Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 328 - 337: Boomerang!

Chapter 328: Chapter 337: Boomerang!

"Alright, my dear viewers, that’s it for today’s live stream.

"We’ll continue at the same time tomorrow."

Around 11 PM, Chen Tingquan yawned and bid farewell to the audience in the live streaming room.

Although the chat was full of comments like "Are you here to nurse your health?" and "Civil servant of the live streaming world," Chen Tingquan did not let himself be persuaded to stay and decisively ended the broadcast.

"Ah, time to sleep!"

When Chen Tingquan said he wanted to sleep, he meant it, but it wasn’t the whole truth.

Clearly, he was really into playing Legend of Infinity Fantasy at the beginning, with absolutely no intention of sleeping, even considering whether to pull an all-nighter and play until one or two o’clock.

After all, the first three hours of the game were as smooth as silk, simply irresistible.

Arriving at a new map, finding Time Relics to unlock it, seeking relics of other Powers of the Elements to enhance abilities, then clearing camps of minor monsters and completing tasks...

An entire cycle like this meant there was almost something to do at every moment.

But after three hours, the gameplay experience started to take a nosedive!

The Hero had a very smooth leveling curve at first, gaining improvements with each new ability, and the different elemental powers could even be combined, increasing the variety of gameplay as you went along.

But now, as the monsters got tougher and the difficulty of the challenges increased, the improvements to the abilities became minuscule, to the extent that damage skills couldn’t deal damage, and convenient skills were no longer convenient!

It felt like you were delighting in a feast when suddenly the delicious dishes were taken away, replaced by plain steamed buns and pickles!

Can you eat it? Actually, you can, but most people would immediately feel: full.

That’s exactly how Chen Tingquan felt at the moment, a sudden sense of tastelessness, his previous enthusiasm vanished into thin air, leaving only two feelings behind, boredom and drowsiness.

So he simply chose to sleep.

As for whether to play tomorrow?

Chen Tingquan hadn’t quite decided, he could only say that he would see how he felt at the time.

That’s how it is with games, when players are engrossed, the stickiness is high, and it tends to get more engrossing, but once that feeling is interrupted for some reason, they can drop it quickly and might never pick it up again.

"Hey, what’s with Nitiandang?

"The game had such a good start, how could it falter in the mid-game?

"It’s just baffling!"

...

At this moment, players on forums also began to discuss.

Most players felt exactly the same way as Chen Tingquan: the game was incredibly smooth at the beginning, but as soon as it hit mid-game, it immediately felt off!

Of course, these feelings are subjective, and some players thought Nitiandang had done nothing wrong.

A debate even broke out online.

"Does Nitiandang have a serious problem? Why does the game suddenly become constipated in the mid-game? The elemental abilities were all pretty good at first, and then suddenly they’re all useless!"

"Yeah, the Fire Elemental Bomb doesn’t affect monsters anymore, the Water Element sticking to objects is a joke, the Wind Element gets you blown away, and the Earth Element gets eaten when it tunnels underground...

"Oh right, and the Time Element is the most ridiculous one, why do I find that the higher its level, the shorter the time freeze effect on monsters becomes? Is it just my imagination?"

"Maybe it’s because the monsters’ levels and attributes increased, so the time stop effect got shorter? Like with the Fire Element, the skill indeed leveled up, but since the monsters are different, the effects vary too?"

"No, no, no, I’ve tested with the same little monsters, and there’s definitely a bug with the Time Element. After leveling up, the time stop effect really got shorter! It’s not very noticeable when you level up just one or two levels, but if you compare the initial effect to the max level effect, it’s as clear as day!"

"This is such a rip-off! Then why bother leveling up? Might as well just use level one skill..."

"This has got to be a bug, right? Shouldn’t the officials hurry up and fix it?"

"Wishful thinking, when has Nitiandang ever fixed a bug..."

"Who’s the genius designer who came up with ’the more you level up, the weaker the ability gets’! Stick your head over here, let me give you a buff!"

"I think this is pretty normal though, isn’t it just that the abilities were too overpowered in the beginning? If these abilities keep getting stronger as you level them up, wouldn’t the game have absolutely no challenge?"

"Yeah, I agree. Look at these abilities, they have damage, control, fast movement, and even wall-phasing. Early in the game, it’s just like mowing the lawn. If these abilities keep leveling up without any restrictions in the mid to late game, how is that any different from cheating? The whole game experience is gone!"

"Hold on, where have I heard this kind of talk before?"

"Uh... didn’t Shengjing Group say something like this when they nerfed the unlimited Starlight Healer..."

"That’s not the same thing, is it?"

"How is it not the same? It all boils down to keeping players from having fun, right? Isn’t it all just a ’so-called’ balance maintenance, cutting down the gaming experience players already have?"

"I remember, wasn’t there a video where two executives from Nitiandang were interviewed? What did they say? They said they wanted to adjust game balance while taking care of the player experience... What’s this called? Knowing the law but breaking it anyway? I understand everything, but I just won’t fix it?"

"Damn, seems like it’s true!"

"All I can say is, the world is one big improv troupe..."

The more players discussed, the more outrageous the issue seemed.

The key point was that it echoed the practices of Shengjing Group!

The players opposing Legend of Infinity Fantasy had a simple argument—it gave a poor gaming experience and they were not having fun.

On the other hand, players supporting Legend of Infinity Fantasy felt it was a necessary adjustment made by the officials considering balance and gameplay.

But obviously, this argument didn’t hold water, as the officials had previously shut down that road in an interview.

Many players pulled up interview videos from the internet, especially screenshots of Lilith speaking, and they even created long images and memes out of them.

"Can you reenact that bit again? Yeah, that one.

"’We are different from our competitors; we prefer to take care of the player experience and not do unnecessary stuff!’"

"Right, right, haha..."

It just goes to show that in the age of the boomerang, anything can boomerang back.

No one expected that what this investor of Nitiandang said would come back like a boomerang so quickly, turning Nitiandang itself into a porcupine.

In some ways, Nitiandang’s actions this time could be seen as even worse than what Shengjing Group had done.

Of course, from the perspective of game experience alone, Legend of Infinity Fantasy hadn’t reached the point of being unplayable; players could still overcome enemies using conventional methods, it’s just that these powerful elemental abilities were no longer so reliable.

As for the game rating, it plummeted from an initial 9 to a 7, and it gradually stabilized there.

This was much better compared to World of Star Spirits, which was being spammed with one-star reviews at one point.

But the problem was, since Legend of Infinity Fantasy was knowingly committing the offense, so the public opinion backlash was even worse!