Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 169: One Million Negative Emotion Points!

Chapter 169: Chapter 169: One Million Negative Emotion Points!

It was 12:50 a.m.

Instructor Ding yawned, "Mouse, I can’t hold on any longer, let’s just call it a day..."

Li Wenhao was clearly also on the brink of collapse, "Okay, Brother Ding, I can’t take it anymore either, let’s continue the battle tomorrow."

Although the bullet chat was relentless, urging Instructor Ding to stay on for a little longer, it was clear that he had made up his mind to "shamefully sign off," and without much fuss with the bullet chat, he said goodbye and directly closed the stream.

Lilith was very happy.

"Well done, Gu Fan, you’re doing great!

"Although I’m not familiar with this Great General, he truly is my beloved and trusted aide! He has earned me so much negative emotion just for tonight!"

Clearly, Lilith was quite pleased at the moment.

It had only been a few hours since the game officially went on sale, but the results were already very gratifying.

Gu Fan looked at the notification in his field of vision.

[Negative emotions from Ding Qiang +11!]

[Negative emotions from Li Wenhao +25!]

[Negative emotions from Chen Tingquan +14!]

["Ascension" has acquired negative emotions: 1,030,951!]

No wonder Lilith was so happy, as the collection of negative emotions had reached new heights.

The record for the most negative emotions Nitiandang had ever collected in a short period was for "Sisyphus," which garnered about 730,000 negative emotions in the four to five hours following the game’s release.

And what about "Ascension"?

From 7:00 p.m. to midnight, in five hours, it had successfully broken the million mark in terms of collected negative emotions!

Seeing a large number of players challenge the Great General, only to be spectacularly killed off by this Great General wielding an arsenal of weapons, Lilith was overjoyed, even considering recognizing the Great General as her beloved and trusted aide.

What surprised her even more was the players’ endurance!

In the face of so much negative emotion, they still persisted?

You see, the stamina of her previous games was quite lacking.

Take "Infernal Trajectory," for instance. Before players found any bugs, most would quit after just over an hour.

But "Ascension" was clearly different. Despite being tortured, the number of players actually deterred was not high!

Take Instructor Ding, for example. He and Li Wenhao had been wiped nearly three hours straight by the Great General, each time heading straight back into battle from the spawn point, only to embrace a new way to die.

During these three hours, the best attempt Instructor Ding and Li Wenhao had was just barely pushing the Great General into the third phase.

In the third phase, the Great General was in a definitive "I’m no longer human" state. His full-body armor would fall off after his flesh swelled, transforming into a terrifying flesh monster that sprouted numerous fleshy tentacles to wield a variety of weapons he once used, such as the Horse-Cutter Saber, longsword, lance, battle-axe, and more, to attack the players.

The Great General had appeared in previous CG cutscenes before.

The general who wore heavy armor and declared through ventriloquism, "Only Ascension can save this world," as well as the flesh monster at the end of the CG, were both him.

However, players were not yet facing the Great General in his complete form.

At this stage, although he would also turn into a flesh monster, he had not yet merged elements like a giant serpent, elephant trunk, or fierce beast tail; he was only a pure flesh creature, making him weaker.

After being defeated in this phase, players would later trigger some side plots related to Zhao Siyuan and the Great General in Crane Valley.

It’s only upon returning to the King’s City in Jiangdu that they would face off against the Great General’s full form in a fight to the death.

However, the third phase of the Great General was already challenging enough to cause the players considerable difficulty.

At first glance, having fought their way to the third phase, it might seem that defeating this BOSS was just around the corner, right?

But Lilith knew very well, it wasn’t!

According to the current progress, for Instructor Ding and Li Wenhao to truly defeat the Great General, it would take at least another two to three hours.

Because they couldn’t get through the first two phases unscathed, whether they reached the third phase was entirely up to luck. Even if they made it to the third phase, they would have almost completely used up their consumables and items, and they hadn’t had many opportunities to practice this entirely new mode of combat; they were thoroughly unaccustomed to it.

This seemingly small amount of health became an insurmountable chasm, impossible to cross.

Lilith, who had been continuously subjected to suffering, felt she had some authority to speak on this.

Lilith was also curious as to why she was always being tortured—because she wanted to see if there were any loopholes or bugs in the game—so why could players endure for so long?

Of course, the reputation Nitiandang had built up with its previous games played a part, but clearly, that wasn’t the whole reason.

"Gu Fan, how did you manage to keep players so tortured and yet still retain so many who could persevere?

"Absolutely brilliant!

"Had I known this would happen, I truly should have involved you earlier in the game design!"

