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Suggestion : Sudoku for Decyphering / Hacking minigames.


Anaximander

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So, recently, I've been playing a lot of Mass Effect Andromeda. One of the things that caught my attention, were the sudoku puzzles it had in certain places when it came to decyphering certain parts of the game (no spoilers, just in case).

So, my suggestion is simple.

For the purposes of hacking minigames, NQ can go for a Sudoku style minigame, with the sizes of the puzzle panel, being proportional to its difficulty level and the cyphering protection module itself, is linked to the quality level, i.e. a Common  Cypher, hs a 4x4 panel, pretty easy to solve, but a Master Cypher, has as a 16x16 panel (or more, depends on how NQ feels about it if they were to consdier it).

Hacking Skill Training could affect the number of tries before the thing the Cypher protects goes into Lockdown and calls in the hacking attempt (alarms) or if the owner feels extra sadistic, rigs the container to explode , taking out or damaging severely the aspiring thief-hacker, or increase the time window in which you could be solving the puzzle. A Cypher may be 5x5, but it could have only 30 seconds to Decypher it, while a 16x16 panel may have no timer, but it's already a PITA to deal with, as it would take time to figure it out.

But since not many have time to spare and may be in a hurry in a crucial ground operation, Decyphering Devices should be there, with one use out of them and a "Decyphering Cycle" timer, which means you gotta stay near the Cryptographer to break it, but engages the alarm or explosives on it. The Decyphering Device must be of equal or higher quality than the Cypher itself. That means Decyphering Devices CAN be outlawed from being sold in public, and anyone found carrying them within a city, is probably up to no good. Paranoia is the reason Laws exist in the first place. You can't feel safe in a city, if there are people with Decyphers, out to steal your smeckles, or break into your house.

If you like Smuggling and want to have "Illegal" goods to transfer for a high pay, there you go.


Why Sudoku though? Cause Sudoku's main method of solving, relies in Propositional Logic (or Boolean Algebra as many may call it), with methods of Negation, Conjunction. Disjunction and Exclusivities / Tautologies. The only possible side effect of this, is people getting better at figuring out patterns. It's not actually an Algebra, it's meant to be a game about perception and how you keep track of multiple factors. And it's also a good soft skill to have in the game in my opinion.

It is also very easy to have a Sudoku Panel procedural generation code, it's not rocket science, like generating a planet and it's meant to reset and reconfigure after each attempt.


Cheers.

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I would be for this, though what stops people from using a 3rd party program to solve it without screwing everyone else over?

Good point. The solution, could be that "if you remain inert while decyphering, the puzzle changes".

 

So, once you start the hacking minigame of a game of sudoku, you gotta always manually cycling through the possible signs / numbers / glyphs /whatever in a cell at a time, if you remain inert for more than 4 seconds, the pattern resets and changes.

 

And on top of that, have a flat overall timer for the whole thing to take place. The "inert" cycling, may be 4 seconds, while the Overall Hacking window of opportunity may vary depending on the level of difficulty.

 

Another way to deter the use of 3rd party programs (not things like Sudoku Solver Online sites, the inert part takes care of that ) is for NQ to NOT give access to that the hooks associated with the puzzles so no APIs are being built on it. 

 

And hey, it's a team game, if someone has a friend and they coordinate, with the "hacker" keeping the pattern going, while their friend is googling the answer (somehow having figured a numerical correlation between signs and numbers to have predtermined answers) then it's acceptable. That's actually some James Bond level of cooperation.

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Good point. The solution, could be that "if you remain inert while decyphering, the puzzle changes".

 

So, once you start the hacking minigame of a game of sudoku, you gotta always manually cycling through the possible signs / numbers / glyphs /whatever in a cell at a time, if you remain inert for more than 4 seconds, the pattern resets and changes.

 

And on top of that, have a flat overall timer for the whole thing to take place. The "inert" cycling, may be 4 seconds, while the Overall Hacking window of opportunity may vary depending on the level of difficulty.

