3 ms·

You can easily avoid that by replacing the RNG with a proper secure one.

by devit 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dsr_ 4y ago
Then it wouldn't be Nethack. Nethack is not a game where the dice are fair. Nethack is a game where the phase of the moon has real influence. Nethack is, though not originally designed for that purpose, a game which encourages players to learn to read the source code and familiarize themselves with text files, editing, and searching. You could build a nice first-year CS class around Nethack, taking people from "this is a fun game" to "I have a tenuous grasp on programming" in a semester.
- CydeWeys 4y ago
  > Then it wouldn't be Nethack. Hard disagree. No human player would remotely detect a difference if the exploitable pseudorandom seed were replaced with a truly random source. > Nethack is not a game where the dice are fair. Nethack is a game where the phase of the moon has real influence. The phase of the Moon _is not random_! It is deterministic! You're arguing against yourself here. > Nethack is, though not originally designed for that purpose, a game which encourages players to learn to read the source code and familiarize themselves with text files, editing, and searching. Entirely orthogonal to the issue of using a better random number source. Indeed, a good class project might be improving the source of randomness used by NetHack.
  - HelloNurse 4y ago
    A pseudorandom number generator - is necessary for technical reasons - is easily distinguishable from a different one by players - can (and since it is Nethack, should) include the phase of the moon as a seed
    - Tyr42 4y ago
      Can't you have a secure random number generator and on top of that add in biases for the phase of the moon, etc? League adjusts crit chance so smooth out the likelyhood of two in a row for example.
      - CydeWeys 4y ago
        The Moon phase adjustments are really trivial. E.g. luck is increased by 1 during a full Moon (and you already need to handle luck anyway; basically your total luck is setting a modifier on how likely good/bad events are to happen). Or a cockatrice will always turn you to stone when it attacks on a new Moon instead of having a 10% chance of doing so (this can trivially be implemented on top of any kind of source of random numbers).
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      You need to explain these in further detail then, because I don't see how any of them are true.

You can easily avoid that by replacing the RNG with a proper secure one.

by devit 4y ago

You can easily avoid that by replacing the RNG with a proper secure one.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dsr_ 4y ago

Then it wouldn't be Nethack. Nethack is not a game where the dice are fair. Nethack is a game where the phase of the moon has real influence. Nethack is, though not originally designed for that purpose, a game which encourages players to learn to read the source code and familiarize themselves with text files, editing, and searching. You could build a nice first-year CS class around Nethack, taking people from "this is a fun game" to "I have a tenuous grasp on programming" in a semester.

CydeWeys 4y ago
> Then it wouldn't be Nethack. Hard disagree. No human player would remotely detect a difference if the exploitable pseudorandom seed were replaced with a truly random source. > Nethack is not a game where the dice are fair. Nethack is a game where the phase of the moon has real influence. The phase of the Moon _is not random_! It is deterministic! You're arguing against yourself here. > Nethack is, though not originally designed for that purpose, a game which encourages players to learn to read the source code and familiarize themselves with text files, editing, and searching. Entirely orthogonal to the issue of using a better random number source. Indeed, a good class project might be improving the source of randomness used by NetHack.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  A pseudorandom number generator - is necessary for technical reasons - is easily distinguishable from a different one by players - can (and since it is Nethack, should) include the phase of the moon as a seed
  - Tyr42 4y ago
    Can't you have a secure random number generator and on top of that add in biases for the phase of the moon, etc? League adjusts crit chance so smooth out the likelyhood of two in a row for example.
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
      The Moon phase adjustments are really trivial. E.g. luck is increased by 1 during a full Moon (and you already need to handle luck anyway; basically your total luck is setting a modifier on how likely good/bad events are to happen). Or a cockatrice will always turn you to stone when it attacks on a new Moon instead of having a 10% chance of doing so (this can trivially be implemented on top of any kind of source of random numbers).
  - CydeWeys 4y ago
    You need to explain these in further detail then, because I don't see how any of them are true.