Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 260 - 269: Why Can’t I Beat the Minor Monsters?

Chapter 260: Chapter 269: Why Can’t I Beat the Minor Monsters?

"Wait a second, something’s not right here,"

"Why can’t I beat monsters that are the same level as me?"

Instructor Ding scratched his head, puzzled.

In other MMORPGs, this situation would be completely nonsensical.

At the time, his game character was level 6, the Imps were level 6, and the hostile wild monsters were level 6 as well. Plus, the hostile wild monsters didn’t even have any special "elite" markers above their heads.

Logically, it should have been a fair two-on-one fight, so there was no reason he couldn’t win.

But the issue became apparent after taking a closer look at the monsters’ health—it was more than double that of the players’! And the damage dealt by the monsters was significant, too; one critical hit usually took away more than a fifth of a player’s health, making it impossible to withstand several hits before dying.

Unconvinced, Instructor Ding changed his approach, switched to a different type of wild monster.

And still, he couldn’t beat them!

Fighting demonic beasts, he got clawed to death; facing corrupted demons, three Fireball Techniques sent him straight to heaven.

The difficulty of this game was simply outrageous!

Instructor Ding thought his character might have bugged out, but after carefully observing other players, he realized everyone seemed to be in the same boat, all getting brutally slaughtered by monsters of the same level!

Although Nitiandang’s first MMORPG was quite popular and bustling, they didn’t seem to foster the same queuing atmosphere as other MMORPG developers. They had plenty of servers with substantial redundancy for each one.

Moreover, in the server where Instructor Ding was playing, not many had chosen to play the Demon Race from the start, so the player count in the Demon starting area was still at a normal level.

There wasn’t a situation where there were more players than monsters, struggling to get mobs for quests.

Therefore, Instructor Ding didn’t pay much attention to other players at first, until he died twice and started to notice something off, and began to check whether other players’ attributes were normal.

Turns out, other players were dying like flies!

In the game Shadow World, the areas for levels below 6 and after were divided into a few small, different zones. In the areas before level 6, one could say it was quite peaceful.

While using the word "peaceful" to describe demons might not be quite appropriate, these demon players, casting Fireball Techniques and Shadow Arrows while summoning Imps to fight, seemed relatively relaxed without too much pressure.

But right after hitting level 6, the atmosphere changed drastically!

After dying twice, Instructor Ding realized the ground was littered with bones.

In Shadow World, the game also implemented a corpse run mechanic. When players died, they had to run back to their corpse to resurrect, after which a skeleton would remain on the ground. It took a long time for the skeletons to naturally disappear.

If players died repeatedly in a short period, this would result in skeletons piling up.

And at that moment, the area with level 6 monsters became a dire scene with "bones exposed in the wilderness, a land silent of any clucking chicken."

"Clang!"

The sound of rebirth chimed, and Instructor Ding’s game character left the spirit form and returned to the physical body.

He silently sat down and pulled out some dried spiders from his backpack, eating them to restore health.

"Clang!"

Another sound of rebirth echoed as another player revived, also sitting down to begin eating.

The two looked each other in the eye.

"Bro, doesn’t the damage from these small mobs seem a bit off?" typed Instructor Ding.

The player sitting with him had the ID "Soaring Chest Hair," and quickly replied by typing, "Yeah, it’s off! If this were in another game, they would be the health levels of five-man dungeon mobs..."

Obviously, it was now 2025, and a large portion of the gaming community had played MMORPGs and was very knowledgeable about the game’s numbers and mechanics.

After dying twice, they quickly became aware that there was an issue with the monsters’ stats in the game!

Normally, the stats of field mobs should be similar or slightly lower than those of players, ensuring that using skills, players could steadily kill three or four mobs, then sit and eat or drink, restoring their health and mana before continuing—this was the expected rhythm.

And the more players involved in dungeons, the more health and attack power the mobs would have, many times higher because dungeons must differentiate the roles of the tank, damage dealer, and healer—with a 1+1>2 effect, thus inflating monster attributes.

In other words, if a player tried to solo the mobs from a multiplayer dungeon, it would be absolutely impossible to defeat them.

