the Lix user feedback thread

[Proxima]

Go into Options; uncheck "Replay ends: normal speed".

The only question is whether this should be off by default, as it's not very easy to find 

[Proxima]

I was experimenting with a change to the level "A Soulful Bounding Leap". I decided against it, so I used geoo's replay and the "Extract level" function to retrieve the previous version of the level. When I went back into the level select menu, I got the bracketed tick and "Level has been edited" in place of the usual statistics -- and they remained even after I completed the level again.

[Simon]

Noted it, will investigate when I'll be doing some development again.

-- Simon

[Proxima]

There seems to be a problem with exploding climbers in the current version. If their fuse runs out when they are just below the top of a wall, they fall instead of exploding where they are.

[mobius]

I have no idea how difficult this is to alter so whatever...

I'd really like it if when in windowed mode, the cursor isn't stuck inside the Lix window. So ever time (which is often) I need to click on something outside of Lix, I need to click the 'windows' button to open the panel or the volume nob to 'exit' and etc. [using the tab switch feature isn't possible because of glitch which ccexplore mentioned already]

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Also, I complained about this in the chat room and apparently nobody else has this problem (?) but the latest version of Lix uses a large amount of CPU for me. It used to be around 50% but now it's around 25%. I swear I didn't change anything idk why it got better but i think it fluctuates. Anyway this just doesn't seem normal.

just for the record I'd rather have the first problem solved before the second.

[Simon]

First problem: Move mouse really, really hard and quick, to get outside the window in one frame.

I reset the mouse position to the center all the time to allow infinite mouse movement for right-click scrolling, and Allegro doesn't provide the raw mouse input.

Second problem: I think I already do most of the stuff usually advised for Allegro 4 programs. This is an old problem with has already annoyed people on their forums. I might still play around with this someday. It doesn't help either that I do all graphics with the CPU.

-- Simon

[mobius]

in Multiplayer mode, it would be really nice to be able to see what skills you have in the level preview screen. When playing new it makes it really tough when you don't know because you begin and have basically 1 second to look at what skills you have before the level begins.

Secondly; I like that you can choose how to arrange the skill bar when you make a level; however it has a definite down side:
when playing multiplayer (even if you use hot-keys) it means every level you have to memorize where all the skills are. You need to look at them to see how much you have. And even in single player, it's not a big deal but would be nice if they were more unified. That said; I like the feature but would not at all groan if you got rid of it and had a 'fixed skillbar'

I'm assuming part of the reason was because all 15 skills didn't fit on the screen? There's gotta be other ways around this. If I come up with any good ideas I'll post em.

[geoo]

Learn hotkeys, issue solved.

I like to have this freedom of arranging the skills, though I agree that some commonly accepted conventions could be nice.

I usually group them by skill type, putting the skills that have no effect on terrain (climber, floater, runner; walker, jumper, batter) to the left, those that create terrain (builder, platformer, cuber) in the middle and those that remove terrain (basher, miner, digger) to the right.
I think I'm less consistent with the blocker and bomber, due to tradition the blocker is linked with the bomber, so I put them between the first and second group, where they are also in the original skill panel.

[Proxima]

It's an interesting discussion topic, both for SP and MP levels.

My habit is to start with the traditional 8 skills and then place any others at the end. Since walkers or batters often replace bombers for the function of removing blockers, I put them in the bomber slot if bombers are absent (e.g. Little Viennese Waltz). It's also fairly common that a level has all the classic 8 except floaters; then I either put something else in the floater slot (Goblin City) or move climbers right and leave the leftmost space blank (From the Other Side). If a level has both builders and platformers I put them together and shunt the digging skills along one place; if there are only platformers, of course they usually go in the builder slot, unless putting them with the miscellaneous skills makes a neater pattern (You only get one bash at it). However, on the rare occasions when I'm using all 12 of the "modern 12", or 11 of them plus one other, I put them in "modern 12" order.

I also like the feature that you can include a skill but give zero of that skill; I use this to emphasise that a particular skill is absent (Thomas the Climber, floaters); on the hard version of a level, to emphasise the removal of a particular skill from the easy version (Lixster Quadrille, floaters and miners); very occasionally, to create a pattern (Cry for me, which originally had 42 climbers, creating the pattern 42-10-4-2-1-0).

Anyway, getting back to multiplayer. TM and I have agreed to be each other's training partners, and had our first session last night It was a success, overall, though a few points stood out. TM already mentioned not being able to see the skills before play. One round was a failure because TM thought the builders were platformers, leading him to take an inferior route; this ended up being not much fun for either of us, and a lot of time was essentially wasted. On the same level (Rubix's King of the Castle) the exits are so high that the lix icons indicating which is which are off-screen; of course it was easy to guess that each group of lix would be assigned to the further exit, but not knowing this for certain made things awkward, and made it easier to forget in the heat of battle.

So far, my favourite map is Rubix's Crossover Combat, although TM handily beat me on that one by digging potholes in my route in too many places

[mobius]

I don't really care much about the skills pallet; there isn't much to do about it considering the number of skills. I'm just saying that; I don't really see what's so great about being able to arrange the skill bar any way you want.

I'm asking advice more than anything here. I'm running into the same problem I did when playing other multilayer games like Team Fortress. You usually only have 3 weapons to choose from but I would still often pick the wrong weapon and screw up because of it.
In Lix you have 15 skills. I think in maps with a lot of skills I pick the wrong skill more often then picking the right one. I doesn't really have a lot to do with learning hot keys; I just can't think fast enough.

[Simon]

You want to select skills subconsciously. This requires quite a period of training, during which errors will be made all the time, with improvement coming only slowly. I can't tell whether this investment is worth it, that's something you have to decide for yourself.

Practising a lot with Proxima sounds really good though, it should make the initial error-heavy time much more enjoyable.

Crossover Combat is a map I've enjoyed a lot, I should play it more often. It's intended to be a team map, but it's a good strategical map for normal 1v1 as well.

-- Simon

[Proxima]

In the current version, previously queued builders aren't restored when walker is assigned (they are with other skills).

[Simon]

Noted it, sounds easily fixable.

-- Simon

[mobius]

Thanks for fixing the graphics issue that I had, whether it was intentional or not.

I was playing multiplayer and noticed something. There’s no priority selection when attempting to give multiple skills to a lix (e.g. builders and platformers)
Allow me to elaborate;

First I made 1 lix a builder in a large group of walkers. Then I clicked a few more times with the intention of giving that lix 3 or 4 more builders but instead simply made 4 more lixes builders. Maybe you already tested this and found this to be the best way, but I’d think it would be nice the other way. e.i. have priority on worker for builder and platformer; if you have assign multiple checked. If you need to select a walker, simply right click.
Of course there is a downside I suppose; if you wanted to select a different worker, but that happens whenever you have two different workers close to each other

[ccexplore]

I know I've been off Lix for a while, but I could've sworn what you said have been mentioned before somewhere here (or possibly in IRC).

However, I think especially in MP, you are actually usually better off with the current behavior, in critical situations where you need to "mass spam" builders to a bunch of closely spaced lixes all about to meet their doom.  In comparison I wonder how relatively often you would need to queue a few builders to one lix while there are a couple more under the cursor.

Perhaps having a ("queue mode") key that can be pressed to temporarily modify the assignment scheme?

My habit is to start with the traditional 8 skills and then place any others at the end.

I don't quite remember how I've done it on the very few levels I've posted, but I think in most cases I either stick with the "traditional" order, or in specific cases (especially with mostly non-classic skills), I may intentionally scramble the order to (admittedly very weakly) obfuscate the solution.