Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 555 - 538: The Making of the Plot

Chapter 555: Chapter 538: The Making of the Plot

After they had settled on these contents, it was easy to supplement the rest.

Lilith continued to push forward.

"So, superficially, we still need to stick to the world view of ’Legend of Infinity Fantasy,’ which remains the Western Fantasy style, in an open world.

"It’s just that integrating so many characters into the world view is a bit difficult.

"How about we don’t integrate them? Just shove the characters in there without any narrative performance, how about that?"

Qin Fengliang hurriedly shook his head, "President Li, that’s clearly not appropriate!

"Doing so would actually prevent the players from developing negative emotions.

"Think about it, if these characters have no narrative presence at all, would the players be frustrated? They wouldn’t. They would only find it humorous and might laugh.

"In fact, this kind of feeling doesn’t really elicit much negative emotion.

"To characters, the narrative serves as an enhancer. This enhancement can either brighten things up or have the opposite effect.

"If the narrative is done exceptionally well, players will like these characters, which naturally makes them want to engage more in gacha. We can use this psychology to maximize the effects of our increasingly enticing gacha system.

"On the other hand, if the narrative is poorly done, deliberately disgusting the players, then we don’t need to do anything, and the players will naturally develop lots of negative emotions.

"In essence, I think that under the current circumstances, working on the narrative is a win-win: we win twice.

"I have to say, this concept of increasingly enticing gacha is brilliant. Otherwise, we’d only be able to deliberately ruin the narrative, which would lack flexibility and make players wary."

Lilith nodded in sudden realization, "Indeed! One of the key aspects of generating negative emotions is to introduce changes, which cannot be monotonous. Moreover, it’s better if it evolves for the worse."

If this game had no narrative, or if the narrative was consistently good or bad, it actually wouldn’t generate the maximum negative emotions.

Because players would get used to it.

The diminishing marginal effects are also quite obvious when collecting negative emotions.

But if it fluctuates between good and bad, that would optimize the collection of negative emotions.

Start with a relatively good narrative, then players get excited and engage in gacha, then as it becomes increasingly enticing, they break down;

When players continue with the narrative expecting more, they suddenly get fed something awful. Even without engaging in gacha, they break down;

Next time, when players are prepared to continue criticizing, the narrative unexpectedly turns out good again, then they engage in gacha once more and break down.

How many players could withstand this combination of punches?

Of course, just like with the increasingly enticing gacha system, no matter how complex the pattern, it will eventually be figured out by the players.

But it doesn’t matter, because by that time, Lilith would have already made a fortune.

"Alright, that being the case, we must work on the narrative, and it needs to be fluctuating and unpredictable, so that players can’t foresee it!

"This will indeed test the capabilities of the narrative planners.

"And so, the narrative system must determine two crucial details: first, the narrative cannot be skipped; and second, the narrative must be revisitable."

Lilith quickly noted these two points down.

Because to fully exploit the narrative in breaking the players, it must not be skippable, otherwise, if players skip it and don’t even look, how would they break down?

As for the revisitable narrative, it naturally serves to give players a chance to repeatedly endure the agonies.

"But how can we ensure players revisit it? Should we also offer some rewards?" Lilith fell into deep thought.

If the narrative is both good and bad, then players wanting to revisit the narrative would surely only revisit the good parts.

This is obviously not beneficial for generating negative emotions.

The straightforward solution is to offer rewards.

For those bad narratives, offer a bit of gacha items for watching once, not too much but enough to encourage players to watch the narrative.

But the issue is, this act of giving rewards is itself a positive incentive. If players hang up the game and then happily go off to engage in gacha after receiving the rewards, would it generate enough negative emotions?

This is still a question that needs to be addressed.

Qin Fengliang said, "President Li, this is actually easy to resolve.

"We can design two different systems for this function.

"The first system, called ’Narrative Restoration.’ After using this feature, players can reset the game’s narrative system to its original state. Of course, once restored, the rewards that have already been claimed cannot be claimed again.

