HP cheat, bug or standard?

Janis Papanagnou

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Jul 4, 2021, 9:32:33 AM7/4/21

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There had been a HP cheat by exploiting a polyself bug in a former
version. On NAO I currently see a character with HP:5315(5320) and
Pw:2913(2913) at Xp:30 (T:~200k). - Is that still that bug or just
normal to achieve in version NH-366? That number looks quite large
considering that pudding farming had been nerfed.

Janis

Pat Rankin

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Jul 5, 2021, 7:48:09 PM7/5/21

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That bug was fixed at least two different ways for 3.6.0 but
perhaps those fixes weren't sufficient. Why not review the ttyrec(s)
to see how it was done? You'll probably know by 100000 turns. :-}

Janis Papanagnou

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Jul 5, 2021, 9:40:43 PM7/5/21

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On 06.07.2021 01:48, Pat Rankin wrote:
> On Sunday, July 4, 2021 at 6:32:33 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:
>> There had been a HP cheat by exploiting a polyself bug in a former
>> version. On NAO I currently see a character with HP:5315(5320) and
>> Pw:2913(2913) at Xp:30 (T:~200k). - Is that still that bug or just
>> normal to achieve in version NH-366? That number looks quite large
>> considering that pudding farming had been nerfed.
>
> That bug was fixed at least two different ways for 3.6.0 but
> perhaps those fixes weren't sufficient.

Fixes that don't fix it? - Nice definition of fixed. Avoids hard work.
As [political] principle this is well known also from other areas. :-)

> Why not review the ttyrec(s) to see how it was done?

I'm not so much interested in how to exploit it. I was more interested
to get a feeling how Nethack is developed, where the focus areas are.

> You'll probably know by 100000 turns. :-}

Manual inspection? I seem to recall that there are ttyrec-grep tools;
I suppose using that might simplify matters (for those who care). ;-)

Janis

Jukka Lahtinen

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Jul 6, 2021, 7:59:10 AM7/6/21

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Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> writes:
> On 06.07.2021 01:48, Pat Rankin wrote:
>> On Sunday, July 4, 2021 at 6:32:33 AM UTC-7, Janis wrote:

>> That bug was fixed at least two different ways for 3.6.0 but
>> perhaps those fixes weren't sufficient.
>
> Fixes that don't fix it? - Nice definition of fixed. Avoids hard work.
> As [political] principle this is well known also from other areas. :-)

Sometimes a bug is more complex and more obscure than it seems at first.
It may get partly fixed, so that it doesn't present itself in every use
case it did before, but only in some rare cases.
So the developers assume they fixed it, when it actually is only partly
fixed.
Sometimes fixing one bug even enables another bug that was already
there, but hidden by the first bug.
This is SO familiar at work..

--
Jukka Lahtinen

Janis Papanagnou

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Jul 6, 2021, 8:19:22 AM7/6/21

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Yes, an indication that a bug is not correctly identified or really
understood. That's why folks should state clearly whether the have
fixed it or just tried to (based on assumptions, educated guesses).

But my comment above was addressing another Real Life related case;
government could not fix the regulative frame to control emission
effectively to the necessary degree, so they changed the law by
adjusting the acceptable emission rate. ("If we cannot fix it then
we allow it." - voila, it's "fixed"!)

Janis

Chris Bowers

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Jul 29, 2021, 2:50:14 AM7/29/21

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Pudding farming has indeed been nixed, but as others have said, maybe there's a workaround to the "fix". I personally know a high level ADOM player who has discovered bugs and exploits that other people don't know about (and he has sworn me to secrecy to). There are always areas of the game to be explored or which might be discovered by accident. This happens more often in modern games but it can happen in ancient games as well.

Good on the guy who found an exploit. If you look at the ttyrec then you could find out the exploit and have "inside information" that only you and he would know. (But please do tell us? Mwahahaha!)