Why the bug I wrote became a core gameplay mechanic?!
Chapter 571 - 554 Immortal Special Training

Chapter 571: Chapter 554 Immortal Special Training

Two days later.

Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji finished their morning classes, ordered some takeout back at the dorm, and prepared to dive back into battle on their laptops.

Even though Legend of Infinity Fantasy would definitely look better on high-end computers compared to their laptops and cellphones, as a multi-platform game, the difference wasn’t as huge as with average AAA games.

The game still performed quite well on both their laptops and cellphones.

Mainly, considering the current situation, the game hadn’t reached the point where one must visit an experience store to seriously play it.

During this period, Zhuge Jun played daily and had already explored two small regions.

According to the massive map of Endless Fantasy Legend 2, each element’s area could be divided into about a dozen smaller maps, each roughly taking a few hours to explore.

But this was just a cursory exploration, at most reaching about 80% completeness.

The map also had tons of hidden treasure chests, mechanisms, and side quests that were troublesome to find.

Overall, Endless Fantasy Legend 2 maintained a high standard in its open-world puzzle gameplay.

Moreover, the game certainly offered a great deal of content—just the thought of creating all regions of the large map from the start was an unimaginably daunting task.

During this time, Zhuge Jun was also keeping an eye on online opinions, and, in any case, "pull for Lei Tu first" had become the consensus among nearly all players.

Hou Ji was initially skeptical. The character he first drew was called Qing Lin, a beautiful little sister with a Wood plus Wind Attribute. Her minor skill allowed her to throw a mini Tree Elf that continuously applied wood elements to the enemy, while her ultimate skill could summon a whirlwind in the area, sucking all enemies together.

At the start, Hou Ji was quite pleased since the young girl was quite to his liking and fit his taste perfectly.

Not only that, the whirlwind ultimate skill was top-notch for gathering enemies, and the wind even fueled the flames, making it extremely satisfying to combo with the Hero’s ultimate skill.

However, as he progressed, he found himself at a loss for words.

There were definitely issues with the character’s power level!

Although the mechanics looked good, the minor skill itself was weak, and the ultimate skill charged very slowly. Sometimes, the ultimate could blow fire all over the screen and accidentally harm oneself.

After all, the enemies all had high fire resistance, while the player characters had much lower resistance.

In short, this character’s stats were clearly inferior compared to other five-star characters; it was a wonder how she was included at all.

Hou Ji persisted with his gameplay, and though he managed to progress, his gaming experience was obviously much less enjoyable than Zhuge Jun’s.

"Alright, let’s stop here for today and take a short break."

After playing for several hours, Zhuge Jun also felt a bit tired.

However, just as he was about to exit the game, he suddenly noticed a red dot on the announcement button.

"Huh?

"What’s this? A UP Pool has launched??

"Nobody said there would be a UP Pool! Why launch it so unexpectedly—don’t they have any sense of sportsmanship?"

Zhuge Jun was shocked to discover that on the original gacha page, a new tab had appeared with a UP Pool character!

And what made it worse, this UP Pool character was another Thunder Attribute character!

Her name was Cold Frost, a cool and aloof ice attribute Mature lady. Her main attribute was Ice, while her secondary attribute was Thunder.

As for her skill mechanics and stats...

Let’s just say, she was clearly stronger than Lei Tu.

Not only that, her dual Ice and Thunder Attributes were more advantageous against Fire Attribute enemies compared to Wood Thunder Attributes.

In terms of taste, the ice attribute Mature lady certainly aligned more with the preferences of most male players.

At first glance, this seemed like a good thing—after all, it was a character that could directly enhance the player’s gaming experience.

But the problem was...

The players were already out of money!

Even those with two or more accounts had run out of money!

Since it was a beta version, in-game recharges were strictly prohibited, leaving map grinding as the only way for players to earn the in-game currency.

But the resource output from grinding maps wasn’t fast and was only a small bonus at best.

What’s more, the beta version didn’t open the entire map—only parts of the Wood, Fire, and Earth nations were accessible.

Earlier, to pull for Lei Tu, players had already spent all their available funds. Those who didn’t draw her even started new accounts to continue trying.

The players who managed to save any money were probably one in a hundred.

Now with the new character release, everyone was left just staring.

Draw? Draw nothing!

Of course, there was a way to pull characters: just start a new account and play from the beginning.

But the problem was...who would be sick enough to do that?

In the last couple of days, players hadn’t been idle. They opened up new maps, completed quests, and invested quite a bit of time.

To start over with a new account just for one character?

That was truly madness!

Zhuge Jun hurriedly opened the forum and glanced over it—it was indeed in uproar.

