What is Need for Pleasure in Creatures?
One of the most perplexing elements in Creatures 1 can be summed up in three letters: NFP. It stands for need for pleasure, and represents a rather puzzling drive. I’ve never looked at very closely, although I can’t say I’ve ever understood it completely. Yet everyone is likely familiar with the phrase, “get yes” or, with my custom vocabulary, “get good.” We know that the best way to reduce NFP is by tickling our Norns and Grendels, but what is this strange drive? Time to piece together this puzzle!
ArchDragon posted an informative article about NFP, ultimately concluding that it’s akin to a drive for love. And if we dig into how NFP is handled in a Norn’s genetics, it certainly does seem to point towards that! I decided to take a closer look at everything related to NFP as I work on my C1 carrot updates. Why would a carrot contain such a large dose of NFP decrease? Going back to ArchDragon’s article, a Norn would have to learn to eat when he or she wasn’t hungry in order to reduce NFP with food. That makes little sense to me. I’m toying around with the idea of removing NFP decrease completely from the carrots, especially once I started to understand what this drive was. There are a surprisingly limited number of individual genes associated with need for pleasure. In laymen’s terms, these do the following:
Gene 1: Sets the half life of NFP to 56, NFP increase to 64, and NFP decrease to 64
Gene 45: Associates the NFP chemical with the NFP drive
Gene 58: Punishes a Norn when he or she experiences a NFP increase
Gene 72: Rewards a Norn when he or she experiences a NFP decrease
Gene 90: Increases NFP when a Norn is disappointed
Gene 91: Decreases NFP when the hand tickles a Norn
Gene 92: Decreases NFP when another Norn or Grendel tickles a Norn
Gene 136: Decreases NFP very slightly when a Norn is sleeping
By far, the greatest way NFP is decreased is through a tickle from the hand. This is actually somewhat confusing, though, since this action also rewards a Norn. Saying “yes” or “good” is the equivalent of tickling a Norn, so unfortunately there is no way of separating out the positive side of learning from a simple act of love. It seems that Norns were designed to experience a decrease in NFP not simply from their environment, but from interactions with others.
This graph illustrates how prevalent the need for pleasure drive often is. The large dip in the middle of the graph was the result of another Norn tickling this one, while eating a bit of honey reduced this drive just a bit. I still don’t quite understand the exact causes for the increases in NFP: Perhaps this has to do with gene 136, making NFP rise slightly when a Norn is awake? NFP means that a player almost has to be involved in order to keep this drive low, unless there are friendly Norns and Grendels around. Maybe that explains why food items decrease NFP… This helps Creatures be independent and reduce the drive on their own! Yet I still feel like it would make more sense to encourage interactions with others, rather than depending on unrelated objects to reduce NFP. What do you think?
In C2, norns say they’re “sad” when NFP is high. Going off of that I’ve always just considered it the “sadness” drive.
Going off of that, I do think it makes sense for eating to reduce the drive. Surely you’ve heard of people who eat when they’re upset, and eating for pleasure is very much a thing in reality. That being said, encouraging (positive) interaction is also a good thing. I’m a little ambivalent here, really.
On a somewhat related note, I kind of miss having NFP in C3/DS. It’s a little annoying to deal with in C1 and C2, but at the same time it’s a convenient “don’t do this” drive. If nothing else, if it stayed around for C3/DS I could use it instead of pain when trying to discourage creatures from slapping each other. But alas.
I think you’re right in labeling NFP as sadness: Makes a lot of sense! Now that I’ve been looking into it, I’m sort of on the fence about having NFP decrease in food, too. I think it might just be the amount in a carrot: 70 NFP decrease is huge, considering that a tickle from the hand produces 64 NFP decrease, and a tickle from another Creature produces 48 NFP decrease. I was thinking of removing NFP decrease completely from the carrot, but I may just reduce it to a smaller number: Enough to make a dent in the drive, but small enough so that Norns might learn to seek out others as the best way to reduce NFP.
It is a shame that NFP was taken out of C3/DS. It is a little bit of a weird drive, but I think it adds a layer of complexity that makes Norns, Grendels, and Ettins deeper than just beings who need to satisfy basic drives.
On that note, would it be possible to discourage slapping in C1 and C2 by adding an instinct to produce a decent dose of NFP when a Creature slaps another? Not trying to steal your idea: I’m just curious about whether that might make for friendlier Norns, or if there would be a better way. Thanks for all of your thoughts!
I imagine an instinct would probably help a little, though without a corresponding stimulus to actually give the creature NFP I’m not entirely sure how long it’d be effective for.
In C2 at least I know that creatures get sad when they slap each other by default. I have no idea what stimulus gets triggered for the aggressor in C1, though (I’m not even sure if it’s “pull” or “stop” that functions as slapping in C1).
Very true about the instinct and stimulus. I may add that onto my list of things to test out from a genetic standpoint, just to see if it makes any sort of difference!
Slapping in C1 is associated with “pull” but I’m not entirely sure how to set up a stimulus. Seems like it would need to involve the “I’ve Activated2” stimulus and the sensory neuron for “IT is a creature” … I think? Right now, nothing happens to a Creature who slaps another. Except for mature males, who have an instinct that rewards them for slapping females. Odd!
Very nice! I can tell you part of the answer. When I designed the drive system I realized that most drives are bad if they get stronger and good if they get weaker. We want to be LESS lonely, less hungry, less tired. But we want to be MORE happy (or whatever the word is for generally feeling pleasure). So I had to kind of invert it and describe it as the NEED for pleasure. The more pleasure you get, the more your need for it goes DOWN, and so the neurochemistry works out the same way as for the other drives – you get rewarded by anything which reduces hunger or reduces the need for pleasure. If you see what I mean.
Thanks for that wonderful explanation, Steve! That certainly confirms that NFP is a sort of happiness/sadness factor, depending on how you look at it. I had a feeling that was it, but hearing it from you is much better! I appreciate that explanation!
Using this information, I’m definitely going to include it with the carrots. Likely not in such a high dosage, since I doubt we want Norns to get so very happy over a… Carrot. Ha! Thank you again for commenting, Steve: It always thrills me when I’ve got the mastermind behind Creatures reading some of my silly musings about the game! After all these years, though, I’m still learning more about everything and thinking through every aspect of Creatures. Hope that goes to show what a wonderful job you did in C1, always keeping the door open for deeper thinking and challenges. Thanks again!