Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 461 - 444: Didn’t Get G?

Chapter 461: Chapter 444: Didn’t Get G?

Zhuge Jun almost shouted, "What demon is this!"

Clearly, Wang Dawei, when it came to face-customization, was a staunch member of the "Ancient God Party." With his genius-like flair, the face he created was so unique that it made people seriously question the mental state of its creator.

Looking at their progress, Wang Dawei and Zhuge Jun were pretty much on par, both having just left the inn to start exploring, though Dawei’s progress was a tad slower.

After watching for a while, Zhuge Jun quickly understood why.

On one hand, it was because Wang Dawei’s control wasn’t particularly good, Zhuge Jun felt he was even less skilled than himself; on the other hand, it was because Wang Dawei seemed to really enjoy exploring, always able to accurately find the path that was neither a shortcut nor leading to the boss room among two or three diverging routes.

To those unaware, one might think Wang Dawei was a player who liked full map exploration.

In reality, the audience in the live stream knew that Wang Dawei had no intention of exploring - he actually wanted to go straight to the boss and suffer, but he couldn’t help getting lost repeatedly.

And at this time, because the game had just been released, there were no cloud players who liked to give directions to the streamers, so the audience in the live room was lost along with Wang Dawei.

Zhuge Jun couldn’t help but sigh, "You’re already this lost at the start of the game, what are you going to do later on!"

However, by watching the live stream and reading the barrage messages, Zhuge Jun also roughly figured out something: the route Wang Dawei was taking was actually different from his own.

And this difference in routes had started from the face-customization.

Every time Wang Dawei showed his Ancient God Face to the camera, the barrage would go crazy with comments: "Ah, my eyes!" "Quick, turn it away!" "I miss the handsome guy I saw in the basin..."

Zhuge Jun couldn’t help but think back to his earlier question: What would happen if a player created an Ancient God Face?

The answer was, they would enter a completely different origin story!

Zhuge Jun then scoured forums and found that people were already discussing this issue.

After the players customized their face, the appearance they saw in the CG basin was completely different from their actual customization.

Had the player created a beautiful face, then the basin would reveal an Ancient God Face;

and vice versa.

As for how it was achieved?

Zhuge Jun speculated that the developers must have designed some algorithm based on a few standard beautiful faces as templates; if the player’s facial data was close to these values, then a normal face would appear; if the facial data was vastly different, then it would be an Ancient God Face.

To turn an Ancient God Face into a normal face, one only needs to adjust it back to the standard face, making slight modifications to the extreme options; to turn a normal face into an Ancient God Face, it involves randomly selecting a few features to be maxed out or minimized.

So what was the point of this feature?

There actually was one.

Zhuge Jun noticed that Wang Dawei’s character was obviously different from his own from the start.

Zhuge Jun’s character only had one Puppet Prosthesis arm, and from all angles appeared closer to a human; but Wang Dawei’s character, in the starting state, had his left arm, right arm, part of his chest, and the top of his brain replaced.

Moreover, the NPC dialogues in the clinic were slightly different.

Previously, the doctor only told Zhuge Jun that they were going to replace his arm with the latest Puppet Prosthesis and offer a free blood therapy session.

But the doctor told Wang Dawei that due to extremely severe injuries, he had sustained significant brain damage and was facing serious functional issues with his body, so merely replacing an arm was insufficient – he also needed to have a Puppet Heart and Puppet Brain implanted.

The Puppet Heart and Puppet Brain, from their appearance, vaguely resembled human organs in shape but without many textures or folds, just a smooth golden surface.

The doctor assured with conviction that this technology was the latest research achievement from the master craftsmen of Charlton City’s Puppet Workshop, and although it would result in memory loss, the clinic would provide a complementary "memory recovery" service.

The principle involved extracting the original memories from the brain through a special process and keeping them safe. Once the patient woke up, these memories could be injected back into the body for absorption.

It seemed that this storyline’s protagonist had accepted this as well, since his bodily condition was already as such, he didn’t have another choice.

When Wang Dawei woke up, the safe that was supposed to store his memories had been pried open by someone unknown, and the contents had vanished.

It appeared that he would have to find a way to search for his memories later.

Zhuge Jun continued to watch the live stream and took a closer look, discovering that the puppet protagonist indeed had many differences compared to a human protagonist.

The biggest difference was their movements.

The actions of the human protagonist were smooth and natural, making sense, whereas the puppet protagonist’s actions were slightly quirky; for example, for the same action of slashing, the puppet protagonist would first raise its right hand high to charge up. Once wound up, it would slash, significantly enhancing the damage.

Moreover, the puppet protagonist could charge up while moving or dodging, which was simply overpowered.

