Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 221 - 220: Gu Fan Righteous and Confident

Chapter 221: Chapter 220: Gu Fan Righteous and Confident

Facing Lilith’s questioning, Gu Fan was for the first time brimming with righteousness.

"President Li, you’ve really stumped me with this question; I’m no longer the head of the game department!

"I haven’t written a single line of code, and I’ve barely even looked over the design proposal in detail.

"I didn’t participate in the entire game development process; I’ve been busy with the gaming store this whole time, as you know.

"Aren’t you asking the wrong person with this question?"

Lilith continued to grind her teeth and said, "Then look at it now! Find it for me! Find out exactly what the cause is!"

Although she didn’t understand the specifics, she knew one thing, that the negative emotions collected from Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji were rapidly decreasing, even showing a downward trend!

There must be a serious problem somewhere.

But where specifically was the problem?

Lilith had briefly tried to think about it on her own, and felt her scalp itch as if it was about to sprout a brain.

In the past, when faced with these kinds of issues, she had Gu Fan investigate them, and he would quickly locate the real problem. Asking her to figure it out now was indeed a bit too much.

Moreover, this time Gu Fan really hadn’t participated in the game’s development, which made him relatively innocent.

Combining these two factors, Lilith felt that it still made more sense for Gu Fan to investigate.

"Okay, President Li, please wait.

"After all, none of the game’s code was written by me, and even if there are clues, it’s going to be difficult to find them. I’ll need a bit more time."

Gu Fan returned to the counter, took out his laptop, opened the backend code for Road Rage Simulator, and began to frown as he searched.

Time ticked by, second by second.

This troubleshoot was taking much longer than before, and Gu Fan was clearly suffering, scratching his head in frustration.

Asking a programmer to find errors in the code of other programmers is indeed too difficult a task.

This was possible only because of Gu Fan’s exceptional abilities; another programmer might have simply told Lilith that it was impossible.

Seeing Gu Fan’s condition, Lilith felt bad for urging him, but as she watched the negative emotions of Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji dwindle, she could hardly contain her impatience.

Soon, an even worse situation occurred.

It wasn’t just these two whose negative emotions were decreasing; the negative emotions collected by the game Road Rage Simulator were also decreasing!

As for why?

The answer was obvious: Over time, not only did Zhuge Jun find the correct way to play the game, but other players discovered it as well.

Just as Zhuge Jun shared his experience with Hou Ji, other players also began sharing tips with each other, and this change in mindset spread like a demonic plague rapidly through the player community, eventually becoming uncontrollable!

Finally, after another two hours of playing, Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji reluctantly stood up to leave.

Zhuge Jun asked, "Manager, excuse me, can I directly purchase this controller?"

In the midst of his busyness, Gu Fan managed to respond, "Sorry, this is only a demo store, we don’t sell any products. If you need it, you can order it online."

"Alright." Zhuge Jun wasn’t surprised by the answer.

He stretched, settled the bill at the counter according to the playtime, and happily made plans with Hou Ji to come back again.

As soon as the two left, Lilith quickly closed the door of the gaming store and hung up a "Closed for Business" sign with a swift motion.

"Have you figured it out yet?!"

Lilith was clearly on the verge of exploding at this point.

Gu Fan hesitated before nodding, "I seem to have pinpointed the issue, but I need further confirmation to be sure if it really originated there; I can’t be 100% certain. After all, this isn’t my code."

Lilith couldn’t wait any longer and leaned in, "Just tell me what the reason is! Why is there another BUG?"

Gu Fan corrected her, "President Li, strictly speaking, it’s not a BUG, it should be...a flaw in the design..."

Lilith was instantly enraged, "What? A design flaw! Zhou Yang, this kid, is really unreliable!"

Clearly, this was blatant blame-shifting.

The concept for Road Rage Simulator was provided by Gu Fan, and Lilith had green-lit it, providing a rough draft of the concept.

Afterward, she handed this concept draft to Zhou Yang for detailed design.

While it’s true the design flaw was indeed in Zhou Yang’s plan, the problem was, this plan had already been seen by Lilith. She didn’t raise any objections at the time.

