Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

Hacking First-Hand - It's Slightly More Complex Than Snakes and Ladders

I prefer Diplomacy over Axis & Allies. I prefer Axis & Allies over Risk. I prefer Risk over Monopoly. I prefer Monopoly over Snakes and Ladders. If you're familiar with those games, you'll recognize my preference for games where random events play less of a factor over player decisions and outcomes. I don't hate games that include die rolls, but I do hate games where player decisions are made entirely "in the dark" and where the random element is the determining factor in the outcomes of decisions, or where a random element is the decision-making. Carcassonne, for instance, is a game that nicely blends random elements with meaningful player decisions.

So after reading and watching a bunch of stuff on hacking, I came to the determination that this game was ruled by the random-number generator and blind luck. I was heckled that I'd come to this conclusion without actually playing the hacking game. Which is true. And which I stated upfront. I didn't try to hide that fact. I didn't pretend I'd played the hacking game.

"There is nothing like first-hand experience." That is true, as was pointed out to me many many times after my hacking post. The old "you can't judge a movie by its trailer" adage. Well, most times you can, but sometimes the trailer does completely fool you. Sometimes a terrible trailer is actually a good movie. So, I guess the question now is: "Were the second-hand accounts of hacking, that I was relying upon, accurate? Did my first-hand experience of hacking show the lie to the experiences of those others?"

I decided to go through the SiSi install process and play the hacking game first-hand. Which is what I've been doing the last three days. I don't like probing, at all, and even though Odyssey makes probing considerably less painful an activity (kudos!), this is still not something I'm going to be doing after June 04 2013. SiSi is probably the first and last time I'll ever play this hacking game. If the game were actually fun, maybe I might have sought this out as a solo activity, but the game is not fun. Not at all.

This is a game that masquerades as something with complexity, but really you're just clicking around the game board, hoping to find the system core without revealing too many path blockers. If you don't have high skills and are not flying the hacking T1 frigate, then your success at this game will be limited. You simply will not have the attack strength and defense to progress far, not without some blind luck. More often than not, without max skills, you'll find your progress blocked by firewalls that you cannot defeat.

So what is the point of this game? To find the system core, while avoiding firewalls. (I'm going to call everything that blocks progress along a path a firewall. They have different names, but they are all functionally identical. They block your path and they block access to all adjacent nodes until defeated. You either attack them to proceed, or you try to go around them.)

Here is the result of the first game I ever played:
A failure. I've not enough defense (4) to continue. I would be "killed" on the first attack on any of the firewalls. And my attack strength (10) is such that I can take one firewall down in two turns, and any of the others in four turns. My defense is low, because I'd successfully attacked a firewall on a previous turn.

Even if you fail, you do get a second shot at the structure. If you fail a second time, the structure explodes.

Every site has multiple structures which can be hacked. Every structure that has one of those Contact machine whirly-things is hackable.

As far as I can tell, after the fifteen or so games that I've played, your defense never recuperates on its own. Which is where utilities come in. Utilities are items that either "heal" your defenses over a number of turns. (A turn is a mouse click/action on the gameboard.) Or they weaken firewalls, so that you can attack them successfully.

Here are the two flavours of utilities that can be found:
Virus coherence is the fancy name for defense strength. Basically the hit points of a virus.

When attacking a firewall, there is no random element. Your defense will always decrease by the opposing firewall's attack strength, and the opposing firewall's defense will always decrease by your attack strength on every turn that you click it. It's simple math to determine whether you'll be successful or not. If that math determines that you'll destroy the firewall on the same turn that it will destroy you, then you succeed. Your attack is calculated before the opposing firewall's attack.

Here is another game I played to completion:
This is the start of the game. Your goal is the find the system core and there are only two basic strategies. The first, reveal as much as you can of the game board without attacking any firewalls that you reveal. The second strategy, the system core is usually (but not always) somewhere on the opposite side of the gameboard from where you began. So you'll generally want to choose paths towards the opposite side of the gameboard.

The first strategy is the only one you'll adhere too. You don't want to attack firewalls unnecessarily, because it weakens you, which means that even if you find the system core, you may not have the strength to attack and defeat it. The second strategy is really just a rough guide on where to find the system core. Since you want to find utilities, you'll simply want to uncover as many nodes as possible until you no longer can. Utilities will help you get past firewalls that are blocking you from other parts of the gameboard, without weakening you to a point where you cannot attack anything else.

My experience is that you'll uncover more firewalls than you will utilities.

Here I'm progressing through the gameboard. I've already taken down one firewall that was blocking me from the eastern half of the gameboard (it took two turns to take down, but only damaged me for a single turn, since my attack happens before its attack.) I've also found one utility.

The white dot up at the top. It's a mystery node. It doesn't stop you from progressing past it, but clicking on it will reveal either a firewall or a utility. It seems to be about a 50/50 chance of either. Don't click these until much later. Continue past them. When you in need of a utility, then take a chance on them, but only after you've revealed the nodes adjacent to them.

When you have multiple paths/nodes to choose from, it's really just a dice roll which to take. The game gives you no information on which to make any sort of informed decision. Other than strategy two above (which is not a guarantee), it doesn't much matter which of the paths you decide upon. You might as well roll a die to make your decision.

So I've continued on past the mystery dot, as suggested. I also found another utility and used one to get past an earlier firewall.

I've no found the system core. I have enough defense and strength to take it down. For whatever reason, when the system core appeared, the defenses of a couple of the other firewalls increased. This happens from time to time. Opposing firewalls will sometimes lose defense or gain it when you click on nodes (not only the system core.) I have no idea why, and no message appears to tell you that it happened, other than a quick flash on the gameboard. Just another one of those random elements of the game.

So rather than fight the system core immediately, I decide to uncover what remaining nodes I have left. There is the danger that if a firewall appeared in a node next to the system core, I'd be blocked from attacking the core until I took out the firewall. I take the chance anyhow, because I am just messing about on SiSi and learning about the game. A new firewall appears, but two nodes from the core. It's time to attack the system core and get this over with. The math says that I'll die on turn three, but that the system core will die on turn three as well. Since my attack is calculated first, I know I've completed this board successfully.

I could have used my one remaining utility to weaken the system core before attacking, but there wasn't much point in doing so, so didn't.

After completion, the structure spewed out its loot and this is what I collected. Whereas the biggest complaints about this whole system are with the loot spew, it's the one aspect of this whole process that I have no problem with at all. As CCP Fozzie explained, if you want to increase your chances of getting the good shit, cargo scan the structure before playing the hacking game. Each container that is spewed has a type, so you'll know which types of containers to grab, which will increase your chances of getting the item you really want.

Some people are really enjoying this game. Everybody on CSM8 (Mynnna, Ali Aras, Mike Azariah, etc,) for instance. Personally, I find it a huge waste of time. The simple strategies I outlined are barely strategies. A player is still beholden entirely to the random number generator. Player skill (which we differentiate from character skill) makes no difference. All paths are chosen blindly, there is no information available to inform those decisions.

Some possible improvements, utilities that allow you to scan adjacent nodes. Or perhaps being able to sweep in a radius around your current position in exchange for some amount of defense (i.e., lose 10 defense to be able to sweep in a two node radius around your position.) If sweeping were implemented, perhaps being able to change a known (but uncovered) firewall into a mystery dot. There are a variety of things that can be done that still allow for a challenging game, but also allow player decision-making to mean something.

There is some promise and potential to this system, if it is iterated on further by CCP, and some actual player-determined strategy inserted into the gameplay.
Source: Hacking First-Hand - It's Slightly More Complex Than Snakes and Ladders