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Suggestion : Sudoku for Decyphering / Hacking minigames.


Anaximander

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Good point, but I got EVE vibes from the system itself, as EVE does use a "somewhat" similar gameplay of "MineSweeper 2000" approach. It's indeed progressively more difficult, and it does reward a calm and steady hand.

 

But here's the issue, how to put it in a Skill Training systme like DU's. In EVE, the system allows training to amp your "virus" strength, strength being HP, with nodes that have "mines" being able to take out a chunk of your Virus Strength and tere  were ships that added to the Virus Strength itself - in DU's case, possibly a certain "tech armor" type of situation COULD possibly apply.

 

So I guess in the context of the Deux Ex minigame is more about Skill Training increasing the amount of "punishment" you can take from Worms before failing. And yes, some peole may be freaks of nature that just have enough strength on their hacking to power through lower difficulties, but ce la vie.

 

Well here's the nice thing about the Deus Ex system. If you want to add in skill training to hacking, I can think of a couple ways we can go about it. But first, let me explain the hacking process more in detail.

  • You start out at an initial node. This is the base node, and this is what the red security worm must capture in order to "kill" you.
  • The security worm is dormant at first. It doesn't begin the "security diagnosis" process (capturing you) unless you trigger it.
  • Your goal is to capture the green unlock node. Usually this is along a path with other nodes in between that you must first capture.
  • Every time you capture a node, there is a certain chance (generally ~30%) that the capture will trigger the security worm, causing it to move towards your base node.
  • You have the option to fortify nodes that you have captured. This slows the worm down, so you will want to fortify nodes between the worm's node and your base node.

More info in this video (start at 0:51): 

 

So here's where you can integrate a skill system. I imagine there to be two skill paths in the skill "Hacking" : stealth and defense.

  1. The stealth skill path would allow the player to develop his stealth ability, which would decrease the chance that capturing a node would trigger the worm. This can either apply to all nodes across the board uniformly (each skill level decreases the chance by 1% for all nodes, say), or each skill level would decrease random nodes by a more substantial amount (maybe 3% or 4%, but happens by chance for each node).
  2. The defense skill path would allow the player to develop the ability to fortify nodes. Maybe right now, the worm takes only 5 seconds to capture a fortified node, but if a player trains his defense skill path, the worm now takes 10 seconds to capture a fortified node.

There are more possibilities - these are some preliminary thoughts on how hacking might work in game.

 

EDIT: The security "worm" is not actually called that. It's technically called the "security diagnostic".

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Well here's the nice thing about the Deus Ex system. If you want to add in skill training to hacking, I can think of a couple ways we can go about it. But first, let me explain the hacking process more in detail.

  • You start out at an initial node. This is the base node, and this is what the red security worm must capture in order to "kill" you.
  • The security worm is dormant at first. It doesn't begin the "security diagnosis" process (capturing you) unless you trigger it.
  • Your goal is to capture the green unlock node. Usually this is along a path with other nodes in between that you must first capture.
  • Every time you capture a node, there is a certain chance (generally ~30%) that the capture will trigger the security worm, causing it to move towards your base node.
  • You have the option to fortify nodes that you have captured. This slows the worm down, so you will want to fortify nodes between the worm's node and your base node.

More info in this video (start at 0:51): 

 

So here's where you can integrate a skill system. I imagine there to be two skill paths in the skill "Hacking" : stealth and defense.

  1. The stealth skill path would allow the player to develop his stealth ability, which would decrease the chance that capturing a node would trigger the worm. This can either apply to all nodes across the board uniformly (each skill level decreases the chance by 1% for all nodes, say), or each skill level would decrease random nodes by a more substantial amount (maybe 3% or 4%, but happens by chance for each node).
  2. The defense skill path would allow the player to develop the ability to fortify nodes. Maybe right now, the worm takes only 5 seconds to capture a fortified node, but if a player trains his defense skill path, the worm now takes 10 seconds to capture a fortified node.

There are more possibilities - these are some preliminary thoughts on how hacking might work in game.

