Anyone else hate the concept of 'suspicion' in games like this?

[Y'shtola]

I love Hacknet. And it's one I always drift back to. I've tried a number of other ones over the years, and genuinely it all feels like they go the 'arcade' route of things. Adding arbitrary game mechanics that keeps you firmly in the fact you're playing a game.

That is what suspicion feels like.

Hack someone's PC and having them come after you (if they are a hacker) is perfectly reasonable, if you're sloppy enough.
The game is pitching you as a skilled hacker.

Challenge authority, rewrite the rules, and emerge as the ultimate digital rebel.

Yet you are at x11.96 suspicion literally right near the beginning of the tutorial. The entire thing makes it feel like it's just an arcade game. Where every little thing you do is generating suspicion.

But generating it from who? Hacking a nearby WIFI (let's say from a neighbor) is making people suspicious of you? Where x100 is game over.

It all just feels so sloppy. To mitigate your suspicion, you get to purchase "skillz". Like..okay?

Hacknet, you mitigate stuff by covering your tracks. Deleting records of your access into a system before you're found. Here, seemingly the moment you do something, they (let's say it's a government agency) is onto you and already keeping an eye on you. No way seemingly to avoid it.

Like, yes I see you can get VPNs and stuff. But...again it's back to the arcade-y nature of the game. Where you're generating this stuff to begin with.

NSLookup is available, yet using it is generating suspicion. I don't think anyone believes this is what happens in real life. Yet in-game it was worth like x3-4 on my meter for a one-time use. Which is why I keep saying it feels like an arcade-hacker.

You shouldn't be generating suspicion unless you are: a) being sloppy with what you're doing, b) not covering your tracks, c) generally doing something incredibly stupid or hostile.

[Y'shtola]

@SteelWaffe7
About your comment on my review, if you see this.

I don't like the concept of suspicion happening instantly. You should be able to do stuff, and if you're careful or do it right, you should be able to cover your tracks.

An example would be in Hacknet. You crack through the ports and that breaks you in. You have a time limit, if a trace happens (which isn't all the time).
Typically the goal is to break through the ports, get admin access, erase your tracks, and disconnect. Then you can get back in as an admin and do whatever, erase your tracks again, and leave. At least in some cases. In some, you have to do it all before a trace is over.

This is why I used the term 'arcade', because it's strictly a game thing, and not a skill thing.

By this I mean, as a hacker, you can take steps to protect yourself from being found, to retain your anonymity. These are the good hackers IRL. They know how to hide their tracks, or even from being discovered at all.

Yet forced suspicion makes it feel like you can never be a skilled hacker. You're sloppy, you leave evidence, generating suspicion. And as you said, at 50% or higher, you open yourself to being hacked. So seemingly, you have no way to protect yourself from this, either.

It's kind of what separates the good hacking games, from the bad ones, at least in my opinion. A good one is one where you can learn. Legitimate stuff. Where you can use those skills to protect yourself in-game, do the things you need to do, and most importantly, not get caught (in the event you're doing black-hat style stuff).

But it doesn't feel like you can do that, as the trial has now, at least. You can buy 'skills' to get stat related stuff about suspicion mitigation and the like. But a better way is to learn skills to evade that suspicion in the first place, or divert it to a dead end. Not relying on skill points at all. It should be solely left to hacking methods and protections.

That is definitely a fork in the road for games like this.

You go down the Arcade route, with things like skill points and simple stats to control stuff.
Or the more serious hacking route, where you can purchase equipment to let you run more stuff. But it entirely relies on your skill with what commands you have access to, and how you use them.

(Like Hacknet has so much memory you can use at a time, that limits how many programs you can run at once. Which impacts your time to crack through ports. You have to play it smart with what you use and how much memory you have to work with.)

[SteelWaffe7]

Okay thanks.

Honestly I've never played hacknet, and recently I've been thinking about removing suspicion in the game. The game system has completely changed. It used to be (free trial) scripted. Now it's progressing on a completely real system.

I'll follow the criticisms about suspicion.

[Y'shtola]

SteelWaffe7 の投稿を引用：

Okay thanks.

Honestly I've never played hacknet, and recently I've been thinking about removing suspicion in the game. The game system has completely changed. It used to be (free trial) scripted. Now it's progressing on a completely real system.

I'll follow the criticisms about suspicion.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/3027/Hacknet__Complete_Edition/
It's only $4 for the next week. A great time to get it and try it out.