Ordinarily, to balance difficulty in games, you would design so that you can’t attack or charge up while dodging, but if you can charge up, it would result in a gameplay where players would casually move outside of a monster’s range and, after the monster’s attack, rush in to deal full charge damage, a play style that is too powerful.

But, it was quite evident that the puppet protagonist of "Blood of Lies" wasn’t subject to such limitations.

Wang Dawei, who selected dual swords as his initial weapon, simply used the large sword form created by combining the two swords. He would fully charge his attack, stride over to the monster, and strike--truly simple, no-brainer tactics.

Before long, after some simple exploration in town, Wang Dawei arrived at a large bridge.

Atop the bridge was the first gatekeeper boss players would encounter in town: a giant beastification puppet.

On the way to the bridge, players could pick up various documents like flyers, which contained promotions and introductions to this puppet.

The original name of the giant beastification puppet was supposed to be Large Traffic Sightseeing Puppet, and it was initially designed as an attraction on the bridge.

Unlike those puppets capable of moving freely, this giant puppet was actually operated by humans from inside, with one person each for the upper and lower halves of its body.

The giant puppet usually only directed traffic on the bridge and occasionally interacted with passing vehicles. Charlton City hoped to turn it into a new landmark.

Of course, on rare occasions, it also helped with evacuating traffic.

But at this time, the giant beastification puppet had gone mad because the two humans inside it had contracted the Beastification Disease for some unknown reason, turning into wild beasts.

It was also for this reason that the upper and lower halves of the giant beastification puppet often exhibited contradictory movements and could no longer coordinate perfectly as before.

Wang Dawei boldly stepped forward to challenge it.

By then, Zhuge Jun had finished his lunch. He hesitated, wondering whether he should exit immediately to avoid spoilers, but then he thought there was no rush and decided to watch Wang Dawei die once before doing so. After all, it would be good to learn the boss’s moves, considering a player as unskilled as Wang Dawei couldn’t possibly succeed on the first try.

"Dodge, dodge, slash once, ah that looks like a slow blade, wow such a slow fast blade is a bit counterintuitive!"

"GP! G! Beautiful!

"As expected, this game is too easy with GP, even a streamer like Wang Dawei can take away two-thirds of the boss’s health on the first encounter. Won’t he just clear it the next time?"

Zhuge Jun cheered for Wang Dawei internally while watching the livestream, but when he saw Wang Dawei actually performing so smoothly, he felt somewhat discomforted.

Now he couldn’t feel superior anymore!

Although Zhuge Jun wasn’t some exceptionally skilled player and wasn’t one of those action game masters who could farm bosses or speedrun, he still considered himself an action game enthusiast with confidence among average players.

After all, games like "Ascension" and "Blood of Lies" are ones that average players don’t even dare to touch, but he was addicted to them, which was pretty impressive.

But the difficulty of "Blood of Lies" this time was unexpectedly lower than anticipated, which greatly vexed Zhuge Jun.

Especially as the addition of the GP mechanic proved exceedingly rewarding.

Initially, Wang Dawei was using his usual strategy of performing slow, timed slashes, but the boss was too large and the timings for the fast and slow blades were a bit outrageous, often causing him to get caught during the aftermath of charging, so he struggled initially.

After almost squeezing his potion supply dry, which in this case were crystals, Wang Dawei finally came to his senses and used the GP of Transform Slash.

And with that strike, he hit the nail on the head.

GPs allowed for rapid part destruction on bosses, significantly lowering the game’s difficulty. If it weren’t for the wasteful use of potions in the beginning, he might even have cleared it on his first attempt.

Zhuge Jun instantly felt a sense of boredom; he turned off the livestream and returned to the game to continue his struggle.

Before long, he too breezed his way to the boss.

"First try, easy peasy.

"After all, I already know the standard solution. GP, huh? Just G and it’s done."

Zhuge Jun confidently charged forward. He had seen more than half of the boss’s moves and even understood the timing of the slow blades pretty well. Judging from the GP feel of the prologue, it was a sure thing--no room for mishaps.

People had been talking, wondering if the Dual Sword Transformation Slash perfect GP shown in the official trailer was just a marketing gimmick to scam buyers, right?

But after playing the prologue, such talk had pretty much vanished. As everyone knew after trying it out, the judgment window for GP was absurdly long, almost guaranteeing success with just a little anticipation.

"G!"

Zhuge Jun executed a Transform Slash, made a motion as if sheathing his sword at his chest, and accurately drove his longsword into the shield on the left arm of the Puppet Prosthesis, combining them into the shape of a great axe. Then, with both hands gripping the long sword hilt, he delivered a powerful vertical chop towards the giant descending arm of the beastification puppet!

Zhuge Jun even preemptively anticipated the joy of a successful GP, feeling the dopamine starting to release within him.

However, the next second, he was smashed away like a burst sack.

"Ah? I didn’t G it??"