"This is primarily prepared for those players who want to revisit the narrative.

"But to restore it requires restoring everything, not just specific Chapters."

"Players have to replay the story from the beginning, which naturally means they have to repeatedly experience those frustrating parts.

"The second system is called ’Story Rewind’. Of course, for the official release, we’ll need to think of a more impressive name, like ’Reminiscence System’. Players can go back to relive touching moments, fight powerful bosses, and so on.

"But no matter what it’s called, its function is the same.

"Players will enter a random story segment and must complete it; otherwise, they can’t continue with the game.

"As for which segment it is, players can’t choose on their own. On the surface, it seems random, but it actually isn’t.

"It’s filtered based on the player’s skip speed."

Lilith paused for a moment. "Skip speed?"

Qin Fengliang nodded. "Yes, the speed at which game narratives are skipped can certainly be tracked."

Lilith roughly understood. "So, you mean the faster the player clicks through a segment of the story, the more likely it is to appear during ’Story Rewind’? Seems like a good idea!"

Narrative presentation in games often comes in two common forms.

One is through CG, and the other is through dialogue boxes.

CG, generally speaking, doesn’t allow for speed adjustments. You either watch it from beginning to end or skip it entirely.

Dialogues, however, are different; typically, they use a method where "the first click displays the full sentence, the second click moves to the next sentence."

This has become a conventional practice in the game industry from years of production experience.

This new game, while it doesn’t allow for skipping narratives entirely, also doesn’t completely forbid fast forwarding except for some major CG. As for the normal dialogues, it’s still possible to briefly speed through them.

And this speeding up, in turn, provides data support.

Which narrative sections do players heat through the most?

That indicates the parts they dislike the most.

Therefore, when revisiting the narrative, start with these sections.

After revisiting this section, choose the next segment where the fast-forwarding occurs frequently.

It’s quite thrilling to think about.

"So how do we deal with the negative emotions that arise during rewards?" Lilith asked.

Qin Fengliang smiled slightly. "That’s even easier to handle, President Li.

"First of all, I think slashing rewards is inappropriate because if the rewards are too low, players will definitely not engage with this mode.

"The rewards still need to be sufficiently attractive.

"But after players complete the narrative and receive their rewards, they will feel much better, which dilutes the negative emotions.

"So, my plan is this: Give the reward first!

"After receiving the rewards, players are then forced into the narrative cycle. They can’t exit or do anything else until the narrative is complete.

"Even if they forcibly exit the game, they must continue the narrative the next time they log in.

"By the time players have finished the narrative, they are already exhausted, and the little bit of joy from the rewards they initially received has long since dissipated."

Lilith nodded. "Hmm, that makes sense!"

This is probably going against human nature every step of the way, but it has to be said, these little tricks do work, as most people are emotional creatures and can’t be entirely rational.

"Okay, assuming we want to create more complex narratives, then...

"Does the world background of the game also need some adjustments?"

Lilith realized this raised another new issue.

With more characters and more narratives, the worldview must necessarily be expanded, or it wouldn’t be able to accommodate them.

Previously, Legend of Infinity Fantasy had a simpler plot, merely following a basic "Hero fights dragon" template with a focus on open-world exploration.

But the upcoming Endless Fantasy Legend 2 will definitely need to be more complex.

"How about one country for each element?" Lilith naturally thought of this option.

However, Qin Fengliang slightly shook his head. "President Li, that approach is standard. It’s guaranteed not to cause errors and can be quite colorful, but the problem is...

"Aren’t we trying to collect players’ negative emotions?"

Lilith paused for a moment. "Oh, right. Do you have a better idea then?

"Not designing countries according to elements? That would be quite odd too, wouldn’t it?"

Qin Fengliang smiled slightly. "It’s simple. We misalign the characters’ elements with the representative elements of the countries, maximizing the differences between buyer’s show and seller’s show, isn’t that good enough?"

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