Design principle concerns over new paranoid_confirm options
dansalvato opened this issue · comments
I noticed that commit 23d1657 adds paranoid_confirm for walking on traps as a default option. I'm not sure when traps and swimming were added to paranoid_confirm, but this commit brought my attention to it.
To me, a core theme of NetHack has always been that the player is rewarded or punished based on how careful they're being. I feel reluctant about these new guardrails, because they dilute what I consider to be an important gameplay element, which is being careful with movement.
My concern isn't about difficulty, or about the way I personally like to play the game (I know I can disable this in the options). It's about the theme of NetHack - which, from my perspective, has always been "be careful". The player chooses how safely they want to play, at the cost of convenience. Movement is a big part of that balance. Now, the scales are tipped so that we can move around conveniently and safely.
It's easy to categorize these additions as quality-of-life improvements, but I think they have a strong fundamental effect on the way that the game is played. I'm opening this discussion because I'd like to hear others' opinions on what actions they feel deserve a paranoid_confirm option.
For what it's worth, I think it would be cool if certain equipment (Elven boots? One of the rings?) granted you paranoid_confirm for traps and water. Then, there is an interesting decision where you can use an equipment slot as a safety net to reduce your potential to make mistakes.
I do not like the idea of changing or removing paranoid confirmation for moving onto hazardous squares, but if it was done I think it would be really neat to have warning grant it as a sort of property. Would fit very nicely balance-wise and with the theming of the new helm of caution. (Though for some roles warning is intrinsic or is granted by items with multiple highly desirable properties, so you couldn’t just opt out of it easily as you can with the option. Some hacky stuff would have to be done to keep the paranoid part optional, but I am not sure what that would be).
As I stated elsewhere: while I'm not 100% a fan of the option, I generally prefer it exist and recognize that it has a use for people with shaky connections, given I was one of those people for a time. I personally would like it to be opt-in myself, if that makes any sense, and otherwise have no inclination to campaign against it. I also appreciate the discussion not being made about the usual thought-terminators elevating difficulty into a sacred cow - I find most people's understanding of game difficulty to be flawed at best in most such scenarios, but I digress.
Far as tying it to specific items and properties, that's actually a pretty solid idea on paper, though it's gonna need a bit of refining through this discussion. Maybe restrict it to non-artifact sources of warning?
Maybe restrict it to non-artifact sources of warning
You’d need to also have that apply to intrinsic warning, but I’m not a huge fan of it either way. Doesn’t seem to be any intuitive reason for it flavor-wise
There is definitely a portion of the playerbase that feels similarly about this (and maybe some of the other recent choices made in the name of accessibility). I turn it off myself because I don't like it, but at this point some design choices have apparently been made with paranoid water in mind (tight Gehennom mazes with water or lava as the "walls" which are typo-prone and punitive to an unprecedented degree if it's disabled) so it's becoming more difficult to argue it's an option that can be left on or off as the player prefers, IMO. I do think it's not a bad idea to focus on punishing players for deliberate choices they make in-game rather than errors they make by accident, but NetHack is a famously punitive game and I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's a 'meta' choice to type quickly rather than take your time when you're near water or lava.
The argument that some players are punished not for being hasty but for poor connections or something else completely outside their control is the most compelling defense of it I think. And punishments for haste can definitely be unbalanced even if they are part of the NetHack ethos -- we are well rid of invisible traps that can one-shot instakill a player and encourage spamming 20s each step.
It's almost certainly a moot point though, because at this point it's pretty well in there. I do think I would prefer if it were off by default and design choices were made based on the notion the player will not be using it, but maybe that is not realistic and it's necessary to assume that if it's in there, most players will be using it (or else you may go too far in the opposite direction and make levels trivially easy for the majority of players by relying on "difficult to navigate water").
I strongly disagree with that statement.
NetHack is a game about utilizing limited resources and applying game knowledge to handle emerging situations, not getting "punished based on how careful {the player is} being", especially when "being careful" comes to "double checking every move".
Mind you, paranoid_confirm does not actually alter any fundamentals on how the game itself plays as opposed to, for example, making stoning from cockatrice corpses gradual rather than instant would. It simply prevents the player from making what would be in 99% of cases an obvious unintentional mistake and the actual move never happens rather than happen with lesser consequences.
I don't see how this is different from paranoid wand-break, which we can all agree is also there to prevent obvious typos.
Flavor-wise it makes perfect sense for the character to double check themselves "Do I REALLY want to take a dip in molten lava?"
Even worse for traps, where the character may be aware of a trap existing, but not the player, because an object is displayed on top of the said trap, a situation that happens especially often with polymorph traps, which are the most devastating type of trap in the mid game
As for warning equipment granting paranoid_confirm, it would imply that sensing that the ice you are standing on is slowly melting is just as subtle as realizing that you shouldn't be diving head first into molten lava which in my opinion does not really make sense.
To me the statement comes down to an elitist "I am good at the game because I do not step into lava. People who do step into lava are not good at the game and therefore should be punished"
To me the statement comes down to an elitist "I am good at the game because I do not step into lava. People who do step into lava are not good at the game and therefore should be punished"
The point is being missed here. NetHack is a skill-driven game. Our difference in perspectives is based on what kind of skills we feel should be tested. It sounds like you believe the core skill is knowledge, resourcefulness, and decision-making. I agree with that, but I also like how NetHack tests the skill of movement and general proficiency in controlling your character.
I like that the player is rewarded for becoming proficient in movement by being able to move more quickly while incurring less of a risk.
I understand that some people hold the opinion that movement isn't a skill that should be tested in this game, and that adding guardrails nudges the game towards a more sound set of core design principles. If the DevTeam and the majority of players feel that way, then so be it.
But as I mentioned, I consider it a major change, not a simple quality-of-life improvement. So, I think it's worth discussing and understanding the implications it has on the overall direction of the game.
Even worse for traps, where the character may be aware of a trap existing, but not the player, because an object is displayed on top of the said trap, a situation that happens especially often with polymorph traps, which are the most devastating type of trap in the mid game
This is a case where I agree paranoid_confirm is strictly beneficial, because it's divergent from the skill I'm talking about. It's unfair that the game has trouble representing traps on squares with other objects, and it causes the player to feel as though they were punished through no fault of their own decision-making or proficiency level.
But as I mentioned, I consider it a major change, not a simple quality-of-life improvement. So, I think it's worth discussing and understanding the implications it has on the overall direction of the game.
Note that this not a new change. Variants like UnNetHack had paranoid options for more than 10 years by now. So this has been discussed over a long time.
I think the majority of the community on IRC/Discord are for this paranoid options although the part of the community that is against it is also not negligible small. So discussion about these feature flare up regularly.
I do like a bit of extra "paranoia" for movement specifically, especially for versions on Nethack that use input systems other than a keyboard. For example iNethack2 which is a port I maintain for iOS uses touch controls, and they can sometimes not be as precise as hitting a key on a keyboard.
I like the idea of having certain items giving you the paranoid_confirm prompt for traps/water/lava and I think it should be added to some of the "useless" items in the game i.e. Orc Helms warn about falling rock traps, trappers, and lurkers. Orc boots warm about water/fire traps and about accidentally stepping into water or lava.