Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 274 - 283: Legacy Issues of Major Changes

Chapter 274: Chapter 283: Legacy Issues of Major Changes

Lilith was stunned, "Huh? The mess from ’Demon World Conflict’?"

Her expression visibly wilted, but then she bristled again, clearly intending to deny it with even more fervor.

How could it be the original game’s fault?

That basically meant it was her own fault, right?

Everyone knew that the decision to buy ’Demon World Conflict’ and modify it had been ultimately confirmed by Lilith herself. Now, to pursue the responsibility of the original developers was totally nonsensical and unjustified. Would this mean that President Li had to shoulder the blame?

That’s outrageous!

Lilith clearly disagreed, "Fine, then tell me why it’s ’Demon World Conflict’s fault. I advise you to think carefully before you speak!"

Gu Fan spread his hands with a helpless look, "This matter... is a long story.

"President Li, as you know, ’Demon World Conflict’ underwent a major overhaul, right?

"Initially, the producer was very ambitious. He wanted to create an MMORPG with a high degree of freedom, unlike fixed professions and skill combinations of other games. He wanted something similar to some indie games, allowing players to choose their own skills and build their own setup.

"But when it actually came to development, there were a bunch of bugs, so he reluctantly abandoned this idea and reverted to the old way, creating fixed professional skills and talents.

"As a result, the game’s balance and bug issues were largely resolved, but the game also became mediocre, leading to its premature demise and difficult birth."

Lilith nodded slightly, "Hmm, I have indeed heard about that. But what does that have to do with the bugs we’re encountering now? What does it matter if ’Demon World Conflict’ was a half-finished product? What’s the connection to cross-professional skill learning and boss aggro determination?"

Gu Fan shook his head slightly, "You see, you’re rushing again. President Li, I haven’t finished yet.

"You have to understand that when it comes to changing code, it’s impossible to start all over again. You can only make minor tweaks to patch it up and get it running.

"When the decision for a major overhaul was made, ’Demon World Conflict’ had already been in development for a long time and a lot of money had been spent. Even the original producer wouldn’t consider starting from scratch, as the company’s higher-ups would never agree to it.

"He could only make small fixes within the existing budget, using a roundabout way to complete these changes.

"Therefore, in the underlying code of the game, you can actually see many legacy issues.

"For example, the issue of rage and mana.

"In other games, rage is a unique resource bar for warriors or bear druids, while paladins have mana as their resource bar. Even if a paladin learned a sweeping attack or other skills from a warrior, they wouldn’t have any rage to use them.

"Why can it be done in ’Shadow World’?

"Because in our game, ’rage’ and ’mana’ are also implemented through skills and talents! Players don’t have a resource bar at the beginning and they obtain it by learning skills and selecting talents.

"So, when a paladin player unlocks skills from other professions, they can get rage bars by learning skills and selecting talents. Similarly, they can even get energy bars and other profession resource bars.

"The same goes for armor and weapon mastery.

"In other games, which weapons a profession can use and what type of armor they can wear are directly restricted by the profession itself.

"Paladins can wear plate armor as well as cloth armor; whereas priests can only wear cloth armor and not plate armor.

"But in this game, both weapon mastery and armor mastery are included in skills and talents, all learnable!

"The reason this issue occurs is because ’Demon World Conflict’ was initially a game where players could freely build their characters. In order to allow players to choose, it was necessary to design resource bars and armor mastery as things that could be learned autonomously.

"Later, when changes were made, the producer simply didn’t have the energy or resources to rewrite the underlying code. They could only use the method of ’locking specific resource bars and armor mastery skills within the skills and talents of certain professions’ to indirectly achieve this functionality.

"So... a series of problems arose."

Lilith was shocked, "Then, then, according to the original design of ’Demon World Conflict,’ hasn’t it already restricted the cross-class skill learning? How did this restriction fail!"