 

Another way to deter the use of 3rd party programs (not things like Sudoku Solver Online sites, the inert part takes care of that ) is for NQ to NOT give access to that the hooks associated with the puzzles so no APIs are being built on it. 

 

And hey, it's a team game, if someone has a friend and they coordinate, with the "hacker" keeping the pattern going, while their friend is googling the answer (somehow having figured a numerical correlation between signs and numbers to have predtermined answers) then it's acceptable. That's actually some James Bond level of cooperation.

There are many situations where this would bite people in the ass. For example:

- Your wireless mouse runs out of power, hack failed. 

- You go to drink with your off hand, miss-clicking and ruining the puzzle

- You get pulled away from you computer by another person

 

From a veteran's perspective, what about the way EVE deals with salvage scanners and artefact scanners? Would that be a good minigame for hacking?

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There are many situations where this would bite people in the ass. For example:

- Your wireless mouse runs out of power, hack failed. 

- You go to drink with your off hand, miss-clicking and ruining the puzzle

- You get pulled away from you computer by another person

 

From a veteran's perspective, what about the way EVE deals with salvage scanners and artefact scanners? Would that be a good minigame for hacking?

EVE's hacking minigame is Minesweeper 2.0.  And some of EVE's hacking "maps", are out right impossible to solve (the infamous Medieval Breaking Wheel one).

 

Also, the same arguements apply to space combat you just mentioned, and the answers are :

 

1) you should not be using a wireless mouse for ANY game - input lag is not fun.

 

2) you should have drunk / went to bathroom, before you went into action

 

3) you should have taken care of IRL issues before commiting into the action.

 

It's the same things EVE Fleet Commadners remind EVERYONE before a Call To Arms event.

 

1) Make sure your wireless gear is charged

 

2) Make sure you went to the bathroom and make sure you got water

 

3) take care of IRL issues  - if you leave half way through the CTA to go pick up your kids, you are cordially kicked out of the alliance.

 

 

Same rules apply to hacking. If you went after a target you've been spying at for days to steal their smeckles, only for the operational hours of your heist to not have dedicated a CERTAIN amount of Do Not Disturb time to do so, you are a rookie, and you'll learn the hard way to be prepared for these things.

 

 

And old adage goes like "Time Does not Wait for Anyone" and such is the nature of a single-shard MMORPG, you can't just press Pause and / or reload. You make certain your efforts and plans pay off, by dedicating time.

 

You won't do hacking of other players' containers for a passtime.

 

So yeah, my suggestions are valid on that note.

 

 

 

P.S. : Those things you mentioned, are called Risks. You minimise Risks via the means I pointed out. And DU is about Risk & Reward.

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EVE's hacking minigame is Minesweeper 2.0.  And some of EVE's hacking "maps", are out right impossible to solve (the infamous Medieval Breaking Wheel one).

There could still be value there. Even if it is not used, something can be learnt.

 

I would say that the interval for failure would be based off the rank of your hacking and the rank of the device being hacked. could go all the way from 1 second to 20 for an interval (extremes)

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I like the idea of a minigame, although I would rather it be something more related to the task at hand, at least thematically. I suppose you could justify the Sudoku-esque puzzle by saying you are 'helping locate the encryption matrix positions to reverse the password hash" or some non-nonsensical technobabble like that.

 

Good idea. I approve :)

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Hacking looks like rocket science to most laymen

Well yeah, Sudoku though is as simple as "figure out this riddle, here are the rules, here are the clues". The only thing that changes with difficulty are variables / patterns in which the cells can't have unique signs.

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I don't know about having an "inert" timer. Everytime I do Sodoku, it definitely takes me more than 4 seconds to fill in a square, because I always first go along an mark what each box can or cannot be, as it helps me visualize, and may end up leading me directly to the solution.

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I don't know about having an "inert" timer. Everytime I do Sodoku, it definitely takes me more than 4 seconds to fill in a square, because I always first go along an mark what each box can or cannot be, as it helps me visualize, and may end up leading me directly to the solution.

