So, turns out that both Colorful Arty and Flopsy experienced considerable frustration on a couple of single levels (albeit fortunately on different ones for each person

) from my pack Lemmings World Tour, arising from pixel precision caused by minor but decisive conceptual mistakes. Meaning, this pixel precision was not at all part of the intended solution, but the level didn't outright prevent you from attempting the pixel-precise approach either.
Hence, I'm beginning to wonder whether I should purposefully reduce the complexity of levels on a conceptual level to prevent people from inflicting such unintended pixel precision on themselves.
We all agree that we usually don't want to put pixel precision into levels intentionally; however, we do want our levels do be challenging on a conceptual level, and as IchoTolot pointed out, one main factor that creates difficult level concepts is
entropy, i.e. "it's not very obvious which skill has to go where, or which path you can take".If I want to decrease player frustration by preventing them from getting on tracks that lead to self-inflicted pixel precision, I necessarily also have to reduce the entropy of the level, so that the player doesn't even consider going along a path that might lead to frustration.
Let me show you an older example, not from Lemmings World Tour, but from Lemmicks, where the consequences were less drastic

(meaning Flopsy didn't get too angry about this, but it still took him about half an hour to solve the level):
Here comes the flood
In his LP, Flopsy tried for a brief period of time to climb up the right hand side of the level. I'm not refering to the solid level sides in version 1.43 here, but about building towards the steel wall next to the exit so that a climber can reach it and go up. Eventually, he found out this isn't possible, and I didn't even consider anyone attempting this, because the intended solution is the path on the left.
Now, I could close that gap on the right with even more steel, so that it would be clear right away that you can't climb up there. That means players won't even attempt to fiddle around at that spot. At the same time, this reduces the entropy of the level, because everything points you towards going along the left right away. So, would you seal the gap on the right, or wouldn't you?

This question can be extended to one-way arrows: While they are good to patch out backroutes, they also have the tendency of quite literally pointing the player towards a certain path they are supposed to take. So while they
prevent certain unwanted alternative solutions, they also simultaneously
give away a little more about the intended solution. Which is why I generally only want to use as many one-way arrows as necessary, even if it comes at the cost of a backroute in the first release of a pack.
I have come to recognise that I tend to be the "libertarian" voice on the forums, so just like I generally want as many design elements as possible to remain available to people and see culls as a form of "censorship"

, I'd also prefer to leave more responsibility to the player, rather than patronising them by showing them too clearly what they can and cannot do. I'm not talking about actually hiding things from them, like hidden traps or exits, but about the forum-consensus ideal of "hiding things in plain sight".
So with that mindset, every player remains the architect of their own (mis-)fortune. I've brought it on myself with two of Nepster's and two of Nessy's levels, where I went for a more precise solution rather than the intended one. Since then, if something seems overly fiddly to pull off, I tend to seek the fault with myself for not having found the actual intended solution yet. But maybe that mindset just comes to me easily, given that I could barely complete any custom packs so far, but usually get stuck somewhere in the low middle

. So in general, it's more likely that I as a player mess up than that the creator messed up.
But there are probably going to be different stances on this

. The problem with self-inflicted pixel precision is that you don't see it coming, because those are unintended solutions, like backroutes.
We all agree that backroutes need to be patched out: Backroutes make the level easier than it's supposed to be.
Cases of self-caused pixel precision are the opposite of backroutes: They make the level harder than they're supposed to be.
So would you patch out "garden paths", too, even if it comes at the cost of giving away major aspects of the intended solution?
