they hit their head on a ceiling, but splat height is measured by how far the feet fall. In other words, the fall distance is the same but the smallest fatal distance from floor to ceiling is slightly more than the splat height.

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And if im playing a level that relys on such precision, im very likely to stop playing said level or pack. Thats bad level design imo

Sometimes it's avoidable: for instance on "The runaround" (where we first noticed the issue) it would be possible to make the wall smaller so it's more immediately obvious that climbers will survive. That's because the solution doesn't (and can't) involve building under the fall from the ceiling.

But any time you have to build under a ceiling to make a fall safe for a falling climber, it's helpful to be able to measure how high your bridge needs to be.

12
Lemmings Main / Re: Lemmings Scoring System
« on: February 23, 2024, 07:05:33 PM »
Is the logicial conclusion of this that each level needs its own individual scoring system?

Needless to say, this has been much discussed in the past, especially considering that one official game (SNES Lemmings) has a scoring system, and NeoLemmix used to.

It's impossible to have a watertight scoring system for Lemmings, because so much depends on factors that are not quantifiable. Saving one skill on "No added colours or lemmings", which was thought for years to have no skill-saving solutions, is much more impressive than finding the solution that saves a builder on "With a twist of lemming, please". But how much more impressive? Does the question even make sense?

Instead, the question I would ask is: does a scoring system need to be watertight? Touhou scoring, for example, is highly arbitrary, so that scoring becomes like a separate game within the game; it rewards skilful play (e.g. most Touhou games incorporate "graze", passing close to bullets, into the scoring system in some way) but it usually doesn't reward what one would normally think of as the main objective -- completing the game using as few lives and bombs as you can manage.

That's an extreme example, of course. But my point is, if you want to foster competition for scores, all you need is for a scoring system to exist and for it to have leaderboards. It doesn't need to be an accurate measurement of anything.

For Lemmings games, I still like a system like this because of its simplicity:
* 100 times percentage of lemmings saved
* 10 times skills remaining
* 1 times seconds remaining

Of course, some adjustment has to be made for infinite time. Perhaps "1 times seconds taken under 600, with no time score if time taken > 600"?

13
Very nice. The only thing I'd like to say at this point is, maybe it's not the best to use a word that's unique to NL like "backskip"? Sure, it's easy for an English speaker to work out what it means, but it is a little bit less friendly to newcomers (not all of whom will be native English speakers), which seems wrong when newcomer-friendliness was the main point of this feature in the first place. Would "rewind" be a better substitute?

14
Thanks for those, WillLem.

In case anyone wants them, I've attached here the NL splat rulers modified to keep only the walker fall distance. To use these, put them into your helper folders and rename them to just "fall_distance".

15
The hatch splat marker is mainly useful when judging where to start building from to make the fall safe.

The climber marker is occasionally good to have, like on "The runaround" (Redux, Quirky 7), where the walker splat marker would falsely suggest that a particular fall is fatal, and since you don't have enough skills to make it safe and also complete the route, would discourage players from trying a solution that does actually work.

Agreed, of course, that these are very rare use cases.

I've had some ideas regarding alternatives to this system: Use the skill shadow system instead.
Suppose the player places their cursor over a falling lemming. What about a shadow that traces out the path of the falling lemming, starting out grey before turning red after splat fall distance is reached?

Interesting thought, but I don't like this as a replacement for the splat ruler, because it's very often useful to know whether a particular fall will be fatal or not when planning a route, whether or not you have a lemming nearby.

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