 

EDIT: The security "worm" is not actually called that. It's technically called the "security diagnostic".

The problem with it though is that somebody could get an extremely easy challenge on a really, really hard lock.

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The problem with it though is that somebody could get an extremely easy challenge on a really, really hard lock.

 

Well then the devs will have to set parameters. Make a lock level system. A basic terminal may be Level 1 and have only two or three nodes, while hacking a Territory Control Unit might be Level 10 and have multiple stages and maybe 20-30 nodes on each stage.

 

Set a level for certain types of locks and set parameters for that level. Rudimentary and perhaps not the best, but a start.

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I'm pretty sure that about half of the gaming community thinks that hacking is the Watchdogs B.S puzzles or the idiotic Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag puzzles. And that's really what most gamers are used to when it comes to cracking codes. Ubisoft's puzzles may see very different, but every game puzzle has one thing in common: They are all unrealistic. Hopefully if NQ is planning on doing hacking mini games, they make realistic puzzles. This means that sudoku doesn't work.

 

I suggest that NQ researches what hacking REALLY is, and how it is done. Because now, mostly nobody in this community knows what hacking really is.

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I'm pretty sure that about half of the gaming community thinks that hacking is the Watchdogs B.S puzzles or the idiotic Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag puzzles. And that's really what most gamers are used to when it comes to cracking codes. Ubisoft's puzzles may see very different, but every game puzzle has one thing in common: They are all unrealistic. Hopefully if NQ is planning on doing hacking mini games, they make realistic puzzles. This means that sudoku doesn't work.

 

I suggest that NQ researches what hacking REALLY is, and how it is done. Because now, mostly nobody in this community knows what hacking really is.

 

Well, it doesn't appear that you actually mentioned what your "realistic" version of hacking actually was. Would you care to elaborate?

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I'm pretty sure that about half of the gaming community thinks that hacking is the Watchdogs B.S puzzles or the idiotic Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag puzzles. And that's really what most gamers are used to when it comes to cracking codes. Ubisoft's puzzles may see very different, but every game puzzle has one thing in common: They are all unrealistic. Hopefully if NQ is planning on doing hacking mini games, they make realistic puzzles. This means that sudoku doesn't work.

 

I suggest that NQ researches what hacking REALLY is, and how it is done. Because now, mostly nobody in this community knows what hacking really is.

I know, real hacking is way, WAY more headache than whatever Quantum Processor smartphone them Watchdogs use. Believe it or not, actual hacking has more common themes with sudoku rather than anything else. In Discrete Math (the science of binary logic systems) teachers and instructors always say "if you want to get good at this, start solving sudoku". And they were right, cross-referrential of base value variants is getting easier the more sudoku you get used into solving.

 

 

Well here's the nice thing about the Deus Ex system. If you want to add in skill training to hacking, I can think of a couple ways we can go about it. But first, let me explain the hacking process more in detail.

  • You start out at an initial node. This is the base node, and this is what the red security worm must capture in order to "kill" you.
  • The security worm is dormant at first. It doesn't begin the "security diagnosis" process (capturing you) unless you trigger it.
  • Your goal is to capture the green unlock node. Usually this is along a path with other nodes in between that you must first capture.
  • Every time you capture a node, there is a certain chance (generally ~30%) that the capture will trigger the security worm, causing it to move towards your base node.
  • You have the option to fortify nodes that you have captured. This slows the worm down, so you will want to fortify nodes between the worm's node and your base node.

More info in this video (start at 0:51): 

 

So here's where you can integrate a skill system. I imagine there to be two skill paths in the skill "Hacking" : stealth and defense.

  1. The stealth skill path would allow the player to develop his stealth ability, which would decrease the chance that capturing a node would trigger the worm. This can either apply to all nodes across the board uniformly (each skill level decreases the chance by 1% for all nodes, say), or each skill level would decrease random nodes by a more substantial amount (maybe 3% or 4%, but happens by chance for each node).
  2. The defense skill path would allow the player to develop the ability to fortify nodes. Maybe right now, the worm takes only 5 seconds to capture a fortified node, but if a player trains his defense skill path, the worm now takes 10 seconds to capture a fortified node.