This can be considered one of the basic rules of MMORPGs.

But Shadow World has no sense of decency, how could it directly set the attributes of the wild creatures at the spawn point to be that of dungeon elite monsters? With this amount of health, this level of attack power, players absolutely cannot defeat them in a solo fight!

"No choice, shall we form a party?" Soaring Chest Hair suggested.

Instructor Ding immediately agreed, "Sure, let’s form a five-man team!"

The two returned to Newbie Village, only to find that many people had gathered there, most of whom were around level 6.

Clearly, these were players who had been persuaded to retreat by the powerful Imps outside.

"Leveling party starting! Need a tank, need a healer, =2!"

"Newbie tank looking for a leveling party, any good brothers to lead the way?"

"This damned game’s attributes are way too outrageous, how is a lone wolf player supposed to play?"

"It’s fine now at the start of the server, there are many people, but what about later when there are fewer new players on the server and you can’t form a team, aren’t all the new players going to be driven away?"

In Newbie Village, the players were all discussing this hotly, obviously, most of them felt greatly perplexed and indignant about the game’s difficulty design.

Instructor Ding also wanted to complain, but on second thought, considering he was a streamer, hastily drawing conclusions could lead to being swayed by the crowd or boomeranged.

What if Nitiandang’s approach had a deeper purpose?

So for the time being, he curbed his desire to rant and, along with Soaring Chest Hair, promptly formed a standard five-man team with 1 tank, 1 healer, and 3 damage dealers.

At this point in the server’s Newbie Village, there were clearly also many fans of Instructor Ding who had come to follow their star, all eagerly sending him private messages. Instructor Ding could only shout "Full now!" and then led the team back into battle with the creatures.

It has to be said, the difficulty finally felt normal!

Although at lower levels some strong Talents and Skills hadn’t been unlocked yet, the tank still had the advantage of Armor and damage reduction. After forming a five-man party, they were finally able to rest after killing five or six creatures.

"Not bad, looking at it this way, although the initial difficulty of the game is high, it objectively also promotes players to form parties and conquer challenges together.

"But it’s hard to say whether this is actually a good design in the current landscape."

Instructor Ding was still trying to justify Nitiandang’s actions, but the chat audience clearly disagreed.

"Other games encourage team formation because it’s more efficient for completing quests, you can just pull and AOE down monsters. But in Shadow World, if you don’t form a party, you can’t even play, what a reversal!"

Clearly, on this point, Nitiandang was suspected of making the mistake of "teaching players how to play the game."

In the practice of most MMORPGs, players can also level up by themselves; after killing three or four creatures, they need to eat and drink to recover. If players are willing to form a team, team members can share the conditions for completing quests, like if a quest requires killing 10 creatures, then two members only need to kill 5 each to complete it.

If you really form a five-person team with a tank and healer, you can even rush directly into a group of creatures and wipe them out with an AOE (Area of Effect Spell).

In essence, you can play alone, but teaming up makes things easier and more enjoyable.

But in Shadow World, if you don’t form a five-man party, you can’t even beat the ordinary creatures, so what about solitary players who don’t like to party up? Aren’t they undeserving of even doing quests?

If anything, such difficulty does promote social interaction among players, forcing them to form teams and communicate with other players, but the problem is... not all players necessarily like it that way!

It’s not 20 years ago anymore, where everyone’s mindset was more patient.

If it were 20 years ago, when this type of game first appeared, many people would be enthusiastic about making friends online, even becoming friends with other players they met in the game.

But 20 years have passed, and everyone treats playing games like routine work, most players are at best passersby or colleagues to each other; no one has the mood to mentor newbies or chat casually in games anymore.

So, it’s inevitable that Nitiandang’s approach would be criticized.

Instructor Ding didn’t say much more, just continued leading the five-man squad to clear quests.

Before he realized it, 3 hours had passed.

Luckily, although the monsters had a lot of health, they also gave plenty of experience, and everyone managed to reach level 12 a little after 11 pm.

At this point, there were about forty minutes left before Instructor Ding would end his stream at midnight.

It has to be said, this leveling speed was significantly slower than what Instructor Ding had anticipated.