That's the point though, the inert timer is there to prevent Google => Search for Sudoku Solver Online => cheat.

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I would vote for a minigame type that closely resembled real life hacking, If I'm going to hack something I want it to be as close to realistic as possible within the bounds of the law, and doing a bunch of math isn't the main part of hacking, it's mainly either waiting for a program to input the right password or finding a unsecured connection to the server, so It would be cool if they could do that in DU.

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I would vote for a minigame type that closely resembled real life hacking, If I'm going to hack something I want it to be as close to realistic as possible within the bounds of the law, and doing a bunch of math isn't the main part of hacking, it's mainly either waiting for a program to input the right password or finding a unsecured connection to the server, so It would be cool if they could do that in DU.

Sorry to say, but real life hacking, especially cracking codes, takes timing, coordination of a botnet and figuring out server clocks to overcome with a botnet.

 

Or you think Turing used an iPhone to crack the Enigma Machine?

 

If a password has 8 digits in it, and 95 possible outcomes on each digit, that means the possible combinations are 6.302494097246094e+17.

 

Now, if you have a PORTABLE codebreaker on you, it means that that codebreaker has the ability to cycle through enough codes (rapidly entering them) until the password protection is bypassed.

 

Here's the problem, the lock may have "3 attempts and lockdown" or "3 attempts within 1 second = lockdown", and it's usually the latter. Codebreakering takes, usually, study and estimate, figuring out what digits are pressed most oftenly on a keypad, so you can calibrate the codebreaker for redundancies. If the code doesn't use 1, 4 and 7, because those buttons are never touched on the keypad, you can safely bet those buttons are not involved in the codebreaking. 

 

And see, that's where the game has a problem with "realism". You can't "feel" an in-game keyboard to decide what buttons to tell the codebreaker NOT to push.

 

Having a codebreaker of Tier-5 quality, requiring a higher level of a hacking skill to emulate the "expertise" of figuring out the math involed, makes sense. Having actual math involved via sudoku, DOES make sense, as negation and speicifc disjunctions are what I described above on abolishing "what digits are not part of the code" when calibrating a code-breaker for a breach.

 

The "waiting for hack to finish" is a hollywood trope. Real hacking takes math - or brute force by overwhelmging a server with so many bots via botnets, that it comes out as a DDoS attack, rather than a hacking attempt.

 

I mean, how do you guys think DDoS attacks came to be in the first place? They were originally an outcome of hackers trying to overwhelm a server clock on breaching a code, by increasing how many "codebreakers" could be applied within the timeframe, by recruiting more PCs via trojan horses - a Botnet in other words.

 

Until someone figured out it can be used for trolling, so yeah. Now you know why DDoS attacks are a federal crime. They are the digital equivalent of being caught next to a steaming pile of shit on your ex-GF's doorstep. Good luck proving you were not the one who did that. It will take a while.

 

And you now also know, why you should use all the digits they suggest you to use to develope a password. It may sound silly, but writing "Tw3rkm0t0r1sth3b3st" as an 18 to 24 password, may be the most difficult password to break for a codebreaker. It's a nightmare to break it.

 

 

And this is a good example of a mechanism for hacking, if Sudoku is too much. Have Codebreakers have "speed" and have locks have a speed of their own. Then just have the codebreaker run a random password generation, depending on the player's gear, it may be able to break the code before the timer expires.

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I would vote for a minigame type that closely resembled real life hacking, If I'm going to hack something I want it to be as close to realistic as possible within the bounds of the law, and doing a bunch of math isn't the main part of hacking, it's mainly either waiting for a program to input the right password or finding a unsecured connection to the server, so It would be cool if they could do that in DU.

"I started from the bottom- Dual Universe hacking games. Now: I'm hacking the world."

 

That aside, what would you do to closed connections? Would you just have to physically destroy a server room if its connections are 100% pure?

 

I think simply Sudoku or messing with logic-gate-based minigames would be better.

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I see the title only. So opinion based on that.

