Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 171: Mixed Reviews!

Chapter 171: Chapter 171: Mixed Reviews!

Lilith’s smile stiffened on her face, and her hand holding the potato chips trembled slightly. After a moment, she shouted, "Gu Fan!!"

At this moment, Gu Fan, who was brushing his teeth halfway, walked out of the bathroom inexplicably, "What’s up, President Li?"

"What is going on here!!" Lilith pointed at the scene on the TV and asked.

Gan Di was continuing to advance the game’s plot at this time. He had decided to follow the hints given in the story and head to the Monastery of True Words to obtain the Relic Sword.

After leaving Jiangdu, Gan Di encountered some elite monsters on his way, including mysterious swordsmen and fierce generals. However, none of these monsters managed to cause him too much trouble. Often, after dying two or three times and figuring out the pattern, he would get past them directly!

Clearly, after defeating the Great General, Gan Di had an epiphany. The mechanism he figured out for dealing with these elite monsters could really be described as ’diminishing their dimension of attack.’

It was no longer like before, where running into any random cat or dog by the roadside would also result in torturous defeats.

Gu Fan was confused, "President Li, what do you mean by ’what is going on’? Can you be more specific?"

Lilith angrily said, "Are you playing dumb with me? What I mean is, why does this game’s combat system have a hidden mechanic? Are you really not intentionally lowering the difficulty for the players?"

Gu Fan was puzzled, "There’s no hidden mechanic."

Lilith’s face darkened, "Still playing tough! Gan Di said that after a ’Perfect Parry,’ there’s always a super-fast counter slash. Isn’t that a hidden mechanic?"

Gu Fan spread his hands, "What hidden mechanic? Where is it ’hidden’? Isn’t this an openly obvious game mechanic?"

Lilith was shocked, "Then why on earth did you design a mechanic where a ’Perfect Parry’ is always followed by a counter slash?"

Gu Fan said righteously, "I created this mechanic originally to increase the difficulty for the players!

"Think about it, President Li. If it weren’t for this mechanic, how could players, while mindlessly hacking away, suddenly get surprised by a quick slash? How else could we have collected so much negative emotion? Isn’t this all thanks to the combat system?

"Think about your own gameplay, isn’t that the case?"

Lilith paused for a moment, "But... but the difficulty of the game has decreased after the players discovered this!"

Gu Fan was shocked, "Huh? What are you thinking about, President Li? Do you really hope that this combat system could trap players forever? With so many players, there are always a few smart ones who find the pattern and adapt to the rhythm. That’s totally normal, isn’t it?"

Lilith continued to argue, "Why not? Why can’t you just make the monsters’ attacks faster than the players’ reflexes, and make all moves completely random and unpredictable?"

Gu Fan sighed, "President Li, if it really were designed like that, the game would just drive all players away within half an hour. How could it then continuously generate negative emotion over a seven or eight-hour period?"

Lilith was at a loss for words, realizing that he actually had a point!

If the game were designed to be too difficult, with players getting variously beaten by minor monsters and without any means of fighting back, they would soon be dissuaded.

This had originally been Lilith’s consistent approach, and although it also collected negative emotion, it was clearly not as much as Gu Fan’s method.

Gu Fan’s approach was to make initial battles difficult, but not to the point of utterly decimating the players, allowing them to retain some hope of resistance.

The advantage of this was to keep players in the game for longer periods, like extending playtime from two hours to eight, ten, or even twenty hours, during which negative emotions would be continuously generated.

However, the problem with this approach was that certain talented players might discover the pattern or get used to the rhythm, leading to a sudden drop in the game’s difficulty later on.

"Didn’t you make any precautions for such a situation in advance?" Lilith shifted the topic.

Gu Fan nodded, "Don’t worry, President Li. When I designed the game, of course, I weighed the pros and cons.

"It’s inevitable that players will adapt to this kind of combat system, but think about these two issues carefully:

"First, even if they know this combat mechanism, how many players can actually master it? Like you, President Li, can you?

