Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 261 - 270: Are You Sure This is the Difficulty Level for Newbie Instances?

Chapter 261: Chapter 270: Are You Sure This is the Difficulty Level for Newbie Instances?

Instructor Ding originally thought that following the usual MMORPG pace, by now one should certainly have leveled up to 15, but due to the experience shared among the team, they only managed to reach level 12.

However, the good news is that in "Shadow World", the level requirement for the newbie dungeon isn’t high; you can enter at level 12 instead of having the first dungeon set at level 18 or 20 like in other games.

After receiving the first newbie dungeon quest, everyone immediately began to eagerly prepare for the challenge.

After all, they had been practicing together for a long time and had quite a bit of blind confidence in their team’s strength.

It’s just a newbie dungeon, right? It shouldn’t be much different from the regular monsters in the wilderness, should it?

Instructor Ding opened the map and, following the quest directions, found the dungeon they were going to challenge: Fel Rift.

It must be said that "Shadow World" also has its thoughtful aspects. For this dungeon, you not only get to see the dungeon map and a simple background introduction but also specific bosses and loot.

There isn’t much to say about the background story; it’s just about a bunch of crazy demons and beasts holed up there waiting for players to vanquish them.

The dungeon has a total of four bosses, the progression isn’t very long. And these bosses will all drop low-level rare gear, both their attributes and appearance are quite nice, and very tempting.

Though veteran MMORPG players all know that there’s not much need to covet low-level rare gear, as the green gear will have better attributes at higher levels, but given that leveling up in this game is comparatively slow, a piece of rare gear can be significantly helpful during the leveling process.

Furthermore, you need to complete the dungeon quests anyway, getting the equipment is just incidental.

The five players readily agreed and set off towards the Fel Rift!

From the outside, the Fel Rift is a huge crack in the mountainside, with the entrance to the dungeon being a depression in the ground.

Once inside the dungeon, the players were pleasantly surprised to find that although the attributes of the monsters inside were slightly higher than those outside, the increase was not substantial.

The progression through the dungeon had its minor tortures, but at least it was still doable, without any risk of getting stuck.

And so, although everyone was still on alert, they laughed and joked their way to the first boss.

"So, what do we do? Shall we plan out a tactic?"

"Plan my ass, this is just a newbie dungeon! The tank holds aggro, the healer keeps up the heals, and DPS go all out."

"There’re no add-ons in this game to check boss skills, so what’s to plan? Just rush in!"

The first boss of the Fel Rift is a Fel Orc, quite conspicuous among all the demon monsters. It’s wearing a Magician’s robe and is conducting some mysterious summoning ritual.

The moment the players engaged the boss, they automatically interrupted the summoning ritual, which infuriated the Evil Beastman Sorcerer, sparking a fierce battle!

The tank took the forefront, attracting aggro, healers did healing, others dealt damage—all seemed so normal, so by-the-book.

Boss attacks such as unleashing a Rain of Fire or giving the tank a damage-over-time effect like Fel Flame came regularly, but the overall health of the party was within an acceptable range.

If nothing unexpected happened, they would be able to defeat it shortly.

However, that was when the unexpected occurred.

With a "whoosh," Instructor Ding noticed that a green flame had appeared on his character, seemingly some state of Fel Flame.

"Huh? What’s this? Let’s dispel it."

In similar games, negative states inflicted by enemies on players can generally be categorized as Magic, Curse, Disease, Poison, etc., and players need to use specific skills to dispel them, otherwise, they would continue to suffer from these states, which could significantly reduce their combat effectiveness.

This ball of fire was likely a Magic state, needing a spell like Devour Magic to dispel it.

Normally, dispelling magic would be the Priest’s skill, and in some games, it might be set as the Mage’s skill.

But in "Shadow World," Magicians also have a similar dispelling skill, which allows directly consuming one’s health to nullify a negative Magic state on oneself.

Instructor Ding, without a second thought, used "Devour Magic."

However, the next second, a conspicuous green flame circle burst out around his character, engulfing the other two ranged damage-dealers and the healing Priest!

In an instant, only Instructor Ding and the tank were left looking at each other, dumbfounded.

Soon, all five of them turned into soul states and came before the spirit healer at the entrance of the dungeon.

"Damn, what’s going on here!"

"Hold on, let me check the battle log... What on earth is ’Fel Flame Eruption’? How did it hit me for 500 health in a single strike when I only have 400 health total!"

Instructor Ding scratched his head, "Seems like it’s that negative effect on me... It explodes after being dispelled? That’s just twisted!"

Luckily, these five were veterans of MMORPG games, so they weren’t discouraged by a single wipe, and started to challenge the boss again.

During the subsequent wipes, everyone gradually figured out the boss’s tactics.

Simply put, the boss had three key skills that could potentially cause a wipe!

The first skill was "Fel Flame." It randomly targets a player in the crowd and afflicts them with Fel Flame, causing continuous health loss that accelerates over time.

When the duration of Fel Flame ends, or if it is dispelled, it causes an explosion that inflicts over 500 points of damage to all surrounding players (the exact amount depends on the players’ resistances), but the targeted player himself does not take damage.

Given the current health of the players, such damage was almost certainly lethal.

As for the solution, it was quite simple: after being afflicted with the negative effect, the player had to run away from the group immediately, and then the effect had to be dispelled.

If the player died from the burn while running away, or ran too slowly, or dispelled it too soon, it could lead to a reduction in ranks, or even a direct wipe.

The second skill was "Fel Fire Rain." The boss would cast Rain of Fire on a random target, and if a player stood in it, they would die in about three seconds.

The solution, of course, was to run away immediately.

The third skill was "Shadow Curse," which slowed down movement and reduced the effectiveness of healing received after afflicting a player.

The solution was to dispel the curse using specific skills.

After roughly understanding the mechanics of the boss, everyone was speechless, with only two words remaining in their minds: outrageous!

Were these three skills difficult to handle? Were they impossible to overcome? Not really.

Each skill had a corresponding solution, and as long as everyone was familiar with the mechanics and cooperated properly, the boss wouldn’t be considered difficult.

But the problem was, this was the first boss of a newbie dungeon!

In other MMORPG games, a boss like this would typically qualify as the gatekeeper of the first major raid dungeon.

Because although these three skills seemed manageable, they could interact with each other to amplify their effects.

For example, if a player afflicted by Shadow Curse just started to run out and happened to be hit by Rain of Fire, and if the Priest couldn’t heal in time, the player would die, immediately causing an explosion and a wipe.

If you add Shadow Curse to the mix, with slower movement and reduced healing, the margin for error would be even lower.

Moreover, other MMORPG games would have many useful addons that provide conspicuous on-screen prompts and voice alerts when these skills are in play, like "Dodge the Rain of Fire" or "Spread out," and so on.

Without these addons, even veteran gamers could be caught off guard.

After all, the heat of battle is a high-pressure environment, and without conspicuous alerts, who would constantly watch their own debuff bar?

This boss didn’t just have these two dangerous effects, but also had less dangerous debuffs as distractions.

In short, the difficulty of this boss was simply absurd for a gatekeeper of a newbie five-man dungeon!

The mechanics alone were on par with those of a 10-man or 20-man raid dungeon boss!

For more seasoned players like Instructor Ding and his team, getting past this boss was just a matter of time with some effort and coordination; it wasn’t something that would hold them up all night.

But for new players without much relevant gaming experience, or for those with less patience, that was another story.

Disbanding after repeated wipes at the hands of this boss was quite normal!