At that point, Lilith was surely still in charge.

However, Gu Fan didn’t point this out, after all, Lilith’s mood was very bad at the moment, and he saw no need to touch on this sensitive topic.

Gu Fan pointed to several lines of code, "President Li, look here, this is the detailed rules code for ’Road Traffic Difficulty Dynamic Adjustment’.

"When the player is engaging in normal traffic activity in the game, to better provoke the player’s road rage, the uncivil driving behaviors of surrounding vehicles will increase both in frequency and severity.

"This was already part of your original design concept, right?"

Lilith nodded, "Yes!"

Clearly, this design indeed caused great distress to players, led to frequent accidents throughout the city, and generated a lot of negative emotions.

"But the problem lies right here!"

Gu Fan continued, "When the system detects that the player has not been in an accident for a while, it continuously escalates the AI’s dangerous driving tendencies without setting a cap!

"Of course, it’s not really right or wrong in itself to do this, because the design plan also didn’t specify whether there was a cap or not. From the perspective of the code, it can be said that it completed the design quite well."

Lilith pondered, "Not setting a cap... That seems alright. Making these NPC vehicles cause accidents more ruthlessly should help generate more negative emotions, right?"

Gu Fan continued to the next section of the code, "If we consider this rule in isolation, it seems not to be a big problem. But there’s another one below.

"The condition for the end of this ’Road Traffic Difficulty Dynamic Adjustment Mechanism’ is ’an accident occurring around the player’s driven vehicle,’ not ’the player’s own vehicle being in an accident.’"

Lilith was puzzled. She furrowed her brows, her mind nearly crashing.

"Does this... make a big difference?"

Lilith thought it over. As the road hazard level increased, almost all NPC vehicles on the road would see the player’s vehicle as a common enemy. Under such circumstances, an accident occurring near the player would likely drag him into it.

Moreover, there’s also the rule, "If an accident occurs, you must get out and render aid."

That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?

However, Gu Fan slightly shook his head, "Looking at each rule separately, the problem isn’t that big. But when you combine the two, then two small problems become a large one!

"Because there’s no cap on the NPC’s dangerous driving behaviors, as time goes on, these behaviors will become increasingly outrageous and excessive!

"And as a result, if they don’t hit the player, they are very likely to have an accident themselves, unable to continue to pressure the player.

"And the rule that ’traffic difficulty adjustment ends when an accident occurs around the player’s driven vehicle’ inadvertently gives the player a possibility to come out unscathed."

Lilith’s mouth opened slightly as if she was beginning to understand.

The dangerous driving behaviors of NPCs affect not only the players but also themselves!

After all, the NPC vehicles in this game also have to obey basic physical laws; if they drive recklessly, they will skid or be unable to stop as they should.

If they don’t hit the player, they are likely to crash into a guardrail or a tree.

If there were a cap to the NPCs’ dangerous driving behaviors, this wouldn’t be an issue.

Because NPC AI would find a balance between ’targeting the player’ and ’ensuring its own safety,’ making the attack on the player a prolonged battle while ensuring its safety as much as possible.

In an endurance battle, the player is likely to be overwhelmed.

After all, most players are ordinary people, not professional racers. No matter how cautious they are, it’s very difficult to outlast the AI in a prolonged tug-of-war.

Moreover, if ’dynamic traffic adjustment ends only when the player has an accident,’ then it doesn’t matter if these NPC vehicles have accidents themselves.

When the player continues on the road, they will still be in an extremely harsh traffic environment. Soon new stupid drivers in new luxury cars will appear to harass and blockade the player.

No matter how careful the player is, they are still bound to crash.

It’s inevitable; it’s just a matter of time.

But now, NPCs having accidents near the player also reset the dynamic difficulty, giving the player a chance to breathe!

As Gu Fan said, if there was only a problem with one of these mechanisms, it probably wouldn’t cause too many positive emotions among players.

But with both mechanisms having issues, it turned the game from ’Road Rage Simulator’ into ’Defensive Driving Simulator,’ ’Stupid Driver Karma Simulator,’ allowing players to harvest positive emotions they shouldn’t have!

Now there was a big problem!

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