Many modern games are so meticulously balanced, that it makes decisions seem pointless. Compare nethack, to dungeon crawl stone soup. In DCSS everything is so c

Many modern games are so meticulously balanced, that it makes decisions seem pointless. Compare nethack, to dungeon crawl stone soup. In DCSS everything is so carefully balanced, that you can choose A with caveats or choose B with caveats and it amounts to the same. Choose heavy armour, and have less agility? Or light armour and more agility? Who cares, your overall impact is the same. By trying to get rid of "no-brainer" decisions, they have made the decisions that you do make seem meaningless. Nethack by contrast, could be completely imbalanced but so much more atmospheric and fun to play as a result. DCSS tried to be like chess, nethack feels more like an actual place that might exist without the player. This also applies to modern 4X games, like endless space. Perhaps that is one reason for the success of Dwarf Fortress, you definitely get the feeling that the player is an afterthought - right down to the very UI, the game hates you.