Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 292 - 301 Official Stealth Fix!

Chapter 292: Chapter 301 Official Stealth Fix!

Time passed day by day.

Over at Nitiandang, although there was no need for updates after the launch of Shadow World, they still planned to continue developing the subsequent level 70 and level 80 versions according to the original schedule.

In terms of content, the playability of the level 70 and level 80 versions, although slightly less than that of the level 60 version, was relatively on par.

Of course, the game’s core mechanics and framework hadn’t changed, and what needed to be developed anew were only the new version’s large maps, quests, new skills, new talents, and team dungeons, among other content.

Even so, there was still a lot of content to create, and Nitiandang was developing it at a normal pace.

As for the "World of Star Spirits" test server, it was experiencing an unprecedented boom.

What surprised many veteran players was that the World of Star Spirits officials hadn’t issued a notice to fix the bug immediately?

Instead, they remained eerily silent, making people uncomfortable!

You see, the original operation team of World of Star Spirits was very particular about balance, and Ji Heng was notorious for being the type who would harshly nerf anything that was too powerful, usually to the point of rendering it useless.

They would normally fix bugs as soon as possible, rarely leaving them overnight.

Veteran players had a deep understanding of this, but despite years of complaints, the project team of World of Star Spirits never seemed to consider changing their ways, and gradually everyone got used to it.

So this time, the officials’ silence was quite unsettling for many.

What’s going on?

Could it be that the personification of the officials had significantly improved?

Players had various speculations.

Some guessed that perhaps the World of Star Spirits test server’s operation team had been replaced; others thought that maybe the new mode was inherently imbalanced, so the operation team had finally seen the light and stopped fussing over balance issues; and then there were those who thought the overwhelming popularity might have sweetened the pot for them, so they decided to just roll with the mistake and were too lazy to make changes.

Nevertheless, after anxiously waiting for three days without an official announcement, players started to feel emboldened.

Since everyone was playing, why shouldn’t we?

The difficulty of pioneering team dungeons was obviously worlds apart with or without the use of the two BDs, and players’ experiences in the game were just as varied.

Moreover, these two BDs had a great advantage, as they significantly lowered the entry barrier for newcomers.

There were also other BDs in the game; although their group damage wasn’t as good as that of Dark Chain, there were BDs whose single-target damage was on par or even slightly higher.

However, these BDs usually required very complex techniques.

They not only necessitated triggering chains of various skills and talents but also demanded constant monitoring of the buff bar, making a boss battle quite brain-burning.

But the technique for Dark Chain was much simpler, with only two or three main output skills necessary, which could be used in a loop, with damage mainly coming from the chain triggering of other skills.

As for the Starlight Healer, once the group battle started, all that was needed was to stand in a safe position and cast "Starlight Illumination."

Of course, some technique was still required, such as players needing to keep an eye on the Free Cast buff and using the "Starlight Illumination" skill when this buff appeared to ensure non-stop casting without depleting mana, or else they would quickly run out of mana.

In addition, there were all kinds of group interrupt effects in team dungeons, such as group AOE damage, group stuns, group silences, and so on.

If a player got interrupted shortly after starting to cast "Starlight Illumination," then there would be a long cooldown period.

Of course, players soon figured out other methods, such as using some of the game’s other group healing skills with a critical hit effect, which could also refresh the cooldown of "Starlight Illumination."

However, to reset the cooldown of this skill usually took about 15 to 30 seconds, depending mainly on luck with critical hits—more crits meant a faster reset, and fewer crits meant slower.

So for many new players, these two BDs were not only easy to pick up but also fun to play.

With a max-level player leading, new players could reach max level in just a day, then gather any equipment to join raid teams and play a significant role.

This facilitated a great player conversion for "World of Star Spirits," especially for many small guilds or family and friends groups with about a dozen or twenty members. Casually inviting a few friends allowed them to reliably clear normal-difficulty raids, securing steady equipment enhancements and quickly establishing a virtuous cycle.

As various ten-player teams stabilized their raid progression, gaining numerical boosts from various raid equipment, all the players seemed pumped with fighting spirit.

As for Shadow World?

Sorry, but I’m not familiar with it!

Though Shadow World had better graphics and more diverse dungeons, just the allure of "Infinite Starlight Healing" and "Dark Chain" was enough reason for players to switch to playing "World of Star Spirits."

Many of those siphoned players indeed found themselves not missing Shadow World at all.

There were also many veteran Shadow World players complaining to the official team, asking why couldn’t their game have such brainlessly fun skills? They pleaded for the team to create some on the spot!

But sadly, they received no response at all.

This, without doubt, generated a considerable amount of negative sentiment among many players.

...

...

March 20th, Friday.

An ordinary 3 AM.

Gan Di yawned, as he was in the middle of a five-man squad, halfway through a spirit-raising instance, planning to go to sleep after finishing it.

In the past two months, he had taken his dedication to the extreme. He would play raid instances in "World of Star Spirits" in the afternoon, "Shadow World" raid instances in the evening, and after midnight he could still manage to play the spirit-raising instances in "World of Star Spirits."

The so-called spirit-raising instances were actually high-difficulty five-man dungeons where players could continually challenge different levels, up to 25 in total.

Past floor 20, the equipment drops were similar to those from high-difficulty raids.

Both "World of Star Spirits" and Shadow World featured similar gameplay modes.

At the moment, Gan Di’s team composition was quite straightforward and fierce: one main tank, three "Dark Chain" damage dealers, and himself, an Infinite Starlight Healer.

Relying on this setup, they had been cutting through the enemies like a hot knife through butter all the way up to the 19th floor of the spirit-raising instance.

Things were going smoothly, as always, and since it was getting late, everyone was eager to finish up and go to sleep.

"Alright, last three waves of adds, let’s just pull them together and AoE them down," one of them said.

Like before, they gathered the last three waves of adds. The tank activated his Damage Reduction Skills, Gan Di cast "Starlight Illumination," and the other three damage dealers fired up their burst skills, ready to "black out" the screen with explosive output.

However, as soon as they released their skills, everyone was stunned.

"Huh? What’s going on?"

The three damage dealers did indeed cast lightning, but it did not trigger any Dark Series skills at all; instead, it just weakly produced a few small yellow numbers, and the monsters’ health bars hardly showed any noticeable change.

And Gan Di’s "Starlight Illumination"?

It didn’t reduce any cooldowns at all!

Gan Di was immediately bewildered, "What’s going on? Did the officials just implement a hotfix... a stealth patch???"