Players who had switched between several accounts just to draw Lei Tu were cursing vehemently, feeling betrayed by the entire world.

And the Lei Tu that had been so difficult to obtain now felt as redundant as the cow’s wife, completely unappealing.

In other words, it had been "outclassed by Gold Coins"!

"Outclassed by Gold Coins" was a fixed phrase. Simply put, when a new character was clearly superior to an old one, players felt that all the efforts and costs spent on obtaining the old character had gone to waste, thus the term "outclassed by Gold Coins".

Generally, the occurrence of "outclassing by Gold Coins" wasn’t rare in gacha games, as developers needed to sell new characters and therefore made them mechanically or statistically better than the old ones—otherwise, who would buy them?

Once a new character surpassed an old one in certain aspects, it was inevitable that players would feel their investment had depreciated due to power creep.

But if it happened in other games, although players would complain, they generally wouldn’t be excessively harsh.

This was because there were unspoken rules when it came to power creep: first was the timing—one would expect a key character to last at least a year before being outclassed, right? Then there was the degree of power creep—generally, a 20% to 30% improvement was the limit.

However, what Nitiandang did was clearly devoid of any honor. Cold Frost outclassed Lei Tu in just two days, exactly when the first batch of players had struggled hard to draw her.

Moreover, although there wasn’t a significant numerical difference between the two characters, the difference in combat environments made Cold Frost’s Ice and Thunder dual attributes far too advantageous, especially with many Fire Attribute monsters around. The actual impact on player experience greatly exceeded a mere 20% difference in stats.

At this point, Zhuge Jun also faced a serious dilemma: should he switch accounts and try to pull Cold Frost?

"Forget it, it’s not worth the hassle.

"The gaming experience with Lei Tu is actually still quite decent, and the data from the beta test will be saved to the official servers. While these explorations can be redone, there’s really no point.

"I’ll just keep playing and consider pulling for Cold Frost once the official servers launch."

Zhuge Jun belonged to the category of players who preferred not to bother with such things, so even if his character was indeed outclassed by Gold Coins, he didn’t feel like drawing again.

The beta test for this game was set to last a week, and three days had already passed.

Zhuge Jun estimated that in about two more days, he could push the exploration progress of the currently available areas to over 60%. With the remaining time, he planned to search for treasure chests and solve puzzles on the big map to further increase the exploration progress.

After the beta test, the game would temporarily close. According to Nitiandang’s announcement, the game would officially launch in just over two months.

The data from the beta test would be carried over, so there was no rush to play now.

...

Two days later.

Zhuge Jun lay on his bed continuing to play "Legend of Infinity Fantasy 2" on his phone.

Hou Ji let out a long sigh, "Great! I finally completed all the main questline missions in the beta!

"Man, that was exhausting. I grinded through the map twice.

"But thankfully, although my new account was a bit unlucky, I still pulled the wife, Cold Frost!"

Following the release of Cold Frost’s gacha banner, despite the online outcry, Zhuge Jun and Hou Ji chose different approaches to the game.

Zhuge Jun decided to take it easy. He felt that Lei Tu was sufficient for an enjoyable experience exploring the grand map, so there was no need to start a new account just to draw Cold Frost. Thus, he continued playing as normal and had already increased all the exploration levels of the beta areas to over 60%.

He estimated he could reach 80% before the beta closed, which would be quite a good head start.

Hou Ji, on the other hand, was different. He didn’t draw Lei Tu on his account; instead, he pulled Qing Lin, a character with both Wood and Thunder Attributes, which originally suited his style. But as the game progressed and her weaknesses became apparent, it became increasingly difficult to cope.

With the introduction of the featured gacha banner for Cold Frost, Hou Ji finally couldn’t resist anymore.

Even though he also wanted to curse at Nitiandang, after much consideration, he decided to start a new account aiming for Cold Frost.

After all, the featured pool had a high rate of 60% according to the gacha interface, which was slightly better than the rates of most gacha games.

Also, the new account had enough draws to likely yield two Gold Coins. Unless one was incredibly unlucky, the chance of pulling the desired character was quite high with the guaranteed draw mechanism.

Indeed, Hou Ji successfully drew Cold Frost and then used this character to advance the main story, which naturally made the game much easier.

If nothing unexpected happened, he planned to continue using this account for the official release.

Considering his progress, it was impossible to reach 100% map exploration before the beta ended, so Hou Ji took a much more relaxed approach, casually wandering around the big map.

Just then, he heard a "ding" notification sound, and a new world quest appeared on the left side of the screen.

"Qing Lin’s Immortal Training."

Hou Ji froze for a moment: "What’s this?"

He looked puzzled and turned to Zhuge Jun, who was lying on the bed, "Did you get this quest too?"

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