Gu Fan continued to explain, "Yes, ’Demon World Conflict’ indeed restricted the cross-class skill learning, but... it was restricted without being completely restricted.

"In fact, because ’Demon World Conflict’ did not have a class system in place during the first half of its development, all these classes were added later on.

"Therefore, some of the core codes that greatly affect the game are not linked to the class codes.

"After all, when those codes were written, there was no such thing as classes, and after classes were added later, they didn’t dare to rewrite the core code; they could only make do with what was there.

"So, the method ’Demon World Conflict’ uses to restrict players from learning skills across classes is very simple, even crude.

"When players choose their class and create an account, the system automatically assigns them a skill related to their class. For example, a Priest gets Smite, a Mage gets Fireball Technique, a Magician gets Shadow Arrow, a warrior gets Heroic Strike, a Rogue gets Backstab, and so on.

"Later, when players level up and look for Profession Trainers, the Trainer will check the skills the players have mastered, along with the corresponding class tags.

"If they have a skill of their class, then the skill and talent learning lists are normally unlocked, but if they have skills of another class, they are not unlocked; instead, a line of dialogue is all it takes to send them away."

Lilith’s jaw dropped, "Hey! That sounds too haphazard and full of loopholes!"

Gu Fan shook his head slightly, "Actually... the loopholes aren’t that big.

"This is a typical approach of programmers to implement features, using the simplest code to achieve functionality.

"After all, this kind of change has the smallest workload. There’s no need to recreate a class table and then rewrite the class codes into the game’s core, which would be almost the same as starting over from scratch. The workload would be too great, and unacceptable.

"While this approach may seem haphazard, it can still function correctly. And under normal circumstances, there wouldn’t be any issues."

Lilith clenched her fists in anger, but she had to admit that Gu Fan was right.

This method, though crude, wouldn’t necessarily cause problems under normal circumstances!

The skill is given by default when a player creates a character. For instance, if a player chooses a Mage, the system assigns them a Fireball Technique; then, whenever they interact with any other Profession Trainer in the game, the system detects the Fireball Technique on them and would not unlock the training panel.

It’s only when interacting with a Mage Profession Trainer that they can normally learn subsequent Mage skills.

Isn’t that successfully achieving the goal of fixing players to their classes and talents?

But just then, an abnormal situation emerged in the game.

That is... the talents called ’Spelly Thief’ and ’Malicious Gift,’ as well as the boss Nephalor!

Soon, Lilith had a new question, "Hold on, you said the Profession Trainers not only check the player’s skills but also check the player’s class tag? That’s a double safeguard; it doesn’t make sense for there to be a problem. The check on the class tag should block any issues entirely!"

Gu Fan kept explaining, "As for how this unexpected situation came about... let me walk you through it from the beginning, President Li.

"First, I must declare that the talents ’Spelly Thief’ and ’Malicious Gift,’ as well as the boss Nephalor, are designs that were present in the original ’Demon World Conflict’ game! They have nothing to do with me.

"Clearly, ’Spelly Thief’ and ’Malicious Gift’ were ingenious designs from the original creators, initially intended for all players to learn. They were then reluctantly used for the ultimate talents of the Arcane Mage and Pain Warlock.

"If the game’s trainers only checked the last skill obtained by the player, then the player wouldn’t need to challenge Nephalor; they would just need to enter a battleground.

"Enter the battleground, find an enemy player, steal a skill using ’Spelly Thief,’ and when they talk to a trainer after that, the trainer will detect that the player’s last skill is from another class.

"However, we also opened low-level battlegrounds, where the ultimate talents could be unlocked at level 45, yet not a single player discovered this mechanism in the battlegrounds.

"That’s because ’Demon World Conflict’s original design included a double safeguard—it might not have a class code written into the core directly, but it does have something called a ’class tag.’

"The original creators likely noticed this loophole and plugged it with a ’system tag.’ It seemed to be covered, but actually... maybe they themselves did not expect it to have a slip."