"Second, even if they master this mechanism and the game’s combat difficulty decreases, there are still over a hundred bugs, plus the two world-switching mechanics. The game still generates a lot of negative emotion!

"Isn’t that still more than what we would get by just driving players away at the start?"

Lilith was stunned for a moment, then visibly deflated as her previous assertiveness dissipated.

"That actually makes some sense, then it’s no big deal..."

Gu Fan cleared his throat, "President Li, I think a sly and powerful Hell Demon like you should really increase your strategic resilience and not panic at every little problem. What’s there to panic about? Aren’t negative emotions still being collected steadily?"

Lilith fell silent for a bit but couldn’t find any rebuttal, so she could only respond meekly, "Oh."

Gu Fan yawned and resumed brushing his teeth before heading to bed.

While Lilith decided to set aside her worries for the time being and mustered her spirits to stay up all night watching Gan Di’s livestream.

...

...

The next day, at 11 a.m.

Gu Fan woke up.

After getting up and freshening up, he ordered takeout and, upon returning to the living room, saw that Gan Di’s live stream had already ended and Lilith had naturally vanished long before.

Gu Fan could roughly guess that Lilith was probably quite satisfied when she had to return to Hell around 6 this morning.

Because the sofa and coffee table in the living room were still intact—only accompanied by additional empty chip bags and soda cans—and Gu Fan hadn’t been woken up in the midst of the night.

Gu Fan sat on the sofa, took out his phone, and casually browsed the forum for players’ reviews of "Ascension."

So far, "Ascension" had garnered "mostly positive" reviews, with an average rating of around 6.7.

As for the negative reviews, they were, of course, mainly focused on three points.

The combat is too hard!

BUGS galore!

The switching between the two worlds is completely unpredictable, and it sometimes causes hallucinations. It’s torture!

Actually, other than Gan Di, many other players had discovered the game’s combat mechanics last night and shared them with others through videos right away.

This indeed pulled some players out of their misery, but many were still suffering.

Because even knowing the mechanics, "Ascension"’s combat system was still rather difficult.

It’s like doing math problems; knowing the formula in advance can indeed save you some detours, but you can’t skip any of the necessary calculation steps.

Even if players knew the rhythm of "Chop Three Frameworks in One," defeating the BOSS would still require a lot of practice.

However, Gu Fan wasn’t worried because the fun part of this game was just beginning!

...

p.m.

Lilith refreshed on time in the living room of Gu Fan’s villa, selecting a lucky viewer on the live streaming platform.

At this time, neither Instructor Ding nor Gan Di was broadcasting.

Instructor Ding and Li Wenhao were expected around 8 p.m., while Gan Di had gone straight through the night and only went to sleep this morning, with no telling when he would wake up.

So, after a simple selection, Lilith locked onto a new streamer’s channel.

This streamer’s name was Wang Dawei, his English name was David, and was also referred to by fans as "Dai Weige" (a transliteration of "Viagra").

Interestingly, he wasn’t an UP master in the gaming zone but rather in the study zone.

Wang Dawei was accepted to the mathematics department of Imperial Capital University through Olympiad bypass and continued all the way to his Ph.D.; he also participated in some world-class memory competitions and won quite a few championships.

Moreover, Wang Dawei’s Go and Chinese chess skills were also very high. Although he couldn’t rank nationally, he was roughly at a professional level.

In terms of IQ and memory, he was definitely one of the top-tier humans.

At this moment, his videos and live broadcast content mainly consisted of debunking some IQ and memory-related TV shows, while occasionally teaching some challenging Olympiad math problems.

Of course, when he was free, he would also play games, play chess, or chat with the audience.

Some good brother in his chat had recommended a game called "Ascension" to him yesterday, and since then... he had been continually tortured until today.

After a few hours of playing last night, Wang Dawei continued today in the afternoon and finally managed to just get past the Great General.

However, his experience passing the Great General was different from Gan Di’s; he was purely carried.

Perhaps it was because Providence was fair, endowing him with high IQ and memory but also rendering him game-disabled.

He tried "Ascension" himself and found it utterly unplayable, so he had no choice but to seek the help of other streamers.