Regarding Lilith’s flattery, Gu Fan didn’t take it to heart.

Because he knew, Lilith only spoke like this when the wind was in her favor and she was in a good mood, and as soon as she was against the wind and in a bad mood, she would immediately toss aside everything she had said before.

"President Li, this is normal, this is the charm of action games!"

"Players who like action games are inherently very tolerant, they enjoy the feeling of getting stronger, so no matter how difficult the game is, they won’t give up easily," Gu Fan explained.

Lilith was delighted, "That’s great, I should have made action games earlier!"

"But it’s not too late now, how about from now on Nitiandang makes only action games! Hehehe."

Gu Fan quickly threw cold water on her excitement, "President Li, let’s not rush to pop the champagne yet, we still need to observe for a while."

Lilith nodded, "Hmm, you make a good point.

"I’m going to check on the situation with Gan Di, he’s becoming much more dangerous than Instructor Ding now!"

Lilith switched to Gan Di’s live stream, and soon she breathed a sigh of relief because Gan Di was also getting thrashed by the Great General!

By this time, the world where Gan Di was had switched back to the Immortal Cultivation World, but no matter which world it was, it didn’t affect him getting killed by the Great General.

It was evident that Gan Di was completely relying on reaction to play the game, when to slash, when to block, he didn’t have a clear idea, and was more dependent on a kind of instinctual rhythm.

However, unlike Instructor Ding, he seemed to have prepared well for playing "Ascension," even adjusting his biological clock ahead of time, most likely planning to pull an all-nighter.

But this also brought him more enduring pain.

Finally, after being turned into a sieve by the Great General’s bow and arrow once more, Gan Di quietly sighed and decided to take a break.

"Hey, something’s not right.

"Doesn’t this game seem a bit too difficult?

"There’s no way to react in time!

"Look, most people online are also complaining about this."

Gan Di opened a web page and did a quick search, quickly finding that many players were encountering the same issue as him.

Why was everyone stuck at the Great General? The reason was simple, they couldn’t react in time!

The basic combat mechanics of "Ascension" are not complicated.

Apart from a few minor monsters at the beginning, essentially all the other monsters attack faster than the player, and the slightly more formidable bosses all have armor with purple health bars.

Therefore, for players, "Perfect Parrying during the monster’s attack and sneaking in hits during breaks" has become the expected play style.

This method might seem fine at a first glance, but when you actually play, problems arise everywhere!

And the key issue is, when exactly is this "break" to sneak in a hit?

If it’s a regular action game, when a player needs to perfectly block, the monster’s attack speed generally slows down, with a relatively obvious wind-up action.

After all, human reaction speed is limited, with professional players being around 100ms, while for most people, 200ms or even 300ms is considered normal.

So, a typical action game definitely needs to take this into account and provide enough time to deal with attacks that require on-the-spot reactions.

Players see the monster’s move, then think of a counter in their brain, which then transmits to their fingers, then the fingers press down and the controller passes the command to the computer...

A normal game should at least ensure there’s sufficient time for this entire series of actions.

But clearly, "Ascension" cut this time by at least half compared to other action games!

Logically, since Instructor Ding as a former FPS pro gamer should have far better reaction speed than normal people, but he struggled continuously with "Ascension," which shows just how extreme the required reaction speed for this game is, even exceeding the normal human limits.

Moreover, in "Ascension," the character’s parrying action cannot interrupt their own attack actions.

That means, once the player’s sword has swung, no matter how many times you press the parry, it won’t take effect until the attack animation is complete.

Gan Di did try, just parrying without attacking, but that way of playing was pure torture, there was no way to deplete the enemy’s energy bar, let alone fill up the posture bar.

He also tried shaking the sword like some players, which is quickly pressing the parry button after sneaking in a hit, hoping to block the enemy’s attack by chance, only to still get hit!

Obviously, the game seemed to have a mechanism that changed the timing for parrying after consecutive parries.

"Strange, how exactly does this game want people to play?"

Gan Di faintly felt that he might have touched upon a certain threshold; when the BOSS would slash or defend seemed to have an intrinsic rule, the only question was, what was this rule exactly?

"Guys, let me check the footage."

The chat was continuously offering strategies, but they weren’t very useful, so Gan Di ignored them.

He opened the recording of today’s battles and carefully watched the Great General’s moves and actions.

Then he frowned slightly, as if he had noticed something.

"Hmm... isn’t it that when my attack gets Perfect Parried by this Great General, I get hit 100% of the time? Don’t you guys think that’s the case?

"And when I hit him, isn’t it also just after I Perfect Parry his attack?

"Is there a connection between these two things?"

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