Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 306 - 315 Lilith’s Modification Suggestions

Chapter 306: Chapter 315 Lilith’s Modification Suggestions

Gu Fan cleared his throat twice, "Mhm, these designs are quite good. Next, as President Li requested, we need to plan the specific upgrade effects for these special abilities.

"I’ll just give a simple example, let’s talk about the most straightforward one—Fire Element.

"The effect of the Fire Element is to create Flame Bombs that can cause direct damage to monsters, right?

"So, the modification is very simple: as the game progresses, players can upgrade this ability. At the same time, monsters’ health, resistance, and other stats will also be greatly increased.

"But no matter how the players upgrade, the damage from the Flame Bombs will only slightly increase. This means that the later in the game it gets, the less effective the bombs become, and eventually they’ll barely do any damage to monsters, aside from their visual effects."

After finishing, he looked at Lilith, "President Li, this idea works, right?"

Lilith nodded happily, "No problem! Let’s go with this design!"

Clearly, this conformed to the notion of "taking back what has already been given to players."

Players had become accustomed to quickly annihilating large groups of enemies with powerful Flame Bombs, or using them to turn the tide in dangerous situations.

They even eagerly undertook quests and collected materials for upgrading them.

However, players soon realized that no matter how much they upgraded, the bombs’ damage decreased more and more!

Of course, this "decrease" was the players’ subjective feeling. In actuality, the bombs’ lethality did indeed increase slightly, and they did more damage to the low-level monsters at the starting area.

But the issue was that the upgrade pace couldn’t keep up with the rate at which the monsters’ attributes improved, so to the players, this made the item increasingly difficult to use.

Gu Fan turned to Wei Chengjie, "Next, you will take this idea and redesign the other Element abilities."

Wei Chengjie was dumbstruck, but seeing President Gu’s serious expression, he begrudgingly put his brain to work and began designing.

"So, Earth Element is for burrowing or passing through walls, so in the later stages of the game, we start arranging a lot of non-land levels? Like the entire level is made of water or metal, so players will discover that the walls that they could easily pass through before are impenetrable later on?

"Wind Element allows you to grab objects or increase thrust, but in the later stages of the game, there’s no wind at all in the space? Therefore, players can’t utilize the power of Wind Element?

"And as for Water Element, it can initially be used as an adhesive, linking specific items together, or enlarging some items for special effects, but later the water in the scenes becomes scarcer or the combined items’ attributes become weaker?

"I don’t have a great solution for Time Element yet, but since its original function is to stop time, maybe after the upgrade, the duration of Time Stop becomes shorter and shorter, or even after stopping time, monsters gain a speed boost?"

Wei Chengjie tossed around these ideas and thought that players would surely curse this kind of game design.

However, President Li evidently was not entirely pleased.

"Mhm... although it feels like it achieves the design target, isn’t it a bit too homogeneous?

"Earth Element, Wind Element, Water Element, they all decrease as we progress? Wouldn’t this mean that all that’s left in the space is fire and metal?

"I think we need to think of more variations, otherwise players won’t be happy."

Wei Chengjie almost spat out blood. So, in other words, it wasn’t enough to constantly use the same method to torment players, there had to be a variety of ways to do it?

Lilith continued, "I think we should do the opposite with Wind Element, where later, there isn’t an absence of wind, but too much of it!

"In many scenes, there are Wind Element forces that the player cannot control, so when they try to use their Wind Element superpowers, not only can they not control it, they get carried away by the wind.

"Water Element, initially usable as an adhesive, but later the items obtained are special items that shatter upon binding!

"As for Earth Element, well, I think we can add traps within the earth. Like when a player tries to go through a wall or a platform using the burrowing technique, they suddenly find a man-eating monster hidden inside!

"Once they tunnel in, they are instantly devoured, resulting in a game over.

"This way, it fits even better, doesn’t it?"

Wei Chengjie fell silent as President Li indeed had such thoughts—wasn’t one way to torment players enough, did they need more?

He looked at Gu Fan, hoping President Gu would intervene. Someone had to control her; the investor was becoming lawless!

Yet Gu Fan nodded in approval, "Mhm, President Li’s design is indeed very good!

"However, although generally there are no problems, I have a small suggestion.

"Like with Water Element.

"Water Element can be used as an adhesive to bind items together, but if it simply causes them to break when bound, it might seem too blunt and simple. This could make players suspect we’re doing it on purpose, and they wouldn’t reflect on their mistakes. Such an approach is not very smooth.

"My thought is this: although Water Element can be used as an adhesive, the more advanced the equipment and items become later in the game, the higher their quality. Since we have higher quality, more adhesive is needed to bind them together, therefore the total weight of the combined item will exponentially increase.

"For example, originally handling two items with a weight of 1 is easy for players, and initially, after binding these items together, the weight is 1+1+1, with only 1 part of adhesive needed, making the total weight 3, which players can still manage.

"But in the later stages, since both items have a weight of 3, binding them requires 5 parts of adhesive, making the total weight 3+3+5, which suddenly turns into a total weight of 11, rendering it too heavy for players to handle.

"This weight of the items can be clearly reflected in the character’s display in the game.

"For instance, when a player carries an extremely heavy object, the game character must hold the item tightly with both hands, moving slowly, and when using weapons to attack, the start and end lag also become significantly longer.

"In this way, although obstacles are created for the player, they are legitimately produced through game mechanics, leaving the players angry but with nowhere to vent."

Lilith’s eyes sparkled, "Huh? This sounds good, okay, let’s go with that!"

Finished, she turned to Wei Chengjie, "What are you staring for, write it down!"

Wei Chengjie hurriedly nodded, "Oh, right!"

He had brought a notebook and now feverishly took notes, quickly jotting down the key points made by President Gu and President Li.