User:Umbire the Phantom/YANI

For those reading, this is ported over from the etherpad at Hardfought which I no longer have access to. It'll honestly be easier to maintain an offline copy overall, but as far as "things I want people to be able to directly contribute to" this is probably one of the easier options until I look into all that. In the meantime, here it all is - if you wanna edit, feel free to, just don't break wiki rules or piss me off. If you wanna look at other stuff I've been fiddling with, check out my "workspace" or, see User:Umbire the Phantom/sandbox.

YANI/prospective variant idea repository/design doc for one Umbire.

Introductory notes

Formatting this from the Lumapad is gonna take some time, so it'll be a while before things're up and running to the point I'd be fine with letting people contribute so that they can properly be attributed - this is a sort of problem I had with the Hardfought Etherpad for a bit. If you wanna see that and peek at the stuff I'm moving, here you go.

In the meantime, may as well lay the ground rules for anyone agreeing to pitch in:

1. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
2. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
3. Think of this as an extended spitballing session - the purpose of this is to refine ideas in general, and to that end I'd like you to be at least open to critcism.
4. CRITICISM IS NOT LICENSE TO BE A DICKHEAD.
5. Don't be a dickhead to other contributors.
6. Signsignsignsign sign yer posts! Wiki software records who added/removed what but signing is soooooooooo much easier.

Okay?

Okay.

YANI

All YANIs listed here are variant-agnostic, unless stated otherwise.

LumaHack

Tentative variant name.

Design principles

• It isn't hand-holding to implement QoL and generally not be a dick to the player. NetHack as a whole is already hard and, despite reactive protests based to the contrary, will only get harder. Yes, the game will be harder than default NetHack, that's practically a given - but this variant is not about defining its by its difficulty or lack thereof. My primary aim is to strike a proper balance in providing that challenge in a way that isn't as commonplace with other variants, without unduly breaking the uninitiated over my knee.
  • Regular discussion of difficulty is a minefield as it is even with """current""" games because difficulty is a both a thing a lot of people don't fully understand and a thing that a lot of people don't wanna admit they don't fully understand, because too many of us like to define ourselves by how we consume this form of interactive media where we play games on video. But rather than sermonize off the bat, I'm just gonna leave it at the above and save the meatier stuff and Actual Opinions™ for later on this page.
• Keep it simple, silly. I'm not the most experienced coder, and even better coders than me (read: all of them) hit a wall in making C do what it wants sooner or later, let alone with a roguelike like this. What it's been made to do is an achievement in itself, but even so I don't wanna get too overambitious, especially not until I find some level of footing from which I can tackle higher-difficulty concepts. That doesn't I don't have some novel ideas lined up, simply that I'm trying to take it slow.

Mechanical changes

• There's a few variants that have the look of a fertile foundation to work with - SpliceHack (and to a lesser extent its rewrite) as well as older versions of Hack'EM (ones before it went too hard on object materials and properties and over-nerfing certain items IMHO) seem especially compelling.
  • God knows if I'll bother with techniques at all, though. If there was a way to implement them without potentially sacrificing balance...

Setting changes

• Perhaps lean slightly more into urban fantasy and a tiny bit of tech geekery - no one said a bustling city couldn't have old tunnels and such!

Full Credits-and-other-thanks-so-far

In no particular order:

• aoei: Funny, entertaining and overall willing to tolerate my nonsense more often than not.
• Luxidream: His knowledge and highly-skilled play is always a joy to experience.
• aosdict: He was willing to archive all these YANIs in the first place, and his work on xNetHack is stellar. (Still due to try newer versions!)
• amateurhour: Good-natured chap with a decent sense of humor that helped me appreciate Monks.
• Amy: Yeah, yeah, I know, just listen. Even wacky off-the-chain ideas have their limits, whether in terms of practicality, tastefulness, taboos, general all-or-nothing lenses, and/or otherwise. But the girl's actually had some pretty good ideas that've interested me in a vacuum, and while I'm not as interested in testing boundaries on player sensibilities (because I'm not entitled to a playerbase and that's just Not Me And My Vision as a person end of the day), I do wanna see where I can eventually push this variant, and I won't lie and say she hasn't been an inspiration in some manner.
• K2: Good guy with a good variant, also very aspirational in terms of what it makes possible. Also hardfought server runner, does so much for us as it is.
• The DevTeam members past and present: They created a wonderful thing that people've turned into a wonderful playground and we should all appreciate that at the end of the day.