There are more possibilities - these are some preliminary thoughts on how hacking might work in game.

 

EDIT: The security "worm" is not actually called that. It's technically called the "security diagnostic".

I know of what you mean, the EVE system is similar to this, only you don't trigger worms but "mines". Although the arguement can be made that the skill training path can allow for a sort of trojan horse training, that provides a buffer of time before the worm is activated and Skill Training like "Subroutines" providing a bonus to the fortification method, but that's something for later on in this post on what Ripper siad.

 

It's why I said "I get EVE vibes". EVE's hacking minigames can be...err., impossible. There's one that has a breaking wheel design that's impossible to figure out how to solve through it. And if you fail twice the thing you try to hack explodes. It can kill you :|

 

But, here's where the real jackpot is of a comment :

 

 

 

Maybe add White Hat skills to the hacker skill tree to harden the system?

That's actually a great idea. Thing is, the difference between White and Black Hat, comes to taxation. One's a legit hacker, that gets paid and taxed for his work, the others are avoiding taxation. That's basically it. Don't buy the hype, the White Hat guys are the same Bot-net setting, worm infesting, virus-spreading people who will use your PC as a proxy for a DDoS attack to breach a server's defenses. They'll just sell the upgrade to a system on a company (the same they hacked or a rival one) afterwards and be taxed on it. Black Hats will just sell it to [insert Country That Contracted The Black Hat Hacker To Carry Out a Black Ops Mission in the Cyberwebs]. I know, it's terrifying, moving on. 

 

What if we had skills trained so the hacking minigame work like this, following a sort of "White Hat" and "Black Hat" use of the same skills, like :

 

1) You have Hacking 5 trained up. You also have Control Units manufacturing trained up to 5 

Now you can put on a "lock" that's of Difficulty 5, that dictates the LENGHT or SIZE of the "puzzle board" so to speak.

 

2) Another skill from hacking trained up to 5, let's call it Subroutines 5, you have the ability to add "fortifications" in the nodes genrated in the puzzle in the "Deux Ex / EVE" Hacking minigame that anyone will come across trying to hack the Control Unit.

 

3) Then you get a skill called "Frequency Range Overclock 5" that increases the speed of the worm Astrophil suggested.

 

So, now, the aspiring hacker, has to face, a Size 5 puzzle board, with fortified nodes, and a faster worm that comes after them.

But the same skills going into breaking the "lock" on the Control Unit.

 

Hacking 5 and Control Units 5, gives you the ability to have a "buffer" before the defense worms activate.

 

"Frequency Range Overclock 5" trained? Good, now you can BOOST your speed while in the hacking minigame, BUT, the more you usei t ,the more the chance of spawning ANOTHER worm is.

 

And I believe it follows a good design. You know how to build it? You should know how to hack through it as well. And it can also makie for specialisations. And yes, I do believe it should have SOME equipment going with it, like a Codebreaker, that allows you to hack the device you go for with Codebreakers requiring Engineering and Hacking to make them of a better quality and "strength" (the aforementioned HP of a hacking attempt in EVE).

 

In fact, let's reinforce the CSD Wizard culture and just have the hacker oriented gear be common-day clothes with "hidden" bonuses to virus / hack strength. Is that a hipster or is he a hacker? Is that an edgelord wearing a leather duster or is he a hacker? Who knows.

 

And yes, it means a person can be a dedicated hacker, learning how to hack everything by focusing training on learning the vagueness of Control Units, Containers and any other RDMS tagged Element in-game, and be a master hacker-thief. You learned how to Shield Generators function? Just get to it by being sneaky and turn it off.

 

The enemy can't get into fortification mode, if their shield is offline when the assault happens.

 

But that's just my opinion. It's not a fact, or NQ's plan in any way shape or form, for all we know, NQ may plan a Shenzhen I/O gameplay for hacking. Who knows. 

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