 

Personally I like idea, but this could set different players in unfair possition. Some people very easy solve these tasks, some have no idea how to do it. If to create them easy as NoManSky's one, this is pointless.

 

So there are two sides of the coin in this idea.

 

Thanks,

Archonious

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I see the title only. So opinion based on that.

 

Personally I like idea, but this could set different players in unfair possition. Some people very easy solve these tasks, some have no idea how to do it. If to create them easy as NoManSky's one, this is pointless.

 

So there are two sides of the coin in this idea.

 

Thanks,

Archonious

The same can be said of building a construct. Some people are minecraft veterans who build these massive structures that look amazing, and then there are people who build floating cubes. There needs to be an element where real world skills come into play with hacking being maths and building being... whatever that is. Want to find out how to do it, learn it. If you can play the game, you can access the internet. If you don't want to, hire someone who can. 

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The same can be said of building a construct. Some people are minecraft veterans who build these massive structures that look amazing, and then there are people who build floating cubes. There needs to be an element where real world skills come into play with hacking being maths and building being... whatever that is. Want to find out how to do it, learn it. If you can play the game, you can access the internet. If you don't want to, hire someone who can. 

I believe that game need require skills for main direction. Like a building, piloting and other (for DU), because game is about this. 

 

But imagine if one of the key sides of the game require some skills (which is not about game at all). I know some people in real life who have no idea how to sort with sudokus. For them it is the same as this:

so-you-think-youre-confused-about-quantu

 

Imagine that some "quantum physics scientist" come here and say: "Let's use the quantum physics formulas, it is not hard and everyone can learn it or use internet". Yes, it sound silly, but who knows, maybe for somebody these sudokus tasks looks similarly =) 

 

Once again, personally I am fine with that. 

 

P.S: It would be absolutelly fine, if there would be some "ingame skills" to help or auto unlock. Maybe some consumables to open some numbers. I meain, if player can get skill or pay extra money, he/she can avoid that. 

 

Thanks,

Archonious

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I believe that game need require skills for main direction. Like a building, piloting and other (for DU), because game is about this. 

 

But imagine if one of the key sides of the game require some skills (which is not about game at all). I know some people in real life who have no idea how to sort with sudokus. For them it is the same as this:

so-you-think-youre-confused-about-quantu

 

Imagine that some "quantum physics scientist" come here and say: "Let's use the quantum physics formulas, it is not hard and everyone can learn it or use internet". Yes, it sound silly, but who knows, maybe for somebody these sudokus tasks looks similarly =) 

 

Once again, personally I am fine with that. 

 

P.S: It would be absolutelly fine, if there would be some "ingame skills" to help or auto unlock. Maybe some consumables to open some numbers. I meain, if player can get skill or pay extra money, he/she can avoid that. 

 

Thanks,

Archonious

Sudoku is about telling apart what symbol can't be in a box. It's not even about math, it's about Boolean logic.

 

Unless this takes math :

 

 

 

 

 

Sudoku-Capture-01.jpg

 

 

 

It's about having a method and going about it fast.

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I did enjoy Deus Ex's hacking mini games where the player has to capture all of the green "unlocking" nodes whilst avoiding the security "worms". The player travels along paths to capture nodes in order to open the path to each unlock node. He also has the option to fortify and modify captured nodes in order to deter worms. It's easy to learn and can get progressively harder with more worms and more nodes to unlock.

 

https://www.gamecrate.com/sites/default/files/deus%20ex%20mankind%20divided%20hacking%201.jpg

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I did enjoy Deus Ex's hacking mini games where the player has to capture all of the green "unlocking" nodes whilst avoiding the security "worms". The player travels along paths to capture nodes in order to open the path to each unlock node. He also has the option to fortify and modify captured nodes in order to deter worms. It's easy to learn and can get progressively harder with more worms and more nodes to unlock.

 

https://www.gamecrate.com/sites/default/files/deus%20ex%20mankind%20divided%20hacking%201.jpg

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.

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